Get Stoked on Web Typography

I've been talking a lot about Google Web Fonts lately and while browsing SlideShare (which is a really cool site) I found a presentation that explains why you need to take advantage of the different fonts available on the web today. Samantha compares choosing your font to choosing shoes, which for some women is no easy task! She makes some good points about choosing which fonts to use on your site such as choosing a font based on the emotion of your blog! It's awesome stuff - take a look below!

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WordPress Plugins for Google Fonts

Last week I recorded a short video teaching you how to install and use Google Fonts on your blog.  It involved editing some theme files and I know not everyone is comfortable doing that.  If you don't want to edit files then take a look at the following WordPress plugins:

1. Web Fonts - This plugin allows you to use fonts from a varity of different sources including Google Web Fonts.
2. WP Google Fonts - This plugin adds the necessary Google code, but it also gives you the ability to assign the Google fonts to specific CSS elements of your website from within the WordPress admin.
3. Google Typography - This plugin allows you to use any Google Font for any text on your existing website without writing a single line of code!!
4. Google Web Fonts Manager - This simple plugin gets list of fonts available from google fonts via API and can selectively be added to CSS.

Most of the plugins you find in the WordPress Plugin Repository allow you all the benefits of using Google Web Fonts without the need to edit code!  This makes it super easy to add fun, stand-out fonts to your blog!

Popular Google Web Fonts

Last night I posted a video on how to add Google Fonts to your blog and this morning I found an article listing the 10 most popular Google Web Fonts!

Pete Prestipino hits the nail on the head when he says,

"There's no shortage of "trends' that Web designers must pay attention to, but few are more practical - and impactful - than the use of Web fonts."

Check out the list of the 10 most popular Google Web Fonts and let Website Magazine know which one is your favorite.

Use Google Fonts For Amazing Headlines

Want to make a little change to your blog that can have a big impact?  Change your heading font!  Most people just skim blog posts, meaning they just read the headlines.  It’s important to have amazing headlines that stand out. One way to make your headlines stand out is to make sure the font you are using is eye-catching.  It needs to be larger than your normal text and is normally a different font altogether.

Below is a little video I created for you to teach how to change your fonts using the Google Fonts API.

[S3_embed_video file='googlefonts.mp4']<

Free Images For Your Blog

Every blog post you publish should include an image that fits your chosen topic.  It helps to keep the reader interested and to break up the text.  The problem is that purchasing images can you can use gets expensive quickly.  Plus you have to keep copyright issues in mind.  You can"t just go do a Google image search and just any image you find.  That"s why I found, Top 10 Places to Find Free Stock Images For Your WordPress Site by Sarah Gooding at WPMU.org, to be a great resource.

Sarah lists online casino some great sites to find free image you can use and says

"Given that WordPress powers roughly 19% of the web, many of these image services have accompanying WordPress plugins to make it easy for publishers to find and post images. We’ll make note of those wherever available."

Of course being a WordPress enthusiast, this caught my attention!  So go check it out and find a great image to use with your next post!

Do You Offer Your Readers Hope?

No matter the reason you blog you are giving your readers something.  That “something” varies from blog to blog but ultimately it comes down to hope.  Do you give your readers hope? Hope is defined in the dictionary as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

People normally follow blogs for 2 reasons:

1. They enjoy the topic
2. They want information or instruction on the topic.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t follow any blogs on real estate because I have absolutely no interest in the real estate world.  I do follow blogs that teach on WordPress because I love working with WordPress and am always looking to learn something new.

When I read a new blog post from a WordPress blog I have an expectation to learn something about WordPress.  My hope is that the information the blog shared will help me in my online tech business.

As Christians we have another type of hope we can offer our readers – the Hope of God.  Author John Piper from DesiringGod.org described the Hope of God as this:

“Christian hope is when God has promised that something is going to happen and you put your trust in that promise. Christian hope is a confidence that something will come to pass because God has promised it will come to pass.”

Encouraging our readers that God does keep His promises and He promised eternal life through His son Jesus Christ.  If that doesn’t give your reader hope, than I don’t know what does.  J

The point I’m trying to make is that every post you publish should give your reader some type of hope.  This will keep them engaged and you will be able to connect more personally with them.

Have Fun Reading Blogs

I recently posted about a way to keep your blog fresh and active without spending hours writing a post – content curation.  I’ve spent some time this past week adding blogs to my Feedly account, reading some great blog posts, and scheduling some curation posts for the future. As an added bonus I have so many great new blogs to follow!  I have lots of interest, everything from WordPress, blogging, and web design to parenting and health.  My Feedly account has a lot of new blogs now and it’s such a great thing!

I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t reading other blogs.  I got so caught up in my own blogs I forgot how important it is to read other blogs.  It helps you to stay up-to-date on what’s going on in your niche and it helps you to stay connected to those in your niche.  Read and commenting on blogs are still a great way to connect with other bloggers and to develop relationships that can be mutually beneficial.

I had forgotten how fun it is to discover new blogs and the excitement it brings by leaving comments and getting a response back. Taking Kelly’s Smart Curation Skills course brought that fun back!

Here are some tips to make reading blogs fun:

1. Only read blogs with content you enjoy.  Be picky.  You can only read so many blog posts in a day, make them count and don’t waste your time following blogs with content you don’t even enjoy reading.
2. Share! Share! Share! – If you read an enjoyable post share with others.  You can share it through social media with a Facebook like, or Tweet, or if it has a pretty graphic too pin it on Pinterest.  Or you can use content curation and share it with your blog readers.  It’s so much fun sharing great content with others who you know will enjoy it too.
3. Keep the blogs you read organized.  As I mentioned earlier, I use Feedly to read blogs.  It allows me to categorize the blogs and also assign tags to them as well.  This way I don’t feel pressured to read all the blog posts in Feedly at once.  When I have 10 minutes, I check into Feedly and just read new blog posts from one category.  This way I’m not reading blogs all day but still have time to enjoy the posts I do read.

Staying Inspired

Do you ever suffer from blogger burnout?  You ever just get the point where you can't find a topic or the words needed to write a blog post?  Or maybe you just don't care anymore.  You don't care if you write that next blog post or you don't care if you don't spend anytime marketing your blog.  For me, when this happens it's because I'm not feeling inspired

Darren Rouse at ProBlogger recently wrote a post about this very thing.  He says,

"When I’m not inspired, I find it very difficult to be creative or generate ideas."

I agree 100% - I am the same way.  In his post, 9 Ways to Keep You Fresh, Inspired, and Creative, Darren lists the ways he keeps inspired and avoids blogger burnout.  These are some great tips that I know all of can use.

A Tip For Keeping Your Blog Active

Do you crave a more active blog but lack time to write quality blog posts every single day? I do!  I'm sure you have noticed a lack of regular posts here at Faithful Bloggers.  It's not because I don't have information to share but it takes a lot of time to write a good informative blog post.  With it being the middle of the summer and 4 kids at home I have trouble finding the time to just sit down and write. If you have this problem too a good content curation strategy could be just the solution you and I are looking for.

I have been taking Kelly McCausey's Smart Curation Skills course in which she demonstrates the time saving systems she uses to curate content for sites.

We all know that there are a lot of great bloggers out there sharing amazing tips and information that people really need.  If you adopt the role of content curator and put yourself in the position of collecting and sharing the best knowledge, news, and tools you’ll have all the activity you’re looking for on your site and in social media.

But doesn't take take a lot of time too?

Not at all, being the ‘in the know’ person in your niche doesn’t have to be time consuming. With a few simple systems in place, you can be monitoring a wide variety of information sources in minutes a day. After that, the time required to curate the content on your site is minimal.  The post I just published, Balancing Time Spent on Social Media, took me less than 5 minutes to create and publish following Kelly's system.

Of course you could sit down and create a dozen or more useful items on your blog and schedule them out over the course of a week to keep your blog active while you tend to other important tasks - like email, social media, ebook creation, etc.

I'm always looking for ways to share information and keep my blog going in between blog posts and I think this just might be my answer. Take a look at Kelly's course and if you have any questions, let me know. I'm currently in the middle of the course and would be happy to answer any questions you might have about it and, of course, I have direct access to Kelly to ask questions too if I don't know the answer.

Balancing Time Spent on Social Media

We all know Social Media is an important aspect of blogging.  We use it to market and connect with our readers.

Tracy from Moms in a Blog said that

"Social media is hot and its important to build a social media presence. But, it can be a time suck and a huge distraction..."

Ain't that the truth!  Between Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and so many more social media takes up so much time!  Tracy offers 8 tips to help balance your social media time and I know a few that I need to start implementing immediately!

Using Backup Buddy to Backup Your Blog

I've been talking a lot about  keeping your site secure and the first step is to make sure you are regularly back up your blog.  Backup Buddy does this for you!  Here's a little video on how to use Backup Buddy.

[S3_embed_video file='UsingBackupBuddy.mp4']

Protect Your Blogger Blog

After my recent post about protecting your blog from hackers, which primarily dealt with self-hosted WordPress blogs, I got a lot of emails and questions about securing a blog using Google Blogger. Well my first suggestion would be to move to a self-hosted WordPress blog.  :)  This is because your blog’s security is pretty much dependent on Blogger.  Of course there are a few things you can do to help, but overall you don’t really have control in regards to security.

If you are insistent on continuing to Google Blogger make sure to never give out your Google account email that is associated with your blog.

Secondly, turn on 2-Step authentication.  You should do this if you use any Google products, such as Gmail, calendar, etc…  This adds an extra level of security to your Google login.

Also don’t forget to backup your blog regularly, choose a super strong password, don’t give people admin access, and login out of Google when you are done.

Backing up a Google Blogger is simple but not automated.  Here are some links explaining how to do a backup:

Import and export blogs

https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/97416?hl=en

How to Backup All Blogger Blogs at Once Through Google Takeout

http://www.mybloggerlab.com/2013/03/how-to-backup-your-all-blogger-blogs-through-google-talkout.html

Protect Your Blog

As most of you know, I offer WordPress consulting/tech help to other bloggers and online business owners.  Well one of my client’s website recently got hacked. :(  The hacker slipped in through an outdated theme on a site that is not being used anymore.  But she has other sites on the same web host so naturally all of her other sites were effected too.  This client has 20+ websites and two weeks later we are still cleaning up the mess.

I’m no web security expert so my client brought in Regina from WP Security Lock.  I have learned a lot just from watching her work.  :)  If you want to learn more about WordPress security, she is lady to learn it from.

I’v been hacked in the past, but it was nothing like this.   I don’t want what happened to my client to happen to me or to any other blogger.  It is not fun.  So here are some tips to stay proactive in your blog security.

1. [pullquote position="right"]Take blog security seriously.  Do your homework.  Find out what options you have and take the best defensive you can against hackers.[/pullquote]
2. Backup your blog regularly.  Don’t rely on your web host to back up your site.  It is your responsibility to backup your blog.  It you do get hacked you can go back to a previous non-hacked version.  I use Backup Buddy to back up all of my sites and love it.
3. Keep your blog software, theme and plugins up-to-date.  In my experience most sites get hacked through outdated software.  If a theme or plugin you want to use hasn’t been updated in a while, you probably shouldn’t use it either.
4. Remove unused themes and plugins immediately.  See above. J
5. Remove all sites not currently active.  Most web hosts allow you to run multiple sites from one account.  If you have a site that you are no longer using but is still active on your host, remove it.  Sites that are not active get neglected and not updated regularly. 
6. Hide everything.  You can hide your WordPress login and admin links so that hackers can’t find them.  Using the Better WP Security plugin will help with this.
7. Subscribe to WP Security Lock Email List.  You have to stay on top of what is having in the Internet hacking world.  If you are using WordPress, WP Security Lock is a great resource to find more ways to keep your site secure and to get notifications of when new vulnerabilities are found and how to fix them.

I can’t express how important it is to protect your blog.  You don’t want all you hard work going down the drain because a hacker got in.  There is no way to be 100% hack-proof, but being proactive goes a long way.

Podcast #16 - Nicole Jones at Blessings of a Homemaker

Nicole Jones from Blessings of a Homemaker is my guest this week on the podcast.  She is a new blogger, just started in April 2013 but has a lot stories and information to share.  According to her blog she is:

"I’m a homemaker that is busy doing what I can to enrich the lives of my family in a spiritual and financial way, while sharing all that comes with it so you can too!"

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Find Nicole on Social Media:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+

Links Mentioned in Podcast:

• Tracy Roberts - Moms In a Blog
• Kelly McCausey - SoloSmarts
• Inspired to Action
• Pic Monkey
• WordPress

Podcast #14 - Anointed Heels

In today's show I interviewed Roodlyne from Anointed Heels. We discussed how she got started blogging, why she

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blogs, and how God guides not only her life but her blog as well.

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Anointed Heels on Facebook.

Anointed Heels on Twitter.

Anointed Heels on Instagram.

Why Do You Blog? Report

A couple weeks ago we started the "Why Do You Blog?" group writing project.  We had 19 bloggers participate and all the entries are awesome.  I have complied all the entries into a special report for you to download, read, and share. Just click on the download link below to get it.

Download Now!

Also, please feel free to share it.  Here is some code you can use to do so:

Text Link: <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/fb-reports/whydoyoublog.pdf">Why Do You Blog: Group Writing Project</a>

Graphic Link:

<a href="http://faithfulbloggers.com/blogging/group-writing-project/why-do-you-blog-report/" alt="Christian blogs"><img src="http://faithfulbloggers.com/wp-content/uploads/200badge.png" border="0"></A>

3 Ways To Share Your Testimony Online

If you are like a lot of Christian online you probably have a strong desire to share your faith and witness to others online.  One way of doing this is telling others about your personal testimony.

Sharing your faith and witnessing online can be a very emotional and intimate experience.  Depending on your story and background, sharing where you were before Christ and where you are after accepting Christ as your Savior, is a scary thing for people.  It however does help win people to Christ by seeing the power Christ has to forgive sins and to turn lives around.

There are 3 main ways you can share your story of faith online in a way that can help others.

1. Write it – You can write about your faith on a blog, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, forums, etc.   With the popularity of social media there are numerous ways you can share your faith and testimony online in the written form.  You could write articles and post them on different sites such as ezarticles.com.  You could guest blog for other bloggers if you don’t have your own blog.  You could write an ebook and then publish it on Amazon for Kindle.
2. Video it – If you are not comfortable with your writing skills then consider recording a video.  Videos can be a very intimate way to share a story or an experience because the viewer can see your emotions and how you react while sharing it.  Just as a reminder, if you go the video route, the video doesn’t have to be a just of you and your face.  You could create a PowerPoint Presentation and turn it into a video or even use graphics to create a slideshow to get your point across.  Once you record your video, you can post it on to a blog, YouTube, Vimeo, or any of the hundreds of video sharing sites available online.  Once you have posted the video you can then share it on all of your social media sites as well.
3. Podcast it – If you are not comfortable doing a video consider recording a podcast.  A podcast is just an audio recording that is normally delivered through iTunes to listeners.  Like video, a podcast is more personal than traditional writing in that the emotions in your voice come out for the listeners to hear. You can share your story, allow your listeners to see the emotional side of you, allow them to intimately connect with you, without the fear of a camera.  iTunes has made it so easy to publish a podcast, that you could easier reach hundreds of people this way.

The important thing is that your get your message out there.  Share your testimony.  Share how God has changed your life.  Share the love of God.

Interviewing Others

Interviewing others is a great way to get to know your readers and the people in your chosen niche. Interviews can happen in a couple different ways – written, audio, or video. Even those 3 ways can all be done in a multitude of different ways.

I mostly interview people on the Faithful Bloggers podcast. So that’s an audio interview and I usually talk to the person being interviewed via Skype and record the call using the software Pamela. Another option I use is FreeConferenceCall.com where both of us call into a dedicated line and the call is recorded. If you want to do an audio interview you have a lot of options.

interviewing-others

Written interviews are the easiest and are normally done through email. If I was going to do a interview this way, I would just email my questions to the interviewee and wait for their response. I would then copy/paste the questions and answers into a blog post and format it to make it look pretty. Super Easy.

Video interviews are usually done in person but you can do them over the Internet in a couple different ways. There are services out there that will allow you to split your screen so that both parties are visible in the video. Or if you are handy with video editing you could do this yourself.

When interviewing another person its important to at least know a little about that person. Unless you have prepared questions ahead of time, you don’t want to be stuttering your way through the interview because you don’t know what to ask or say.

Below are some of the questions I ask bloggers who I interview for the Faithful Blogger Podcast:

1. Can you tell us a little about you and your testimony?
2. When did you start blogging? How did you get started?
3. How did you come up with the name of you blog?
4. What is your goal with your blog?
5. How do your incorporate your faith in your blog?
6. Do you have any bloggers you look up to or that have really encouraged you in blogging?
7. What is your favorite blogging tool?
8. How do you balance life and blogging?

These are not all the questions I ask it’s just a guideline. Often while conducting the interview I will come up with new questions based on the person’s answers. The prepared questions are more of an outline to follow and not a strict schedule of questions that have to asked and answered.

Have you interviewed anybody on your blog yet? If not, I would be happy to do an interview for you on your blog to help get your feet wet. Just drop me an email using our contact form and we will get it setup.

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