But what are brands looking for in blogger partnerships– and what should you be looking to get out of working with a brand? That second part is equally important– because like any partnership, it should be a good fit for both parties.

First, let’s talk about what brands are typically looking for when working with bloggers. At a high level, brands work with bloggers because they want to share something with a specific audience (aka YOUR readers).

Breaking down specifically want most brands (or at least the ones I’ve worked with!) are looking for:

Does the blog match the brand?

As I mentioned above, brands want to work with bloggers in order to share something with your readers. If your audience doesn’t align with their customer base, they probably won’t be interested in working with you. Some brands are also looking for blogs that share the same aesthetic or tone as their brand.

Is your audience engaged?

One of the first things brands might look at is how people are engaging with you & your blog. Are people commenting? Do you have a social following? Brands want to make sure that they are getting visibility through this partnership.

The quality of your posts

Do you have a clear voice or point of view? Are your posts well written? What sort of content do you write and share. Brands often look at these things to determine whether or not they want to partner.

The cost

Unfortunately, sometimes, whether or a partnership works out comes down to money. Companies typically have a limited budget for these type of partnerships and sometimes bloggers will ask for the moon. Of course, your time is valuable– and it makes sense that you should be compensated in some way. Finding the right balance is key here!

What about you? What should you be looking for in a brand partnership?

Flexible

A good brand should allow you to bring your own ideas to the table and infuse your personality and creativity into the post. That is the reason why they came to you in the first place! Brands that have super strict rules or want you to follow a rigid format might be ones to avoid.

Upfront

The brand should be transparent and upfront about what they’re looking for and what they’re offering. Communication is key here — on both sides!

A Brand that you believe in and would use

Just like brands are looking for blogs that are a good fit for them, you should only work with brands that fit with who you are and what you believe in. It should be something that you feel would benefit your readers. Nothing comes off as more inauthentic when you try to shoehorn a promotional post for a brand that isn’t really relevant to your blog or is something that you’re lukewarm about. Do it enough and you could turn off loyal readers!

So what can you do to attract brand partnerships? It’s actually pretty simple– focus on creating a kickass blog and building your audience

The right brand partnership can be your new best friend– and help take your blog to the next level!

Bloggers, what do YOU look for in brand partnerships? What are your favorite types of brands to work with? Let us know in the comments below!

The post What Brands Look for in Blogger Partnerships appeared first on AmpliFound.

There’s been a lot written about this update already, and many industry bloggers are dubbing it “Mobile-ocalypse,” which I. personally, think is just a bit hyperbolic. Simply put, this update is going to help sites that perform well on mobile devices rank higher, and those that don’t potentially rank lower. Nevertheless, I’m going to dish out a few helpful tips any blogger can use to ensure their website is in Google’s good graces when this algorithm shift hits prime time.

Above all, my advice to bloggers is — I’m quoting the great Douglas Adams’ seminal work of science fiction The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy here — DON’T PANIC. Cleaning up aspects of your blog that happen to be mobile-unfriendly doesn’t have to be a life or death situation. Sure, it may seem like there’s a million complex things that can go wrong and an equal number of steps to correct them, but I’m here to help make this a painless procedure. So, let’s take a deep breath and dive right in, shall we?

1.) Take Advantage of Google’s Tools

If you follow blogs that regularly write about the search industry, Google’s decision to supercharge their mobile algorithm shouldn’t come as a surprise. They’ve been slowly rolling out a number of tools and reports, as well as outright saying that they’re thinking mobile first when it comes to major business decisions. And even if you don’t read up on search, there are still a few very simple things you can do to make sure you’re prepared to tackle the shift when it rolls out. Take advantage of the resources below to get a pulse on how your site is currently performing in mobile search before making any serious changes. 

• Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool: This is perhaps the most important tool in your arsenal. Entering your URL into this tool either confirms that your site is already mobile friendly (and you’ve dodged a bullet) or it let’s you know that you have some work to do in terms of mobile optimization. If this is the case, Google will actually list out the aspects that you need to correct and give you customized tips based on whatever CMS you use (WordPress, Magento, Blogger, etc.) In addition, this tool can help validate your efforts toward total mobile optimization domination by comparing the test results before and after you make changes.

• Google’s Page Speed Insights: Another huge factor in the battle against mobile unfriendliness, is page speed. Google announced all the way back in 2010 that site speed was to become a factor in their algorithm, but in this atmosphere of mobile domination, that ranking signal’s dial is cranked up to 11. To see if your site has the need for speed, simply type your URL and hit analyze. Google will give your page a score out of 100, list aspects of your site that may be slowing it down, AND details directions on how to fix it.

2.) Isolate Mobile Traffic with Google Analytics

Using data from your analytics suite is a must when making any decision regarding your site. Deciding where to prioritize mobile optimization depends on what percentage of your traffic is attributed to smartphones and tablets. For example, If only 5% of your overall organic traffic comes from mobile devices, then you might be able to focus on more pressing matters for your website, allowing any in depth mobile optimizations to take a temporary backseat.

On the other hand, you can also use analytics to find the top visited pages for mobile users and focus on optimizing those first, since they will have the greatest impact. Our friends over at Seer Interactive have created a handy dashboard for Google Analytics that will segment mobile/tablet traffic to your site, displaying it conveniently in a various charts and graphs for your viewing. To download this dashboard, simply click here while logged into your Google Analytics account, and select the view you want to apply it to.

3.) Keep Your CMS Up to Date

There are 3 types of mobile websites: responsive, dynamic serving, and separate URLs. Today, the most common one, which is also Google’s official recommendation, is responsive web design. Essentially, a responsive website serves the same HTML code on the same URL regardless of whatever device a reader is using to view your page. The catch is, a responsive website will render the display differently based on the screen size of the user’s device, ensuring your content looks great on everything from a full size desktop monitor or a laptop, to an Android tablet or iPhone 6, and everything in between.

Luckily, nearly all content management systems (CMS) — such as WordPress, Blogger, Joomla and Drupal — have plenty of templates that are responsive right out of the box. Even these services’ default layouts have committed to being responsive…that is, as long as you make sure you have the latest version of that template installed.

Keeping up and installing any updates, including plugins, is a pivotal step toward ensuring your site is able to be viewed optimally on any screen size or device. Not doing so may increase the likelihood of decreased rankings in Google’s mobile search results.

The good news is, it’s easy to update your site’s templates and the latest version of the CMS core software package. In WordPress, which is by far one of the most popular blogging platforms, simply login to your dashboard and select “Updates” from the menu to see if you have the latest and greatest version, theme, and plugins available.

Now, Go Forth!

Armed with these tips, you’ll have a firm grasp on the basic facets of mobile optimization for your blog. Roll up your sleeves, grab your Google login information, and find a comfortable chair (and your towel), because it’s time to show this mobile search algorithm what you’re made of. And if you have any additional mobile optimization tips, tricks, or questions, feel free to let us know in the comments section. Although I can already tell you, the correct answer to all your mobile concerns, the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, is 42.

The post Don’t Panic: The Blogger’s Guide to Mobile Optimization appeared first on AmpliFound.

What is a backlink you may ask? A backlink is a hyperlink that links from a webpage, back to your own webpage or website. It can be considered as a vote of confidence for your webpage by a fellow blogger or editor. It’s pretty much saying, “Hey, I like your site and want to share it with my readers by linking to it.” However, there is no magic warning that sounds every time someone links to your site so you may never know who is sharing your stuff unless you check your backlinks.

How to Check your Backlinks

There are a number of tools you can use to check your backlinks, some free and some paid. The main difference between free and paid tools is the amount of information you will be able to pull out of the system. For example, you might have 300 links pointing to your site and while a paid tool will give you all 300, a free tool will only show you around 100. For the purpose of this blog post, it’s recommended that you use the free tools because it’ll give you enough information to start building relationships.

Free

• backlinkwatch.com
• openlinkprofiler.org

Both free tools work the same. Type in your URL on the home screen. Once the page is completely loaded, you will be able to find a list of websites that are linking to you.

Paid w/ free trial

• ahrefs.com (7-day money back guarantee)
• opensiteexplorer.com (Free 30-day trial)
• majestic.com (7-day money back guarantee)
• semrush.com (7-day money back guarantee)

Opportunities for the Picking

Now that you know how to find your backlinks, it’s time to start building relationships! Here’s the scenario: you dig around your backlinks and find that an author from the New York Times linked to a baller article that you recently wrote. Here are a few relationship building opportunities that are ripe for the picking:

Opportunity #1

You can reach out to the author that linked to your article and thank them for sharing your piece. Within your message, include other pieces that they might be interested in reading. To increase your chances of getting another link or social share, we recommend taking into consideration what the author has written about in the past and what they like to share on social media networks.

Opportunity #2

Again, you can reach out to the author thanking them for sharing your piece, but we’re going to take a slightly different approach and suggest that you offer to write a post for their site. Who doesn’t love free content? Do your research and think of a topic that they would love to see on their site and suggest it to the author. Since they’ve shared your content, they obviously like what you have to say and this is a great opportunity for you to leverage their following and get your name out there on the internet even more.

These are just a few opportunities that can be had through building relationships via backlinks. The moral of this blog post is to check your backlinks every now and then to see who’s sharing your content. Reach out to them to thank them and begin nurturing your relationship. Connections are everything in this day and age.

The post Back(linking) to Basics: How Checking Backlinks Can Grow Blogging Relationships appeared first on AmpliFound.

Now relatively speaking, a blog competitive analysis isn’t nearly as intense as digging up dirt on your boyfriend’s ex, but it can be a great way for both veteran bloggers and newbie bloggers to get inspiration on how to improve their sites. In this blogpost, I’ll guide you through a few areas to observe on a competitor’s blog, checklist questions to ask yourself, and some free and easy tools to help you along the way. In the end, hopefully you’ll have enough information and insight that can help to drive some great strategies or inspiration to your own work. So, go ahead and test drive this method with at least one blog of your choice that is either directly competing with your readership or that perhaps you’d like to emulate in some form.

Blog Overview

Get the lay of the land for your competitor by understanding their content and blog design.

Content:

1. What is this blog about? – What seems to be the general topic for this blog? Cooking? Design? Coupon cutting?

2. How often do they update their blog? – Once a day? Once a week? Once a year?

3. How long are their posts? – Are they writing novels or are they keeping it short and sweet?

4. How do they use images in their posts?– Is this blogger showing off their photographic skills with fancy DSLR photos or are they stealing non-original photos from Google?

5. Does this blog use video content? – Are they creating original video content via tutorials or reviews?

6. How well written are the posts? – Nobody’s perfect, but nobody wants to read something that’s riddled with grammar and spelling errors.

7. How are they using links in their posts? – Links help connect content and users! Is this blogger linking to fellow blogs or linking internally to send traffic to older posts?

8. Does their blog have any awards or badges? – Has this blogger received accolades frown larger publications such as Martha’s Circle or BHG?

Design:

1. How sophisticated is the design of the blog? – Does it look like they’re using a standard WordPress template or something a little fancier?

2. Do they have social share buttons on their blog? – Where are these social share buttons located? Do they work properly?

3. Is there an In-Site Search feature? – Is there a place on the blog where you can search for specific posts or topics? Does this work?

4. Is there advertising on the blog? What kind of products are they promoting? – This is a good way to gauge how seriously they take their blog when there’s money involved! Some blogs who don’t buy their own domains have advertisements added automatically onto their pages, but others are usually approached by brands to promote products in exchange for money.

Social Media & Promotion

Social media plays a huge role in the promotion and community cultivation of successful blogs. It’s really important to observe your competitor’s social media presence to figure out how they’re using each platform and which are they #winning on? This is the part where you get to experiment with some of those free tools I told you about earlier.

1. How many social media profiles does the blog have? – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube or Google+? Most bloggers I’ve seen call this out pretty clearly on their blog somewhere or just do a few manual searches to check this.

2. What social media platform is their most popular? – Which platform do they receive the most engagement and love from? You can see this using a tool like Share Tally.

3. Is it a one-way or a two-way conversation? Is this blogger just promoting new posts or are they taking the time to reach out and engage with their audience.

Like this:

Or like this:

You can also use Twtrland and check out how often they respond and engage with users.

4. How often are they posting to their social media accounts? – Once every week? At least once a day? Every hour? You can also find this using Twtrland.

Like this:

Analyze their Audience

So now that you’ve got a good grasp on what their social media situation is, let’s take a deeper dive at the people that make it all possible for them – the readers!

1. What are their reader’s demographics? – ASL anyone? Use Followerwonk to analyze the Twitter handle associate with the blog, which should also gives a lot of great information on the people who follow them on Twitter. Again, if you are looking to emulate this competitor’s blog, this is a great tool to get some extra info on your target audience.

Do this:

And then you can see things like location:

And gender:

Or language:

And depending on how much of a data junkie you might be, you can really get wild with it and learn how long they’ve been using Twitter, how often they tweet and whether or not they retweet.

2. When are the blog’s readers most active? Using the same report in Followerwonk, you can check the times of day that their readers are most active. If you’re aiming to reach a similar audience, this can be really helpful to keep in mind when you’re promoting your own stuff on Twitter.

Right below this graph in Followerwonk, you can check out if your competitor blog is aligning their Twitter activity with that of their readers.

Size Up Your Own Blog

Now that you’re a Grade-A Certified Creeper, it’s time to see how your own blog stacks up. Essentially, you will repeat this process for your own blog and compare and contrast your findings. My suggestion would be to do this in an Excel file with all of your questions listed out with your competitor in Column A and your blog in Column B.

Like this:

 Find Your Opportunity

So how did you do? Is your competitor blog killing it on Instagram but missing out on Facebook? Is your competitor blog churning out great content but missing the boat on proper promotion? Did you find any photos or videos that didn’t load correctly? How can your own blog benefit from what you learned?

So the next time that you come across a blog that you really admire, take an hour out for yourself and perform this analysis to find inspiration or understand more fully what goes into a really great blog! Happy creeping!

The post A Little Competition Never Hurt Anyone: How to Perform a Friendly Competitive Analysis for Your Blog appeared first on AmpliFound.

Luckily, there’s a tool for that!

AND, it’s easy and free! Enter Google Trends. Google Trends uses search data to show us what’s hot, and when.

When you visit the home page, you can find some interesting information about what’s trending right now in Google search.

If you wanted to write a blog post in late March of 2015, something that would be buzzworthy right then, you might want to write about March Madness, Game of Thrones, or Beyonce.

But there’s so much more to Google Trends than just what’s trending at the moment.

Discover topic seasonality

Say you’re a food blogger, and you’re looking to post some new spring recipes. Just type an ingredient into Google Trends to see what time of year those foods are most popular.

Here’s a search for zucchini. As you can see, interest in zucchini peaks in the summer. (Hey, they call it a summer squash for a reason.) Maybe you can save your zucchini recipes for a few months and start posting them in July or August.

What about brussels sprouts? Nope, searches for those recipes peak in November and December.

Asparagus? Yep, that’s the ticket – these peaks are in April, every year!

You can also use Google Trends to compare two or more terms. Here’s what it looks like on a search for two fairly new and trendy produce products: ramps and fiddlehead ferns. You can see that while both topics peak in springtime, ramps have been much more popular these past few years.

Delve a little deeper

Google Trends also shows related searches, which can be very helpful when it comes to blog post brainstorming.

This is a search for the term “recipes.” There are definite peaks in November and December, but the topic is very broad.

Fortunately, Google Trends can help you narrow it things down. If you scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see related searches, which provides insight into topics and search queries.

Here are the top topics and queries:

And here are the rising topics and searches, which are gaining popularity:

After reviewing this data, a savvy food blogger might want to post some chicken recipes, healthy recipes, or crock pot recipes, STAT, because that’s what people are searching for right now.

Location, location, location

Google Trends is flexible when it comes to location. You can set the searches to worldwide, or to your home country, state or city. This could be very helpful if your blog readers come from a specific city, region, or country. Here’s an example of a search for two of Philadelphia’s top restaurateurs, with the location set to Philly:

But when the location is set to San Diego, you’ll see that there’s not enough data to show trends:

But wait – there’s more!

If you click the menu at the top left, there are some more options to explore.

• Trending Searches will show you what’s hot at this very moment.
• Trending on YouTube will show you what the site’s currently most popular videos are.
• Top Charts provides data on the top trending searches in different categories (Actors, Athletes, Books, Cocktails, Songs, and more).

Have you used Google Trends for you blog? How has it helped you come up with blog post ideas?

The post So Trendy: Using Google Trends to Get Topic Ideas appeared first on AmpliFound.

It’s a cycle, and it can be really easy to get into a habit of producing more, more, more without stopping to check-in on your progress. Is what you’re working so hard to create actually working? What’s your definition of success? How can you better promote the pieces that do work and give some more love to the pieces that maybe didn’t do so well?

In the spirit of spring, which I am certain is just around the corner, I thought it’d be a good time to turn our attention towards our blogs – but instead of looking forward, let’s take a step back and assess what we’ve already created. There’s a simple process you can use to clear up your existing content so that you’re blogging more effectively without all of the clutter to distract from your success!

1. Identify your success metrics
   How do you determine whether a piece of content is successful or not? This will be different for every blogger, but it’s probably some combination of traffic and social shares. If you don’t have metrics for success defined already, now is the perfect time to start – how will you know whether or not something is working if you don’t have a clear understanding of what “working” means?

2. Sort recent blog posts by success metrics
   Easy-peasy. Whether you’re tracking these metrics in GA or through a social analytics tool, export the data you need so that you can sort blog posts from the past 6 months or so by your success metrics. Go back as far as you’d like – generally 6 months to a year will be a good timeframe, depending on how large of an archive you maintain!

3. Determine top 5 and bottom 5 performers
   Moment of truth. Which 5 posts have performed best in the timeframe you determined? Which posts performed worst? Are you surprised at these findings or is it pretty much in line with what you were expecting?
   Note: if you’re working with a large amount of content, it may make more sense to use 10 or 15 posts at the top and bottom instead of 5. Go with your gut and do what makes sense for your blog.

4. Analyze the findings
   Now that you know what performs well and what doesn’t on average, what information can you glean from the data? Were all of the posts in the bottom 5 published without images? Maybe adding more visuals to your content will boost engagement levels. Do collaboration posts with other bloggers tend to bring in more traffic? Try focusing on relationship building over the next few months to replicate that same success. This step is the most personal and customizable – no two blogger’s results will be the same (although there are definite trends that ring true throughout the industry). Take the time to really reflect on what the data is telling you.

5. Promote the top 5
   You already know that the top 5 batch of posts were big crowd pleasers. How can you repurpose the content to share it with a wider audience? Some bloggers tweet out older posts so that newer followers can still be exposed to content that is likely to engage them. Check out how Ashley from Our Little Apartment executes this idea:

6. Revive the bottom 5
   What takeaways did you come up with in step 4? Apply some of your learnings here to boost the success of your worst performing pieces. Maybe it’s adding in some imagery or updating some broken links. Maybe it’s removing the posts completely from your archive – no need to waste people’s time with posts that don’t reflect your best work.
7. Schedule a time to repeat this process again
   Spring cleaning is complete! But as you may have guessed by now, this is a process that works best when it is repeated regularly. Taking the time to frequently review your work will ensure that your archives remain relevant and interesting to new and future readers. Set a reminder for yourself to come back to this process in 6 months or so to see what else you can improve on at that point! For now, you can bask in the joy of having a squeaky clean archive and focus on the truly important spring activity of shopping for some new shoes that are not made of rubber and are not snow boots!

The post Spring Cleaning: Blog Edition appeared first on AmpliFound.

It’s not that easy. With all the noise out there, people might not be as compelled to click on your content as you might think. Especially for newer bloggers, you might be competing with other blogs or sites that have claimed their top spots in search engine results pages (SERPs). You have completed the first step, writing great content, but now, how do you get it in front of the right audience?

Give Your Content an Extra Boost

Content acceleration, more commonly referred to as paid content promotion, is a great way to give your blog content that initial boost and momentum it needs to gain traction and reach its niche audience. Paid content promotion helps you more accurately target your potential audience at the right time and with a more relevant message. Through native advertising on content discovery networks or paid discovery on social, you can promote your content in a manner that is less intrusive than direct response ads and appears to flow naturally with the rest of content on the site. For example, using content discovery network Taboola, you can feature your blog posts on authoritative publisher sites, like Time or The Atlantic, under a “around the web” or “related articles” section. Users discover this content more naturally after they’ve finished digesting the content they initially sought after.

Try Out Different Platforms

Taboola, Outbrain, and Gravity are content discovery networks that have partnerships with publisher sites and use a variety of algorithms to identify which of these sites are best for promoting your content. These platforms allow you to leverage the audiences of influential sites and use targeting to drive more qualified traffic to your blog. Native advertising on social media, such as StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, can help you further target and define your audience.

However, keep in mind that you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Try experimenting with a variety of content promotion platforms. This will help you gain an understanding of where your target audience is spending their time online. For example, you might find that your career-oriented content performs better on LinkedIn than on other networks.

Start Promoting Your Content!

Promoting your latest blog posts on your own social channels is a good start, but content acceleration can help your content reach its full potential and get seen and shared by the right audience. Often for a few cents per click, you can promote your blog posts on content discovery networks. You just need to choose the piece of content you’d like to promote, set your budget and cost-per-click (CPC), select the duration of the campaign, and monitor the campaign’s success. Remember, just because you have great content, it doesn’t mean people will be able to find it on their own. Try experimenting with different content promotion platforms and start getting more eyes on your content!

The post Content Acceleration for Bloggers appeared first on AmpliFound.

This can definitely be a startling message to receive, especially if you’ve been following the best practices we share here at AmpliFound. Is your site really “low quality?” What do they mean by Google “penalized” them? Are you doing anything wrong?

Don’t Panic
The first step is to not panic, don’t automatically assume that you’re doing anything wrong. Over the past few years, starting with Google’s Penguin update in 2012, Google has become keen to webmasters who attempt to manipulate rankings by building unnatural links to their website. This is strictly against Google’s terms of service and to, eliminate this, Google release an update to their algorithm that would identify these types of unnatural practices and penalize site owners for utilizing them.

More recently, Google updated their Webmaster Tools suite to include a notification if your website is being penalized by unnatural back links. Once a penalty is applied, a site will lose rankings that were being held up artificially from manipulated back links. As part of this notification process, Google presents these offenders with steps to take in order to get their penalty removed and the first step involves contacting sites that have unnatural links on them to attempt to get them removed. Following that, you can submit to a Google tool called the “disavow tool” in order to let Google know that you don’t approve of these links. The final step is to submit a written “Reconsideration Request” to Google outlining all of the efforts you took in order to get these unnatural links removed. It can be very difficult to get a penalty like this removed and Google really wants to see all proof and documentation of the site owner attempting to get links removed which includes communication with all site owners.

So does that mean my site is bad?
A site that is penalized often has a large volume of unnatural links that Google identifies, this can be in the thousands or sometimes tens of thousands of sites. As such, attempting to scrutinize every single site can be a daunting task. Since getting out of a penalty requires a lot of work in link removal, it’s often easier for a site owner to just attempt to remove as many links as possible they don’t identify as “high value.” As a catch-all, owners will often remove any links with any kind of “unnatural” anchor text or sites that fall into a certain category. When you receive an email from someone asking for link removal, it often says more about their linking practices than it does the quality of your own site.

What should I do?
Often times, it’s easiest just to remove the link for this person. If they don’t want it there, you can avoid a lot of controversy by just removing it for them. If this site owner is indeed doing unnatural or malicious linking, it’s best for your site not to be associated with them through a link anyway. While your site isn’t low quality, some of the other links they have built might very well be so it’s best to distance yourself from this as much as possible.

Above all, it’s important to remember that if you receive a message like this that it doesn’t mean your site is in any jeopardy (even if they tell you as much because, sometimes, they use mass canned emails). As long as you’ve follow good blogging and linking practices, your site will be fine. And by removing a link for this person, you are also distancing yourself from a website that Google potentially sees as low quality.

The post Why Are People Asking Me to Take Down My Link? appeared first on AmpliFound.

Creating your own blog gives you control over the design, the aesthetics, the writing and the overall feel. This allows you to reach others in a unique way, so that readers remember your ideas over the countless other blogs and sites they visit on a daily basis. As our society relies more heavily on technology for our news and information, it is crucial that bloggers stay ahead of the curve. Doing so will allow you to market your ideas and share your thoughts in an innovative way, separating your approach from the millions of other writers that call the blogosphere home.

Because Thanksgiving is right around the corner, there is certainly a lot to be thankful for. Understanding that you may be new to the blogging scene, AmpliFound put together the top 5 WordPress plugins for bloggers to be thankful for, so that when the time comes for you to spruce up your digital soapbox, you have the arsenal to do it yourself!

Digg Digg

Social media shows no signs of slowing down. Understanding this, it’s essential for bloggers to use social media and use is to their advantage. That is exactly what Digg Digg does.  Displaying social share buttons on your blog articles will help readers easily share your content on their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ profiles. The cool thing about Digg Digg is that you have the flexibility to place the share buttons wherever you want. Whether they float to the left or right of the article, or you decide to place them near the final paragraph, Digg Digg gives you complete control over how your social share buttons play into the overall theme of your blog.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

With millions of blogs across the web, you want to make sure yours indexable, crawlable and optimized from a search standpoint. In laymen’s terms, you want to make sure readers and internet users can find your exceptional content. The Yoast plugin from WordPress is the go-to for helping veteran and rookie bloggers handle almost every element of SEO you can think of. With this plugin, you have the ability to choose keywords for every post, create custom titles and descriptions to entice readers to click on your post in the search results, and much more. Many bloggers enjoy the features of Yoast for improving their overall content and keeping articles optimized with keyword focus in mind.

Editorial Calendar

If you have a hard time keeping your blog organized, WordPress brings you this super helpful Editorial Calendar plugin to help you stay on track with your content creation. You may be ramping up your writing for the holiday season or planning out articles for the year ahead. Regardless of what your upcoming initiatives involve, Editorial Calendar gives you an overview of your blog and when each post will be published. You can easily alter your calendar by dragging and dropping posts, quickly edit article titles and scheduled times for posting, manage the status of each post, and neatly organize all of your upcoming content. If you’re working by yourself, this plugin is a great way to stay the course, but this plugin also works great if you have a team of writers contributing to your blog.

Limit Login Attempts

Although most of the plugins on our list are designed to make your life as a blogger just a little easier, this one will make you sleep easier at night. Knowing that your blog is secure from hackers and internet trolls is important for the overall well-being of your blog. This specific plugin will protect your blog from potentially damaging attacks by limiting user login attempts from others who may try to hack into your blog.  Limit Login Attempts will also block an internet address from making further attempts after a specified limit or number of retries has been reached. Put your worries to sleep knowing that your blog is safe and secure.

The Hello Bar

No matter what the goal of your blog may be, it’s certainly important to capture the information of those who enter your site. The Hello Bar will allow you to do just that in a very convenient and customizable way, providing bloggers with a tool for a/b testing different calls-to-action, collecting email addresses, and more. Implementing a Hello Bar on your blog, in a variety of colors and styles, will let you amass email addresses to your database so you can leverage future content created on your blog. Remember to be creative with your calls-to-action and test out various power words to get users excited about signing up.

The blogging scene is filled with a variety of tools and plugins that can help improve the overall user experience, for both you and your readers. By understanding what’s on offer, you have the ability to make certain processes smoother and more enjoyable for you as the creator and for those who visit your blog.

The post 5 WordPress Plugins Bloggers Are Thankful For appeared first on AmpliFound.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through the basics of using Disqus, my experiences with it, and how you can utilize it for your own needs.

First off. What is DISQUS? Pronounced Discuss

Disqus allows you to build an integrated community for your onsite content. At its core, it’s a commenting system that makes engagement easier and more interactive. It connects websites and commenters across over 60 million community profiles, and billions of conversations. Thus, turning your website’s commenting efforts into a cultivating community built for user engagement.

Now that you’ve started building your own community, it’s time to manage it. Disqus’ commenting system has a comprehensive management system with simple administration options and community functions. In this next section, I’ll walk you through some of the Disqus management basics.

Approving, Deleting, and Marking Spam Comments

Typically, you’ll run into three types of comments; the good, the bad, and the crazies. Luckily for us, Disqus allows complete control over the kind of messages that display on your blog with the ability to moderate comments.

You can find the Moderation Panel setting on the Settings | Posts and comments tab. Within the Moderation Panel, Disqus provides a snapshot of your forum’s comment statuses. In this landscape you can perform bulk actions, or you can approve comments on a case by case basis in an expanded comment view.

Building & Interacting with Your Following

Setting the right expectations and “rules of engagement” is extremely important when building a collaborating community. Providing clear expectations can help focus the conversation and encourage quality discussions.

Remember, you’re the community leader. It’s essential that you interact within your community and encourage conversations.

Integrating Social Media

The integration of networked commenting and social platforms helps to provide depth and breadth for user engagement. With Disqus, users have the ability to log in with their social media accounts, leave comments, and have it all linked to their profile.

Social sharing is the key to your content going viral. Disqus simply encourages social sharing by making it easier for users. Having these deeper metrics not only boosts potential impressions, but also strengthens the longevity of your content’s presence.

These are just a few simple tips to help you get started with Disqus. If you’d like to gain hands-on experience with the plugin, simply implement it by visiting this link: (https://wordpress.org/plugins/disqus-comment-system/) If have any questions or have another great plugin to share, please let me know in the comments below!

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