Please welcome today’s guest blogger, Melissa from Momcomm as she shares tips on critiquing your own blog. I’ve gotten to know Melissa over the past year or so because of  Facebook group we belong to. She is a wealth of marketing information and she rocks socks at making blogs better. Today she’s sharing some tips from her new e-book DIY Blog Critique.

I’m sure you love when people tell you how awesome your blog is. But deep down, you’re probably itching to be bigger and better… to sell more products, to work with more companies in social media or maybe to just make people laugh harder.

I’ve been editing and reviewing websites and marketing materials for over a decade now. So when I launched my blog Momcomm, it seemed like a natural fit to start critiquing blogs each week using that past experience. After a crazy-long queue of bloggers wanting critiques, I knew I could do more to help. So, I created the DIY Blog Critique so that bloggers could tackle improving their blogs with a virtual “fresh set of eyes.”

While my eBook covers 43 points in detail, here are five ways to critique your blog right this instant (hooray for instant gratification!):

1. What’s your blog about?

I love how Darren from Problogger puts it: “If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely that anyone else will have much of an idea either.”

So what IS your blog about? Can you sum it up in a sentence? Defining precisely what your blog is about will not only benefit your readers, it’ll benefit you too. When you can sum this up, your goals, content, design (okay, EVERYTHING) will become that much clearer.

If you worry that you don’t have a niche, then think of it this way: Are you blogging to inspire? Educate? Inform? Entertain? Don’t be afraid to define your blog that way either.

2. Do your colors match what your blog is about?

Colors visually set the tone for your blog. Overpowering colors may scare people away while sparse color may bore them to death.

Choose colors that compliment what your blog is about. For example, if you write a humor blog then subdued colors aren’t really the way to go. Learn what colors mean (like red can indicate strength) and build a palette that reinforces your message.

3. Are your social media profile buttons easy to find?

Do you have a Twitter account, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or other important social media profile? Well, make sure your readers know it!

It isn’t enough just to have a widget of your latest tweets or a box showing off your Facebook fans. Use social media icons that link to each account and put them at the top of your sidebar or in your header. Make sure they’re all in the same place as well instead of scattered throughout your sidebars.

If you want to put them in your footer, then that’s great as it reminds people who may have scrolled through all your awesome posts that they should follow you. BUT they should still be at the top too.

4. Is your About page doing its job?

Your About page should be a reflection of three things: you, your expertise and your blog. As you write (or re-write) your page, tell your readers a bit about who you are.

Then give them a bit about why you know your stuff. Even for a lifestyle blog, this is important. For example, if you write about food but aren’t a chef, then maybe you grew up in the kitchen. Or you started creating your own recipes because you’re on a limited diet. Whatever it is, that’s your expertise.

Finally, tell your readers what your blog is about. Limit the use of “I” in this section; it should focus on what the reader will get out of reading your blog (tips, laughs, recipes, fun stories, etc).

While it doesn’t necessarily have to be in this order, these are the magical elements to a stellar About page.

5. Do you write compelling content?

What does compelling mean? To me, it means your content causes people to take action in some way: comment on your post, share your post with others, buy your product, donate to your cause, etc.

Writing great content that drives action may come naturally for some but not for most of us. But there are a few things you can ask yourself before you hit “publish.”

Does your content flow or do you randomly bounce around from one idea to another? Do you use photos in your posts? Can readers relate to the topic you’re writing about or can you spin it in a more interesting way? For example, a post running through what you did each day on your vacation may not be as interesting as a post about one particularly funny or sweet story from your trip.

Hello, awesome!

If you’re looking to make your blog even more awesome, grab a copy of my eBook, the DIY Blog Critique. It’ll guide you through improving your blog’s design, navigation and content and includes a spreadsheet to keep track of your progress.

Melissa Culbertson is a marketing communications consultant, blogger and author of the DIY Blog Critique, a 43-point guide to making blogs more awesome. You can find her on Twitter as @momcommblog and at her blog, Momcomm.

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There is nothing like losing your sense of security. Feeling violated and vulnerable are two horrible feelings, but that’s exactly how you will feel if you find your blog has been hacked! Often your site can be hacked for quite a while before you even notice that something is amiss. This article aims to give you advice and tips to recognize when you’ve hacked and how to make your blog unattractive to would-be hackers.

How do I know if my blog or website has been hacked?

Although it’s usually obvious when a blog or website is hacked, there are times when you may suspect you’ve been hacked but just aren’t sure. Here are a few of the warning signs you’ve been hacked:

• Your Google Page Rank starts to drop for no apparent reason.
• Your blog loads more and more slowly (and you haven’t added a ton of plugins).
• You notice strange links on your website.
• Your Google webmaster tools show strange keywords to describe your site.
• You perform a Google search for your site, the results show titles and descriptions that do NOT describe your site, yet still have your URLs.
• Your website or blog traffic starts decreasing for no logical reason.

If you aren’t sure your site has been hacked (or just want to be sure), do a Google search for a spammy keyword like this keyword:yoursite.com. Try different spam keywords to make sure your site is clear.

If you have been hacked, contact a professional who specializes in WordPress blog help to help you remove the infection and secure your site.

Why do hackers attack a website or blog?

One reason hackers attack your website or blog is because they want to hijack your Google ranking in order to promote (and increase) their own Google ranking. And as you can imagine, there are many different types of hacks. One of the most popular hacks is a Pharma hack where the hackers insert spam content into your site that is related to different types of medications. Other hacks are more obvious because they use adult content and software sales.

How do hackers attack a website or blog?

Usually, a hacker will try to hack one of your passwords first (e.g., your WordPress admin password, your database password, or your FTP password). Once the hackers have one of your passwords, they can gain access to the rest of your sites depending on which password they have discovered. They can also exploit a vulnerability within a plug-in or the WordPress installation itself. However, WordPress is pretty good about discovering vulnerabilities and locking them down quickly.

Once hackers have access to your site, they will either place new scripts in your website to run their malware, inject malicious code straight into your database, or change the files you currently have (which can make cleanup a real pain sometimes!). Hackers may also insert spam into any portion of your website, such as within your footer or in the META information on your site. They also can create an administrator WordPress account that will not appear in your admin page.

Best Practices for a Secure WordPress.org Blog Site

You can take specific steps to help ensure that your site isn’t infected with malware or hacked in some other way. Heed the advice in the list below for starters:

• Make sure your administrator WordPress login, your database password, and your FTP password are all different and complicated. Passwords that are 20 characters long with a variation of numerals, upper and lower case, and special characters are your best bet.
• Delete the admin account in WordPress and create an administrator login with a unique name (not the name of your blog or your name). Be aware that you may run into a few snags. The gals at 5 Minutes for Mom explain how they found out about (and fixed!) some issues that arose when they deleted a WordPress admin account.
• Always keep your WordPress installation and plug-ins updated. When you see a notification on your WordPress dashboard that an update is available for any plug-in(s), update immediately.
• Restrict access from other locations to your wp-admin folder. You can do this by entering your home’s IP address in your .htaccess file within the wp-admin folder. For computer help on setting this up you can contact Sarah via her Twitter handle @Tech4Moms.

Hackers continue to find ways around security measures. If you follow the tips in this article, you may make your site less appealing to an attack.

Sarah Kimmel has the blog you never knew you needed at www.tech4moms.com, where she offers tech tips, and help for all of your technology related toys. She can also be found blogging at www.organizedmom.net helping busy moms everywhere get their lives organized!

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The ironic thing about computers is that, for all their apparent smarts, they have to be told what to do. And to tell a computer what to do, you have to speak its language. There are many programming languages out there that help browsers interpret web sites or make them function, but for today we’re talking about the most basic level of coding your web site: HTML. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it’s the code that tells your browser how to read and display text elements on your web page.

HTML is pretty intuitive. If you use the HTML tab on your blog’s compose editor, you can see how your posts are marked up with HTML code. If you look at it closely, you’ll notice a few recurring things:

1. HTML tags usually (but not always) come in pairs. These pairs are the opening tag (which tells the software that a command is coming) and a closing tag (which tells the software that the command is finished). For example, paragraphs are usually coded with <p> (the opening command) at the beginning and </p> at the end. The / is what tells the software that the command is ending.
2. References (or URLs) are always in quotes. If you look at the HTML for a link, you’ll see something like this: <a href=”http://www.bloggingbasics101.com”>Blogging Basics 101</a>. That link looks like this on your page: Blogging Basics 101. The key to making sure the browser reads the link correctly is to ensure the URL you’re linking to is enclosed in quotes. And not just any quotes. If you use smart quotes (i.e., curly quotes), the browser doesn’t always read those and your link doesn’t work. To avoid curly quotes, don’t write HTML in Microsoft Word or Mac Pages. You can use your blog’s editor or even TextEdit or Notepad.

There are many good basic HTML tutorials online so I’m going to point you to them instead of trying to cover everything here:

• HTML Primer provides tutorials for beginning or advanced users.
• W3 Schools gives you everything you need to know about HTML and then a little more.
• Tizag has tutorials on learning HTML, but also provides tutorials for CSS, PHP, scripting, and databases so you can continue to learn.

Technically speaking, HTML is not a computer programming language; it’s a markup language. What I mean by that is, if you want to ensure a line of text is seen as a header (or bold or italics) in a browser, you have to tell the browser to display that text as you want it seen — you have to markup the text. In the case of a header, you would decide which level of header you want to display (e.g., Header 1, 2, or 3) and then use the HTML for that header. A header 3 would be marked as follows:

<h3>Text for Header Example</h3>

That text would appear in a browser as follows:

Text for Header Example

As you learn HTML and begin applying it, you’ll see that there are different markups for text emphasis. For example, you may see the markup to bold a word as <b>text</b> or <strong>text</strong>. Or, if you want your text italicized you may see it marked up as <i>text</i> or <em>text</em>. Does it really matter which HTML markup you use? Well, yes. It does. If you’ve ever debated someone, you probably understand the importance of semantics of the spoken word. Semantics in HTML are just as important. As Virginia DeBolt of Web Teacher explains,

“The <b> tag is indeed bold. It is purely visual and carries with it no semantic meaning to indicate importance or emphasis. Therefore, non-visual browsers (such as screen readers) get nothing from the <b> tag. It’s as if it doesn’t exist. The <strong> tag means strongly emphasized. It is interpreted visually in different ways by various browsers–often as bold. The <strong> tag always carries the semantic meaning of strong emphasis, even for non-visual browsers.

The sister tag <em> means emphasized, and it is often rendered in italic–but not always in italic. The <em> tag always conveys semantic meaning for emphasis. If you want italic for purely visual reasons (no attached emphasis), use <i>. If you want italic because you are giving the title of a book or movie, use <cite>, which conveys the semantic message that the words in italic are a citation.”

But semantics aren’t just important for interpreting text decoration correctly. Semantic HTML is important in SEO as well. Laura Scott of Rare Pattern explains:

“The use of semantic markup helps search engines index your content correctly. If you wrap a sub-header in <b> tags, then Google *may* consider it somewhat important, but Google will not consider it as important as a <h3> tag (commonly used to show a sub-header). Wrapping citation text in <i> and </i> gives you italics, but wrapping citation text in <cite> and </cite> not only gives you visual styling, it tells Google, Bing, etc. that this text (or link) is a citation. All these things will get increasingly important as search gets more sophisticated and smarter. The more ‘robot food’ we can give the search bots, the better for SEO.”

As you spend more time blogging, you’ll find that even a little knowledge about how to use HTML will help you control how your web pages are displayed. Take a little time and peruse the tutorials I’ve linked to and try out some of the things you learn, then please let me know if they’ve helped you.

photo credit: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

A version of this post was published at BlogHer.com.

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The first thing you’ll most likely reach for as you prepare your 2009 taxes are tax forms. You need your W-2 forms from any employers and 1099s from any companies you worked with that paid you. If the company does not send you a 1099 by the end of January, you should contact them to see when you can expect that information from them (note that if they didn’t pay you $600 or more, they are not required to send a 1099, but you are still required to report the income). Keep in mind that if you went on any marketing trips this year, those companies should provide you with a 1099. Even though you may not have been paid monetarily for those trips, the flight, hotel, food, etc. is all considered income and you have to pay taxes on it. In her article Taxes for Bloggers, Mrs. Micah provides a list of items (in addition to your W-2s and 1099s) you’ll want to gather before going to your tax professional. She also provides links to handy spreadsheets that help you track your income over the year and a deductions spreadsheet that lists possible tax deductions as they relate to your blogging business.

If you have questions about bloggging and taxes, the most complete resource I’ve found is Tax Girl written and maintained by Kelly Phillips Erb. Here are a few of the articles that specifically address how your blogging career affects your taxes:

• Ask the taxgirl: When is it income?
• Ask the taxgirl: Deductions
• Problogger guest post: 7 Things that Every Blogger Should Know About Tax
• Problogger guest post: 46 Tax Deductions that Bloggers Often Overlook

In 3 Ways to Reduce Your Freelance Writing Taxes and Help Yourself, Thursday Bram explains why freelancers (and bloggers) may want to consider funding your own retirement and health insurance options. She writes, “One of the reasons employers can afford to offer benefits like health insurance and retirement plans to their employees is because there are tax benefits available when they do so. They’ll have to spend money either way — the question is whether they spend that money on benefits for employees or on taxes. The same is true for freelancers.”

Mom in the City’s article Mrs. CPA Answers Your Questions Regarding Blogging and Taxes tackles issues like

• whether you’re conducting a business or a hobby (and why it matters to the IRS)
• whether you need to pay taxes on goods or services you receive
• what to do if a company doesn’t send a 1099
• whether you need to report giveaways
• how to handle donations

Taxes, as they say, are inevitable. Knowing what you are and aren’t responsible for or what you can and can’t deduct can be confusing. Do your research and consult a tax professional to avoid any problems down the road.

Additional articles on bloggers and taxes:

• 7 Year-End Tax Tips by Karin Mueller via Entrepreneur.
• June Walker: Tax & Financial Advisor to the Self-Employed
• Top Tips on How to Avoid an IRS Audit by Cody via Your Frugality Advice
• Year-End Tax Tips for Freelance Writing Businesses by Bob Younce via Business Tips for Writers

A version of this article was cross-posted at BlogHer.com.

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• 8 Excellent Tools for Optimizing Your Images via SixRevisions

• How to Build a Successful Email Newsletter via ProBlogger

• HOW TO: Take Advantage of FriendFeed’s Unique Features via Mashable

• The Importance of Following Directions When Applying for a Blogging Job via Blog World Expo Blog

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Why include graphics in posts?

In Elise Bauer’s article How to Build Blog Traffic – Content she suggests bloggers incorporate graphics simply because “. . .people want them. Graphics and photos can help to accent or illustrate your points. They also break up the monotony of text, and give relief to eyes tired of reading online.” Regardless of what your blogging niche is, at some point you’ll want to include graphics of some kind. When you do, you’ll want to make sure those graphics are optimized for the web.

What do you mean by ‘optimize’?

Optimizing a graphic for the web simply means compressing its data so the file is smaller and will load faster. When you take a digital picture, for instance, there is a lot of noise that is included in that digital file that isn’t necessary for the picture to be viewed. You can clean out that noise, and thus make the file smaller, simply by choosing “Save for web” in your graphic-editing software (e.g., Photoshop Elements or Gimp). If you don’t have that option in your software, save the file in the appropriate format–JPG, GIF, or PNG (discussed below) and choose the smallest file size in that format. By optimizing your graphics, you’ll be optimizing your site’s download time (i.e., it will load much faster). Your readers will thank you.

What size should the file be?

Back in 1995 when I was designing web sites, we tried to keep the file size of each graphic to under 26k. Of course, back then, most people were using dial-up connections to the web. These days, with broadband so prevalent, it would be acceptable to keep each graphic to less than 50 kilobytes. I understand that sometimes that’s not possible. In some cases it may be worth it to post a larger file. One option would be to make a thumbnail of the image (perhaps 300 pixels by 300 pixels or smaller) and link it to the larger image.

Should I use JPG, GIF, or PNG? And what’s the difference?

The three most common formats for graphics are JPG, GIF, and PNG. Each of these file formats is best used for a specific kind of graphic: JPG is used for photographs, PNG or GIF is used for everything else. Why? Because a JPG file can contain millions of colors, but GIF files can only be saved as an 8-bit image which means it contains up to 256 colors. PNG files were created to replace the GIF format and can be saved as 8-, 24-, or 64 bit images and are about 20% smaller than a GIF image. You can read more in Benefits of the PNG Image Format.

Further Reading:

• 8 Excellent Tools for Optimizing Your Images
• Optimizing Images For The Web With Photoshop
• Optimize Images for Web Development

A version of this article was posted at BlogHer.com.

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What is an About page?

Your About page is a page that explains who you are, what your blog is about, and how to contact you. If someone is new to your blog, they’ll most likely click on your About page to find out more information. Likewise, if you’re passing out business cards at an event or conference, when people return home and check out your blog, they’ll likely click on your About page first just to get a feel for who you are.

These days a blogger can’t ignore her About page. It’s your online resume of sorts; your virtual “How do you do?” Whether you’re using your blog as a way to attract PR and marketers, a resource for your new book, a way to attract publishers, or just as a hello to new visitors, you need to put some time and effort into this page.

Lani Rosales writes a blog aimed at realtors, AgentGenius.com, and has written an article with an example of a bad About page (generic and impersonal) and then offers a few examples of better About pages (really focusing on the “you” of the blog). Her examples cut across niches and are relevant to all blogs. She explains why About pages are so important:

“A frequent offense we witness with bloggers is an outdated, useless, lame or ugly “about” page. When people visit websites, a shortcut for their getting to know you is to click on your “about” button, so this is your opportunity to capture them. Your about page needs to be catchy and capture the essence of who you or your company is, it should contain some sort of contact information and it should be like a handshake at a party with a quick introduction as to who you are and what you do.”

What should a basic About page include?

Don’t groan and tell me you don’t know what to write about yourself. I’m not buying it. You just wrote an entire blog about yourself; now we just have to pare it down a bit.

• A picture of yourself. Including a picture helps your readers connect with you on a more personal level.
• An overview of what your blog is about. Share your elevator pitch (the short explanation of what your blog is about) and then expand the explanation. This is the perfect opportunity for you to explain why you’re different from the other bloggers who write in your niche. What makes you special?
• Contact information. People are going to want to know how to contact you. Your e-mail address should be prominently displayed on your sidebar and in your About page. If you’re worried about bots harvesting your e-mail and using it for spamming purposes you can make it harder for those bots by using a modified version of it (e.g., melanieDOTnelsonATbloggingbaiscs101DOTcom; most people are web savvy enough by now that they understand the DOTs and AT should be replaced with a period and the @ symbol) or making a graphic with your e-mail address on it (like a button). Including contact information is particularly important if you’re hoping to be contacted by marketers wanting you to review their products. Don’t bury your e-mail address inside the page either, make it as prominent as you can.
• Interesting information. When writing about yourself, it may be hard to determine what to share and what not to share. Since this decision will largely depend on you, your readers, and the goal of your About page, my advice to you is make it interesting. If it’s not interesting or funny, people won’t read it.
• Your goals. This can be your goals for your blog, your short- or long-term goals for your life (if it’s related to what you blog about), or just the goal of the About page (to introduce yourself or encourage people to contact you or whatever).
• Whether you’re interested in being contacted by PR or marketing people. These days many bloggers are very interested in working with PR or marketing people. There are still those who aren’t. Make it easy on yourself (and the marketer) and share what you are or are not interested in. If marketers can readily see that you are a good fit for their product, they’re more likely to contact you. On the flip side, if you’re not interested in working with marketers, let them know it.

What shouldn’t your About page include?

Although you want your readers to gain an understanding of who you are and what you’re writing about from your About page, you don’t want to lay it on too thick. Your About page should be concise. Don’t include

• Your list of 100 things. This is a cop-out and is in no way to be considered a form of the About page. It’s too long and it’s usually not interesting to anyone but your closest friends (who already know those 100 things). If you can pare this down to about 25 things and make them incredibly interesting you may be able to get away with it.
• Your life history from birth to now. As a reader, I’m only interested in what you’re doing now. Unless your childhood is directly relevant to your blog niche (a bird pecked my ear when I was 8, now I can’t hear and I write a blog for the hearing impaired), don’t include it.
• Irrelevant information. Which is just another way to say keep it short and simple.

Ideas for customizing your About page

As I mentioned above, your About page can be used for many purposes. Therefore, you’ll want to consider what additional information you can include pertaining to that purpose. Here are few examples you can consider:

• Purpose: I want to establish myself as an authority in my niche. Include links to online interviews or include video if you have it. Link to articles you’ve written at other sites. Include a few quotes from people who have used your information.
• Purpose: I want to speak at conferences or be a consultant. Include information about your experience and why a company would want to hire you. Tell them again what sets you apart from others in your niche.
• Purpose: I want to find a sponsor to help defray my costs to an event. While you’ll want to reach out to companies individually with customized requests, it can’t hurt to include this information where people can find it. Include exactly what you’re looking for and what you’ll provide for the company in return. The more information you can give, the better.
• Purpose: I want to work with marketers to host giveaways or provide reviews. Include a link to your disclosure policy and explain what types of products you’re interested in receiving and why (you don’t want to be pitched for baby food if you don’t have kids or if your kids are teens). Give an overview of your traffic statistics (e.g., I reach mostly women who are interested in teaching themselves about technology). You don’t have to give everything away (i.e., specific numbers or demographics), generalities are OK as long as they convey enough information to pique the visitor’s interest.

Examples

If you’re like me, seeing some examples of the end product can be helpful. I like to see what other people are doing. Mark Nutt wrote Best Practices For Effective Design Of “About me”-Pages and in it he provides screen captures of some truly interesting About pages. They’re sure to give you some excellent ideas.

A version of this article was posted at BlogHer.com.

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• Why Designers Should Learn How to Code via Six Revisions (I’m a huge proponent of designers learning coding. You’ll be surprised how much more receptive the developers are to your ideas!)

• WP Click-Track WordPress Plug-In via Daily Blog Tips

• Answer to: Who Stumbled Me? via Plain Jane Mom

Photo attribution: photo credit: larskflem

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TypePad
TypePad offers a feature that allows you to make a page instead of a blog post. Pages are great for things like blogrolls, listing awards and recognition, or anything else that is fairly static but may need to be updated periodically. Pages also allow you to choose a specific name/permalink. For instance, if you are making a page for your awards, you can choose to call it awards/. The name is descriptive and easy to remember. It’s worth noting that Pages do not show up in your blog’s feed.

1. Go to the Compose Tab.
2. Click New Page.
3. Compose your page as you would any other blog post. You can add a title, headings and sub-headings, graphics, and links.
4. Scroll down to the area below your textbox (where you compose your post). You should see a box with Filename above it.
5. Type the filename you’d like your page to have (e.g., awards). You don’t have to type / because that will automatically be part of the URL.
6. Save your page.

Blogger
From what I can tell, Blogger does not offer a way to make a page like TypePad does. However, you can get around this.

1. Compose a new post listing your awards. You can put the award picture, a link, whatever you think is appropriate.
2. Save and publish your post.
3. Find and copy your new post’s permalink.
4. Go to the Layout tab.
5. Click on Add a Gadget in your sidebar.
6. Choose Link List by clicking on the + sign.
7. Paste your post’s permalink in the New Site URL box.
8. Type Blog Awards (or whatever title you want that page to have) in the New Site Name box.
9. Click Add Link.
10. Click Save.
11. Move the new gadget/link list to its proper place in your sidebar (simply click and drag up or down in your sidebar on the Layout tab).
12. On the Layout tab page, click Save.

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Blogger

1. Log in to your account and click Layout.
2. On the Template tab, click Edit HTML.
3. Highlight and copy all of the HTML in the box.
4. Open your word processing program (e.g., Microsoft Word or Pages) and open a new file or document.
5. Paste the HTML into your new document.
6. Save. Remember to make a note of where you saved this information.

TypePad

1. Log in to your TypePad account and click on Design.
2. On the Design tab, click Saved Designs.
3. Click the box next to the design you want to back up (there should be a check in the box after you click it).
4. Click the button that says Duplicate.

You now have a copy of your design. I would suggest working on the duplicate instead of the one marked Current Design. This will allow you to make changes and preview them before going live.

WordPress.org provides a tutorial for backing up your database.

This article was originally published on January 31, 2008.

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