How to install a contact page on WordPress

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Up until a few days ago I had no contact page on this WordPress blog. It didn’t hit me at first but not having a contact page can seriously damage the development of a blog. Not only can individuals submit feedback and ask questions through a contact form but they can also offer to:

• Purchase ad space
• Guest blog on your blog
• Have you guest post on their blog
• Create partnerships/joint ventures
• Exchanges blogroll links

Come to think of it, there are a lot of offers I may have missed out on during the first few weeks of this blog while it had no contact form. Even though I have very little traffic, there is no telling who might have come across my blog.

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Tags: creating your blog, plugins
Posted in WordPress Blogging | No Comments »

Choosing a name for your blog

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Never take the decision of naming your blog lightly. You might some day regret it — especially if you are looking to reach a large audience or to earn money from your blog.

The concept you need to understand the most when naming a blog is the marketing concept of branding. Your brand is your everything. Even if you don’t believe you have a definitive brand, visitors begin forming a mental image of your brand the second they first access your blog’s frontpage.

In the blogging world, your brand is heavily affected by the name you choose. Your logo, design and domain will also heavily affect your brand image but I will not go into those three brand elements in this post.

When it comes to naming your blog, the most important thing to consider is what topic your blog will be limited to (if any). This blog is obviously about blogging so, naturally, the title (Blogtap) is representative of that. If I ever wanted to blog about other topics (such as tennis) on Blogtap, I would not be committing to my brand very well and I would most likely be doing damage to my brand.

All blogs that are not personal blogs gravitate around a particular topic or niche. It is this way because of how the Internet works. Sure, you could create a blog about tennis and blogging. But the odds of finding readers that enjoy both tennis and blogging are very rare. So, if you want to reach a large audience, you should be careful about which topics your blog gravitates towards. That doesn’t mean you should always be broad and impersonal; it only means your blog should have an underlying theme that readers can relate to.

I chose blogging because that is one thing I am passionate about. If you choose what you are passionate about, everything else (like the business and marketing aspect) will fall into place.

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Tags: creating your blog
Posted in Blog Marketing, Blogging 101 | 1 Comment »