Blogging is Like Playing the Guitar

How Blogging is Supposed to Be A few weeks ago I gave a presentation to an Ag Communications class at Missouri State University. I had a wonderful time talking to the students and viewing their blogs.  One topic came up that has stuck with me. It seems that all their blogs looked alike. At that time we discussed changing the theme to solve the problem. As I have come to think on this further, it’s kinda the way...

Stop the Excuses; Start Blogging

Before you can Speed Blog, you have to actually have a blog. Luckily for everyone wishing to start blogging, it is so easy. And if you have an ag business, you really can’t use the excuse that you don’t have enough time. I have considered writing about how to start a blog, but when I saw the following infographic I knew I had to share it. I mean why reinvent the wheel, right? So give your ag business a boost into...

Top Mistakes Beginning Bloggers Make

Blog Post Blunders Don’t feel bad. You don’t know what you don’t know. And we have all been there. Honestly, even the best and most experienced bloggers are still learning. So let’s get right to it. This will cover the most common mistakes I see new bloggers (even those who have been at it awhile) make in their posts. I believe this is extremely important because posts are the content which is the...

My Response to Frustrated Blogger

What’s a new blogger to do? Last week I posted an email message that I received from a reader. She was basically stuck in her blogging journey. After starting she was bombarded with too much information and was “scared” to go on in fear of “messing up”. I asked what others with blogs would give her as advice. Some very nice people commented with good suggestions for her. I wanted to share what my...

Help this new blogger!

I love getting questions from readers. It’s a chance to help other bloggers in similar situations. Just this past week I had a visitor to my blog ask a question about starting her blog. Here is most of her message: I really appreciate your clear, simple directions!  I sort of started a blog last year but abandoned it because of my job and because of all of the details involved. It seemed that the more I read, the more...

Start A Self Hosted Blog

Without the Hassle Starting a blog can be very intimidating. With all the choices and technical details to learn, it can stop anyone in their tracks. So why not let someone set up your blog for you. or Are you ready to move up to a self hosted blog for more control and better design options? But you find it daunting to figure out how to join a domain name with a hosting account and blog platform? You can let someone do that...

Embrace Your Comfort Zone

Last week Rachel commented: Can’t decide where to go [with my blog]. I don’t know if I should “Ag”vocate or just write. New bloggers have this dilemma as well as seasoned bloggers. They have multiple topics that interest them; but not sure which one to focus on that would be most appealing to their readers. This is my advice to anyone who wants to blog for a hobby. Write about what you know. What can...

How to Add an Image to a Post

I have been getting some really good questions lately through the contact page from readers. The questions concern different topics about their individual blogs. The one I wanted to share this time was from a person having trouble with adding a picture and text in a post. Since it is very hard sometimes to understand what specifically the trouble is through email, I made a quick screencast tutorial about adding a picture and...

How to post pictures

Posting Pictures in Blogger After you have followed the steps to resize your images with your photo editor and saved them to a file you can find (usually the desktop), you will want to add them to your blog post. But blogger makes this process very confusing for the beginner. On your new post editor page you will see two tabs at the top Choose the Compose tab. Click the insert image icon.     Once the image is in...

Home Page Blog Design

  Above the Fold or Before the Scroll Your blog has seconds to make a first impression. Visitors will decide very quickly if they want to read more. The fist page of the home page should be clean, uncluttered and attractive. In the video I talk about: 1. Header: size, appearance, 2. Navigation Bar: up by header 3. Latest Post: Can summarize it and past posts 4. Sidebar: brief about widget, call to action 5. Background:...