Why You Should Be Blogging

The power of the internet is something any entrepreneur can appreciate. Anyone can now take an idea and turn it into a living and breathing thing with minimal start-up costs and resources. Not only can you launch a product or service right from your own home, but thanks to what some have called the social media revolution, you can also share it with millions of different communities at ease, giving your voice a platform that can’t be matched anywhere else. With such a great opportunity just sitting at one’s fingertips, it may surprise you to know that not nearly as many people take advantage of it. Everyone out there (you reading this right now – yes, you!) should have a blog. Read on to see just how blogging can benefit you, and why blogging is a must for any internet user!

Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or just a casual reader of the internet, running your own blog can benefit you in several important ways:

Regardless of technical experience, anyone can start a blog with ease thanks to popular blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger, which offer free, low maintenance solutions. Having a blog has benefited me on several different occasions. For anyone starting out, the most important piece of advice I can give is to find something you really enjoy, and then create a blog around whatever that happens to be. Remember to keep it simple and make it fun!

This is a Guest Post by Steve Bellante who graduated with a Management of Information Systems (MIS) degree in 2008. He now works in the IT Infrastructure space while actively pursuing a couple of different entrepreneurial projects and other freelance work in his spare time. He has several years experience in the areas of web development, freelancing, and social media. His blog is TechLifeMashup.com

* Image: Courtesy of kpwerker

Enhance Your Blog with Apture

I recently came across a WordPress plug-in that really puts a bit of spice into your blog postings. In fact, this is one of the most useful plug-ins that we have seen in a long time. Apture basically allows you to insert any form of multimedia or file within your blog post very simply. Once you have installed the plug-in and signed up your account, you can interact with the friendly dashboard and can get quick access to all forms of content to really enhance your blog.

How often have you come across a blog with a lot of great content, but little other than text. As we know, we need to enhance our blog posts with images to keep the readers attention. A page which is full of only text will quickly put your visitor to sleep and you need to insert pictures, images or videos on a regular basis. Apture allows you to do this rather easily. Once you have it all configured, you simply highlight a particular keyword and Apture will automatically pop open showing you related text, images and videos. If you find something that is appropriate, a click or two and the content is inserted into your blog. It can be resized to your liking, but it’s basically as simple as that.

Now, when the reader scans your blog post, he or she can mouse over the highlighted section and a box will pop up including the video, photographs, graphics, maps, audio link or whatever you have selected as appropriate.

This is a much more interesting and much less intrusive way of prettying up your blog. We are all familiar with those plug-ins that simply pop up an advert when you mouse over the highlighted term. Apture pops up more appropriate and informative material that you hand-choose as being most likely to further interest your readers.

In addition to WordPress, Apture is available in a whole variety of versions and will enable you to present a veritable multimedia feast of pop-up links or embeds within every post that you write. You can opt to go to a location on your hard drive and find graphics, additional posts, articles, pictures, slide show presentations – basically you name it. The opportunities and options here are considerable and this solution will take a lot less time than the traditional means of insertion, through your blog platform dashboard.

One of the most useful plug-ins we’ve seen in a long time. What do you think?

Adam Toren

How to use Twitterfeed Effectively

Twitterfeed has long been one of our favorite Twitter tools and is certainly one of the most productive. The guys who run it are very proactive as well and are constantly tinkering and updating its makeup. They boast 350,000 users, including the White House and recent changes to the architecture mean that feeds will be published faster than before.

In a nutshell, Twitterfeed can take your blog posts via RSS feeds and publish them to Twitter automatically or at intervals that you specify. One of the more exciting recent developments includes an integration with the tongue twisting Pubsubhubbub protocol, which promises real-time publishing of posts for those who have Blogger sites and soon, WordPress sites.

You should use Twitterfeed to provide thoughtful, informative, on point post notification to your followers. Develop a process here and don’t just blindly set up feeds into your RSS feeder, spewing out a variety of posts with questionable value for your particular followers.

You need to be sure that your RSS feed makes sense and one way to do this would be to use your Google Reader account to pick and choose which posts you want to share. If you use the Reader feature selectively you can set up an RSS feed just for these selectively-chosen posts and tell Twitterfeed that you want that particular RSS feed to be used. In this way you are hand selecting information that you want followers to see and they will come to view your creations as much more valuable.

While you will undoubtedly only post very good information to your own blog and would be delighted for your Twitter followers to see this, remember that there’s a whole lot of information out there that you don’t know about and which you will in turn find cool and worthy of distribution. Make it a point of searching every day through a whole variety of other informative and keynote blog sites using your Google Reader. By using the aforementioned Twitterfeed set up you will be able to educate yourself and be seen as the provider of top quality material by your avid followers.

Note that Twitterfeed can also automatically publish to Facebook as well and the analytics package enables you to see how many people click through. Special tags are incorporated into each post Twitterfeed publishes and Google Analytics can interpret this information to help you see how your strategy is unfolding.

Do you Twitterfeed?

Adam Toren

10 Professional WordPress Themes That Don’t Stink

WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform among professionals. It has virtually unlimited options for style and structure, and unlike other professional grade blogs, it is free. That being said, it can be difficult to sift through the thousands of blog templates to find a theme that is everything you want your blog to be: hip, cool, technically savvy, and businesslike. Most templates are either a snooze-fest or look like they belong to an aspiring rock star. That’s why I’ve taken the time to find some of the best templates for young businesses.

This is a list of ten professional WordPress themes that don’t stink. I chose them because they are unique enough to be memorable, but are smart enough to be taken seriously.

1. Glossy Light

A simple color scheme that stands out because of the ‘light’ motif; it is both professional and inspirational.

Download: http://themes.rock-kitty.net/glossy-light/
Preview: http://www.isoftwarereviews.com/theme-demo/index.php?wptheme=Glossy%20Light

2. Dotted Blue Blog

A youthful theme with a slightly groovy edge; it looks both smart and creative.

Download: http://www.wpskins.org/themes/6281/Dotted-Blue-Blog-Theme/
Preview: http://www.wpskins.org/testrun/index.php?preview_theme=6281

3. Keep It Simple

This excellent theme manages to be both organic and businesslike. It would be a great site for any “green” company that wants to avoid appearing too “crunchy.”

Download: http://www.styleshout.com/templates/preview/KeepItSimple1-0/index.html
Preview: http://www.styleshout.com/templates/preview/KeepItSimple1-0/style.html

4. ClearPress

This design is the ultimate in simplicity, but what makes it a standout is the vibrant contrasting color scheme which manages to be bold without being obnoxious and hard to look at.

Download: http://www.blogohblog.com/wordpress-theme-clearpress/
Preview: http://wpthemes.blogohblog.net/

5. Theme #2357

This theme takes chocolate brown and makes it look hip and modern with the use of a few curves. It is understated cool.

Download: http://www.wptmp.com/preview/2357/
Preview: http://www.wptmp.com/preview/2357/

6. Agregado

A mature, deep purple with a slightly feminine tone that translates well to professional content with a creative or inspirational edge.

Download: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/08/agregado-a-free-wordpress-theme/
Preview: http://www.darrenhoyt.com/demo/agregado/

7. Zinmag Redux

Urban but not “grungy.” The sans serif font and the color scheme look cool, but not immature. This particular theme is ideal for sites with plenty of multi-media goodies to show off.

Download: http://topwpthemes.com/zinmag/
Preview: http://web2feel.com/demo5/

8. Modern Marvels

These colors are sexy enough to represent a cutting edge company; and the global graphic makes the blog look like a contender in the cyber marketplace.

Download: http://topwpthemes.com/modern-marvels/
Preview: http://wordpress.topwpthemes.com/

9. Greenland

An understated but sophisticated theme that is light, welcoming, and easily adaptable to wide range of businesses.

Download: http://wpthemeland.com/theme/greenland/
Preview: http://wpthemeland.com/preview/greenland/

10. Digitalboxes

Dark and technical, this theme is conservatively colored with gray and slate; but the geometrically inspired banner graphic gives it a sense of style.

Download: http://wpthemeland.com/theme/digitalboxes/
Preview: http://wpthemeland.com/preview/digitalboxes/

Of course, your theme is just the beginning. If you want to represent your company in the best possible way on your blog, you’ll want to make sure that you regularly post valuable information and resources along with editorial content that is a true reflection of your company’s mission and goals.

Are you using a WordPress theme that you are particularly proud of? Got any theme suggestions for other business-bloggers? Leave us a comment and a link to your site!