Blog Talk with Typecast: Wordpress Plug-Ins, Rafflecopter and more...

Time for the April Blog Talk already! It doesn’t seem like a month since my last post, does it? I hope you enjoy these few links that I’ve picked out for the “tech” side of blogging from other parent bloggers and a little further afield. Don’t forget, if you see any great posts that you think deserve a mention just tweet me a link (@nickie72) and I’ll try to feature them here next month – you can even nominate your own!

First of all, I’ve been trying to find out information about how the country redirect that has been implemented on Blogger/Blogspot. You can read all about it on the Google support pages but there are no real answers regarding a noticeable drop in page views for many bloggers, why imported comment systems (e.g. Disqus, Intense Debate) are not working properly or how to get social statistics (such as StumbleUpon, Facebook Likes and tweet counts) to respond properly. There are two answers – well, three really. No, four…

Stick with it and keep your fingers crossed. Don’t panic and just keep blogging. Back-up your blog regularly and enjoy the blogging ride.

Search for a few lines of script which you can insert into the <head> section of your template which stops the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) redirection but as this is such a new move from Google, I suspect there will be more changes before a full fix can be written and there is no information about how you many be penalised for using this script. (Edited to add: Google will be specifying the .com address as the actual address of your blog using a rel=canonical code. This means that all ccTLD page hits and SEO will count towards your overall statistics and not register any duplicate content or ghost statistics [source])

Purchase a vanity URL and reclaim some of the control that you have over your blog on the Blogger platform. This is really easy to do and you can buy your chosen URL direct from your Blogger dashboard (through Go Daddy) and have it in place in less than an hour. Mummy Tips wrote a really easy-to-follow tutorial on how to switch to a custom domain on Blogger with screenshots, current pricing and a few hints and tips.

Take the leap and become self-hosted. This way you have complete control over your blog using your own hosting package and your own URL. The best post I read about this is over on the Tots100 site where they created a visual walk-through explaining how to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog in five minutes.

The lovely Violet Posy has written two geekalicious posts in the last month. The first is a recommendation of her favourite WordPress plug-ins with some further suggestions in the comments. What plug-in can you not do without? VP’s second post is a rewrite of her brilliant post on how to create a great blog header using ‘PicMonkey‘.

Do you use Windows Live Writer? I’d not heard about it until The Moiderer told me that she had been using it to draft blog posts, edit photographs and images and post to multiple platforms. Have a look at her run-down of all the features Windows Live Writer and see if it’s something you might like to use too. Let me know how you get on.

What do you think about the competition entry widget, Rafflecopter? Reading between the tweets, it seems it’s a bit like Marmite. People either love it or hate it (I personally love it both as an administrator when running giveaways and as a competition entrant). Either way, it’s worth keeping an eye on the Rafflecopter blog for gems of blogs posts like their two-part post which examines the relationship between bloggers and brands (2nd part next week). Compiled from the results of a survey they held, it makes for interesting reading.

I loved this post that I found on “Best Blogging Tips Online” which takes lines from the Harry Potter books and applies them to blogging. Part of the conclusion states that you should “…create a true connection with not only your content, but your audience as well.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

And finally, my own contribution to this month’s post is my promised How To Use Google Reader post. I’ve tried to create a tutorial that shows you how to set up Google Reader to work for you and I have included some hints and tips that should help you organise your reading experience. I’d love to know if it’s useful for you.

And that’s it for another month. There’s plenty to keep you going for a while but if you’re looking for something practical to keep you busy over the Easter break then you could try creating an infographic using the brand new, free tools from Visual.ly. My next post will be on 2nd May when I will have become the parent of a 21 year old *eek* and will be 24 hours away from my 40th birthday *gulp*. See you then – I’ll bring cake!

About Nickie O'Hara

Nickie O’Hara and ‘Typecast’ are all about breaking the mould. Now she’s doing that at BritMums giving us our monthly Blog Chat. Nickie started her blog to release a few demons and tell the world about her difficult and unusual experiences of parenthood. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. With one finger on the pulse and the other on the keyboard, Nickie is not afraid to say it as she sees it. She works hard, is a true procrastinator, drinks wine, is occasionally published and is a Nana in her spare time. In the words of Raymond Babbitt: “She’s all sparkly. She looks like a holiday.”

Greg

Wednesday 4th of April 2012

Thanks for the shout out Nickie! :)

Nickie

Thursday 5th of April 2012

Any time, Greg. You've got a great product there.

Susan Mann

Excellent post and great round up.

Hope there's something useful in there.

Mari

Lots of new info there for me to check out, thanks for your research.

No problem - glad you enjoyed it.

Tasha Goddard

Great round-up, Nicki, thank you.

I've been using Windows Live Writer for a couple of years now and love it.

I think I'm the only one who hadn't heard of it. I think I might give it a try.

Comments are closed.