Ads 468x60px

7 Time-Saving Tips For The WordPress Bloggers - DailyBlogTips

7 Time-Saving Tips For The WordPress Bloggers - DailyBlogTips


7 Time-Saving Tips For The WordPress Bloggers

Posted: 03 Feb 2015 03:06 AM PST

Are you so busy in these days?

It has to be if you’re blogging part time. Job, family, friends, leisure, oh gosh! How can you blog in such short time?

The answer is relatively “YES”. Blogging is not the matter of time; it is moreover tactical, skillful. 2-3 hours a day will be enough for you as a part time blogger. The only privilege, you need, is the ultimate use of possibilities.

WordPress is the most popular blogging software, even our favorite. But it is a matter of great sorrow, most of the wordpress users don’t know or use the secret speeding features. That makes them feel “wordpress and blogging” are so time-consuming.

Hey wait, busy bloggers need the following 7 lessons

Today I’m going to share 7 shining lessons that will make you realize, “Yeah, I can also blog in no time”.

  1. Forget your mouse when writing, do everything with your keyboard

Do I sound crazy? Writing thoroughly without any distraction helps a lot. But how can you do such works like changing headings, inserting links, making bolds or italics without using a mouse?

You might be amazed to know yes, it happens. You can save a lot of your valuable time by performing these actions with a keyboard. In fact, it will take not more than a blink of your eyes.

Can’t believe it? I think you didn’t check the rounded question mark in your wordpress post editor. It is aligned with the other toolbar options. Do click on it to see all the keyboard shortcuts, you can use right away.

Need to change headings? No more uses of the mouse. Just place your writing point on a line and type the following keys:

- For H1: Ctrl/Cmd + 1

- For H2: Ctrl/Cmd + 2

- For H3: Ctrl/Cmd + 3

- For H4: Ctrl/Cmd + 4

- For H5: Ctrl/Cmd + 5

- For H6: Ctrl/Cmd + 6

Want to create text styles? A few more shortcuts for you:

- For Bold: Ctrl/Cmd + b

- For Italic: Ctrl/Cmd + i

- For Underline: Ctrl/Cmd + u

The Last but not least. Here are some extra shortcuts though the keys are not the same:

- For Strikethrough: Alt + Shift + d

- For Ordered List: Alt + Shift + o

- For Unordered List: Alt + Shift + u

- For Quote: Alt + Shift + q

- For Link Insert: Alt + Shift + a

- For Link Remove: Alt + Shift + s

- For Image Insert: Alt + Shift + m

- For More Tag: Alt + Shift + t

PS: (1) Ctrl (Control) is for windows, and Cmd (Command) is for Macintosh. (2) Make sure to place your writing point in the text or select the text before performing the shortcuts. (3) WordPress default visual editor supports all of them where the simple text editor wouldn’t. (4) This is not the complete list. Click on the help button in your post editor for the full list. (4) Your wordpress version has to be 2.7 or above to run them.

  1. Moderate comments blazing fast using the keyboard shortcuts

Did you wonder you can moderate comment or bulk comments using your keyboard?

Typically we use the mouse to select comments, specify actions and click the apply button. Unfortunately, it is time-consuming as we can guess at the explanation. But if you moderate comments with your keyboard, you can be more flexible and make it done blazing fast.

This feature is available from wordpress version 2.7 to above. However, this is not activated by default. All you have to do is, navigate to Users > Your Profile from wordpress admin and check the label entitled “Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation”. When you’re done, you can proceed to the next steps.

Now go to comments screen and practice the following actions by your keyboard:

- Next Comment: j

- Previous Comment: k

- Approve Comment: a

- Unapprove Comment: u

- Spam Comment: s

- Delete Comment: d

- Restore Comment: z

- Quick Edit: q

- Edit Screen: e

- Reply Comment: r

Need to moderate multiple comments at the same time? Don’t worry, here are the solutions:

- Mark Comment: x

- Approve Marked Comments: Shift + a

- Unapprove Marked Comments: Shift + u

- Trash Marked Comments: Shift + t

- Delete Marked Comments: Shift + d

- Spam Marked Comments: Shift + s

- Restore Marked Comments: Shift + z

  1. Skip media library, drop media directly into post editor

How do you upload media for your posts?

You will click the “Add Media” button, move to “Upload Files” tab, select or drag the media into it, am I right?

Hey STOP, why are you working so hard to upload media. This is made so easy that you never thought. Just drag the media from your device and drop it directly into your post editor.

From wordpress version 3.9, you can just drag and drop media to your visual post editor for instant upload, bypassing the “Add Media” button. You can save your valuable time by using this feature.

  1. Don’t write codes anymore, use auto embedding

You need to insert a YouTube video in your post right away. What will you do?

No doubt, you will open up the video in your browser, click the “Share” button, switch to “Embed” tab, copy the code and paste it on post editor. Or you will consider writing it by yourself if you’re a web developer, isn’t it?

Hats off to your hard labor. If you ask me, I will just write down [ video src=https://www.youtube.com/embed/t74gQHtEybM ] or even copy and paste the video link. It wouldn’t take more than 10 seconds for me.

The latest wordpress versions support two types of auto embedding:

  1. Shortcode
  2. oEmbed

Shortcode: WordPress allows shortcodes to embed nifty media by a very little, wrapped with the third brackets []. You can use it in your post editor to bypass a long code.

But the shortcode has to be created first with the functions before you can use it. Though a few handy shortcodes are available in default. You can use them in your visual post editor:

- [ audio ], Example: [ audio src=”audio-slug.mp3″ ]

- [ video ], Example: [ video src=”video-slug.mp4″ ]

- [ gallery ], Example: [ gallery ids=”294,102″ ]

PS: (1) There will be no space after the opening third bracket and before the closing third bracket in shortcodes. I’ve given them to prevent rendering here. Please delete those spaces to make it work for you.

oEmbed: This feature makes shortcodes totally down. Looks like wordpress has started to reflect our minds. Now you don’t need to write any code, even shortcode to embed third-party media. Just copy and paste of the URL in post editor will do.

For instance, suppose a youtube video needs to be embedded. So what you have to do is, copy the video URL (ex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t74gQHtEybM) and paste it into your wordpress editor. It will automatically embed it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t support all third party websites. oEmbed allows 29 specific sites including almost all popular items like YouTube, DailyMotion, SlideShare, Vimeo, Twitter, Scribd, Issuu, Instagram, Hulu, Flickr and forth on.

  1. No more finding or scrolling, use wordpress screen options

Did you notice the “Screen Options” button at the right top of your wordpress dashboard?

If you didn’t, you’ve missed out a solid time-saving opportunity. Let me explain you why.

As usually happens in our case, we spend too much time in finding and scrolling between wordpress dashboard, post, page or comment screens. Do you know why? A many of the unwanted info appear where from we need to find our required one.

Sounds not so clear? Let’s make it easy for you.

Your “All Posts” or “All Pages” screens might be scrawled with lots of unwanted columns if you’re using plugins for SEO, authors or images. Normally it will be quite hard to find something, even puts extra pressure on your brain.

So why not cut out the less necessary columns?

This is what “Screen Options” will exactly do. Click on it from your particular page and tick on or off the labels you want to see or hide. You can do the same thing to your WordPress Dashboard, Posts, Pages and Comments screen. Use the flexibility, and you can save a lot more time.

  1. Don’t resize images, let wordpress do it for you

How do you resize your images that you want attached to your posts?

It will be either a photo editor you use before uploading or the wordpress image editor you use after uploading, isn’t it?

But that makes you do some extra works which will take some additional time. Why not let wordpress resize it for you, whatever the actual image size is?

Head over to Settings > Media from your wordpress admin. What do you see? Three image sizes Thumbnail, Medium and Large. Choose perfect sizes according to your theme or requirements.

So next time, when you will upload your image (any size), you can select sizes from the “Attachment Display Settings” (after upload) when inserting. It will save you more time as you don’t need to resize images manually.

  1. Interlinking made easy, don’t waste your time in finding URLs

How do you interlink your old posts from a new one?

Probably you will get the post URL from “All Posts” screen or manually visiting the post from your blog. Then you will copy and paste it into your post editor.

Unfortunately, that is the time-consuming method, and there is an alternative what will save all your interlinking efforts.

Click on the “Insert Link” button from your editor, and you will see an option entitled “or link to existing content”. Click on it, and all your internal pages will be showed. Now you can search and select your post to link without even knowing the URL. That means it saves you more of your time.

Conclusion!

There is a popular quote “Time is Money”. I totally agree as time is the key to making money.

Therefore, it doesn’t mean, busy bloggers only need these tips. I think every single blogger should know “How to save valuable time”. They also need to implement these tips in order to lead an active, frugal blogging journey.

What do you say, what is your secret time-saving ingredient? We are eager to know it!

About the author: Abrar Mohi Shafee is a digital marketing worm, who blogs at BloggingSpell.com, the place to learn secret spells of blogging, marketing and seo.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!


ProBlogger: 3 Tips for Accelerated Blog Growth & Online Visibility

ProBlogger: 3 Tips for Accelerated Blog Growth & Online Visibility

Link to @ProBlogger

3 Tips for Accelerated Blog Growth & Online Visibility

Posted: 01 Feb 2015 06:54 AM PST

This is a guest contribution from Robert Kramers.

Discouraged with the amount of traffic your blog attracts? Maybe you’re looking for ways to engage more readers, build more business and build a loyal following?

Understanding a few effective strategies can help you attract the readers you want and get them to share your content, grow your readership and increase your overall visibility.

Here are the three super-effective blogging strategies for building your reputation online.

Find Blog Topics you Know have a Proven Record

The trick to publishing content that people share, is to base the content on something that has already worked in the past.

You can take a lot of the guesswork out of publishing content by researching what people have already enjoyed and improving on it.

Hereís a few ways you can do this:

Method #1: Examine a successful competitor

One of the best ways to work out what’s popular on a competitors website is to use Moz’s Open Site Explorer.

Let’s say you are in the social media industry and you’re looking for a topic for which you want to maximize the chance of success. You could throw a competitors home page URL into OSE, and view the top pages of their website.

  • Step #1: Find competitor who ranks well in Google search:

 

 

 

 

  • Step #2: Enter their home page URL into OSE

ose-search

  • Step #3: Click the ‘top pages’ link to the left of the page (pictured)

top-pages

  • Step #4: Scan the list of top pages on the website. You will often find some of their most popular blog posts in among the top few pages.

scan-results

Top pages in OSE are based on the authority of the page, which incorporates a number of signals including links from other websites and social signals.

In about 40 seconds of searching, I managed to find: 7 Mobile Marketing Stats that Will Blow Your Mind, which has a heap of social shares, tweets and Facebook ‘likes’ to go with it… It’s popular!

You now have a topic which you know people are interested in. Can you make it better? Add additional information or images? Rinse and repeat for other competitors and you’ve got a solid strategy for creating content you know people love.

Method #2: Work out whatís HOT using Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a tool which scans the web for content which has the highest number of social shares, based on keywords you type in to the search.

  • Step #1: Search for your topic

step1-buzz

  • Step #2: Scan the results and find popular topics

search-results

Enter more keywords in the search and find a gold mine of topics which have a proven record of success. All you need to do now is make it better, and get it in front of people. Theyíll share it!

Pro Tip: Find out who currently links to your competitors content and show them your more advanced and improved version. Chances are, they’ll either share or link to your content.

Blog Post Titles Matter HUGELY

A great headline can help your content stand out among the information overload. It tells your readers why they need to read your article and why it should be read now, rather than put in the ever-growing stack.

A compelling headline convinces a potential reader that your content is valuable and that theyíll get something out of the effort they put in.

Use effective verbs, and adjectives amplify the effect of your blog post title. You can test some of the common headline structures to see what works best with your audience.

Include keywords in your blog post title to help with your search engine rankings.

Unsure about which keywords? This guide might help.

Adding keywords to your headline is not just good for helping your website show up in Google, but it is also a proven method of increasing the click through rate (CTR) of your search engine snippet.

According to this, if I searched for “social marketing tips” in Google, I would be more likely to click this result (highlighted), than those below it because it’s a closer match to what I initially searched.

Aside from that, it has the most intriguing headline also.

google-twitter

Pro Tip: Make sure to include your popular keywords in your headline, to ensure your blog post has a better chance of ranking for related searches.

Deliver Great Content that Engage the Reader

In the past, obtaining visibility in search engines for your website was achievable with a few simple “SEO techniques”.

However, times have changed.

Google is more advanced and the number of shortcuts have significantly decreased. Search engines are getting better at analysing actual social signals, including shares, re-tweets, and links to your content.

Search engines use this information to determine where your content fits on the continuum of popularity and quality.

“Create something worth sharing and people will share it”.

In order to get this “social currency”, you need to provide something that readers actually want to read and share with people they know.

Blog posts that provide answers, advice, and inspiration to readers consistently generate traffic and can become cornerstones of a successful blog. And when you solicit your readersí, create discussion and get opinions you get them involved with creating and improving your content.

Specifically, consider these types of posts to engage and increase readership:

Craft Useful Answers to Specific Questions

Readers appreciate posts that provide real answers.

Present a solution or range of solutions that have gotten results, and then ask readers for their feedback. Any responses you get back will strengthen your post and help drive traffic. You may get positive and negative responses to your original answer and hopefully some additional creative solutions that readers can try.

Pro Tip: Reverse engineering common questions is a great strategy in itself for finding new blog topics.

Objective Advice / Shared Results

If youíve had success solving a problem, starting a new venture, or meeting a particular goal, share it.

Offer advice based on where you ran into problems or made mistakes. The goal is to provide inspiration to your readers and to make their path easier.

This type of content can add to your credibility as a blogger in addition to driving traffic. It puts you in the position of being the expert and gains the trust of your readers, especially if they are able to replicate your success based on the template you provide.

What strategies do you use to resonate with your readers and drive blog traffic?

Robert Kramers is an SEO consultant at E-Koncept. Want to learn more about increasing your website traffic? Sign up to his newsletter or follow him on Twitter.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

3 Tips for Accelerated Blog Growth & Online Visibility