Thursday, April 30th, 2009

How to create and add a Favicon to your WordPress blog

Filed under: How To's — Jane Blogs @ 11:15 pm

Favicon collageGive your blog a distinctive touch with a favicon in under 30 minutes by following these four easy steps.

Step 1: Create or choose your image

You can either create a 16 x 16 pixel file yourself in photoshop or paint.NET, or use a free icon from somewhere on the web.
I found the ones I’ve used on my blogs at Very Icon.

Step 2: Convert your image

Use one of the below online favicon generators, and save your favicon to your computer.

Step 3: Upload your favicon

Using either your website’s cPanel interface or FTP software like CoreFTP, upload favicon.ico to the main folder of the WordPress theme you’re currently using.

Step 4: Insert the code

Open your theme’s header.php file & insert the following line of code somewhere between the <head> and </head> tags.

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/favicon.ico" />

View your blog & refresh the page.

All done!

Need more help?
Check out the in-depth info on Favicons at the WordPress Codex, or tweet me.

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

When you should delay a promised post

Filed under: waxing philosophical — Jane Blogs @ 9:00 pm

Delay, detour, but don't derail...I’ve learnt over the time that if you push yourself to do something and it’s not the right time, it just won’t work.

My second review of my progress here at Jane Blogs is overdue, and I have to say it’s been a disappointing month.

My health & that of the whole family has been awful, with everyone getting infected throats, followed by chicken pox for the youngest over Easter {bleagh}.

As a result, I’m postponing this months’ review until the beginning of May, when I’ll have some actual data to work with.

It made me feel kind of good at the end of March to read that Darren Rowse occasionally has problems with timing, too.

He pushed his 31 Days to a Better Blog series for 2009 back by a week because he wasn’t happy with what he had already, and guess what?

His readers understood, and many probably appreciated the extra time to prepare themselves.

Don’t be afraid to put off a promised post if it’s not what you hoped, but make sure you follow these guidelines if you do:

  • Have something else of value to offer readers if it’s going to be much of a delay.
  • Be aware of the fine line between striving for quality and perfectionism.
  • Give yourself a deadline to finish the delayed post and stick to it.
    {otherwise it’s called procrastination}

If you find yourself delaying posts on a regular basis, ask yourself “why?”.

  • Is it a certain topic that daunts you?
  • Are you generally ‘blogged out’ at the moment?
  • Have you set yourself a posting schedule that’s too demanding?
  • Do you need a ‘break’ from blogging?

Above all, remember that blogging is supposed to be fun, stop taking it so seriously, and give yourself a break.

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Refresh & renew your blog’s growth

Filed under: Build Your Blog — Tags: , , , , , , — Jane Blogs @ 1:09 am

janeblogs-regrowyourblogI’ve just finished read this interesting post by Sue at Sueblimely, discussing her lack of motivation and the need for her blog to adapt to the changes in her life & in the blogosphere.

Sue’s post inspired me to share my own experiences with my craft blog here.  Granted, I’ve got a much smaller audience than Sue, but I’ve had a somewhat similar experience to hers of late.

Things were going along pretty well, until I took a break in December {our son was having major surgery}. When I got back into blogging in January, I found myself blogging “for the sake of it”; frequently, but without purpose.

My readership dropped off, my stats went through the floor, and that blog has now dropped down to #77 in the Top 100 Aussie Women Bloggers {it was #45 at one stage}.
Don’t even ask about Technorati… {shudder}

Recently, I’ve taken some time to review & refocus things. As a result, I’ve made two major {but simple} changes already.

I decided to post much less frequently

The Quantity versus Quality issue is constantly discussed among bloggers, and I’ve come down heavily on the side of quality.

Instead of just blathering on just so that I could update my blog daily, I now publish between two and three quality posts per week.

I’ve returned to basics

I’m refocusing on my readers’ needs, since I already know what interests them, and how to reach them effectively;  I’ve done it once already.

So when I do post, it’s on topics that are of value to my original target audience.
{I got way off track for a while there}

And it’s already showing results.

My stats are the first place to show the change, of course.

My visitors have doubled in the last two weeks, and while that’s still nowhere near where they were six months ago, I’m quietly pleased.

My next step is to start reaching out again to the networks and relationships I let slip when things got crazy.

In sharing these experiences with you as I refresh & renew my own blog, I hope to help you to regrow your own blogs, too.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Join Darren & 7000+ others to Build your Blog

Filed under: Build Your Blog — Jane Blogs @ 7:43 pm

31 Days to Build a Better BlogIt’s been a couple of weeks since I last updated here at Jane Blogs, but this news was well worth waiting for.

Darren Rowse is once more running his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog program at Problogger.

Given that this thing only happens every two years, I strongly urge you to get on board and learn everything you can from this very knowledgeable blogger.

And he’s an Aussie, too. So he must be nice.

The 2009 event will run from the 6th April to the 6th May, with daily posts and actions to help us regular bloggers reach Darren’s giddy heights of success. Or get a little closer to it, at least.

There’s even talk of a forum, which would give us all a great chance to talk over the points in Darren’s BABB posts and meet other aspiring bloggers on the move.

I’m in, and I’ll see you there!

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