Milli's book!
Hey folks, let’s give a great big welcome to Milli Thornton. She’s one of my fav peeps and she’s got an interesting story here.
Go for it, Milli!
It’s all George’s fault: I am now a WordPress blogger.
On Valentine’s Day this year, George published a post called A writer makes you a blogger not, but I didn’t see that post till near the end of June.
It was the first post I ever read at George’s blog, and this part clobbered me over the head:
“Do yourself a favor: If you are serious about blogging, lose the Blogspot free page, pay the ten bucks or less per month for hosting and go get a WordPress theme. Don’t argue, just do it. You need a REAL domain name and an interface that makes it easy to blog. Don’t choose a cute theme, pick a realistic, professional one.”
I have three Blogspot sites—all related to writing and all intended to help my writing business—so it was not easy to hear what George was saying.
I instinctively liked the guy just by looking at his photo, and I knew he was right. But I felt resistance to George’s message. I didn’t have *time* to go get myself a WordPress blog, much less three. Period.
Two days later, I woke up knowing what I had to do. I had to listen to George. I knew I needed to do it ASAP, while my newest blog still had only six or seven posts on it.
I jumped on it, found a magazine template that would showcase my travel photos, obtained the domain name I wanted, installed WordPress and got to work.
It was hellacious. Mutterings of “I shouldn’t have listened to George!” rumbled from my writing cave. But my husband helped me iron out the technical problems and, long story short, I’m now very impressed that my subconscious mind forced me to listen to the ol’ Tumblemoose.
Now that I can relax and look around a bit, I’m realizing that WordPress and Blogspot, for the most part, exist in two separate galaxies. And I can see why they do. But without getting into all the issues, I’d like to ask the WordPress bloggers reading this post to consider my suggestion.
I suggest you add the Google Friend Connect gadget to your WordPress blog and then go in search of some friends from another galaxy. Locate some juicy Blogspot blogs and start reading and commenting.
If you run a blog related to writing, you might be missing out on some worthwhile traffic (there are lots of writers over at Blogspot). Blogspot bloggers are a tight-knit bunch. They follow one another around, joining blogs their seasoned readers or favorite bloggers join.
Sound familiar? Yep. Same thing over here at WordPress. You make friends by clicking on IDs that interest you in the Comments section of the blogs you like, right?
The difference over in the Blogspot galaxy: Visitors can leave a comment, and they can also follow your blog using the Google Friend Connect box.
You’ve probably seen these boxes in your travels. But for those who haven’t, the follower must be logged in and then it’s a matter of clicking the Join button and—voilà!—his or her face then appears in a box filled with other smiling faces (or avatars).
Visitors can join using Google, AIM, Netlog, Yahoo! or OpenID. Once you start amassing followers, it can look impressive having a box full of Friends emanating “This blog is popular!” vibes.
Installing the gadget is easy. Go to Google Friend Connect, download the two plugin files and then upload them to your site.
Still in GFC, choose the size and color for your gadget, click the button to generate the code and then paste the code into a Text widget in WordPress.
Whenever someone from the other galaxy joins your Friends list, your site is automatically added to the “Blogs I’m Following” list on their profile. Your new Blogspot Friends will also be able to see your latest post in their Reading List every time they login to their dashboard.
Be sure not to bury your Friends box so low on your sidebar that it won’t be seen. Blogspot visitors are accustomed to looking for that box somewhere not too far below the fold.
Just as the world’s a happier place when people of different languages, cultures and ethnicities get along as friends, so can it be when the galaxies of WordPress and Blogspot talk to one another.
——-
MILLI THORNTON is the author of Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers and still misses Australia, where she lived for 25 years. A bit of a gypsy, she currently lives in Ohio with her husband. Milli blogs at the Fear of Writing Blog, Screenwriting in the Boonies and Milliver’s Travels.
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I agree, WP is the only way to go.
.-= Debo Hobo´s last blog ..Create A Spa Atmosphere At Home: That Is Really Good! =-.
Hi Milli, nice to digitally meet you.
I couldn’t agree more about using WordPress and having your own domain name. I’ve preached this to no end for the last few years. Newbies really don’t understand what a pain it can be to transfer everything over one day when you grow out of a free blog (which what real business is built on everything free anyway?).
About the Google Friend Connect, I admit I haven’t used it yet so it’s hard to really say (for me) how valuable it can be; however, what I do know is that you have to be careful not to clutter up your sidebar too much. Inherently, blogs kind of suck when it comes to converting visitors into customers.
There are way too many distractions already in place. Some of those distractions which really don’t lead to converting people into customers are: RSS subscribe, email subscribe, categories, archives, recent posts, recent comments, any banners you might display to other sites, etc.
But then to add a widget which shows a bunch of faces and also making sure that’s pretty much above the fold (or close to it), I would think that might hurt you some in sales and conversions.
Simple, clean, and quickly funneling visitors you want to turn into customers to exactly where you want them to go is key.
Again though, I admit I have not tried Friend Connect yet, so I suppose I could be wrong. I can definitely see how it could help to increase readership, which ultimately gives you permission to sell.
The best thing we could do in this case is test test test.
I generally fret over putting anything new in my sidebar, since I like a unified style. Studies have shown that when consumers are given too many choices they often choose none of them. It’s important to decide where you want readers to go, then channel them there. To make that happen you need to design your funnel and stick to it.
I do visit several Blogger blogs, as well as a few on Typepad. I care more about the content than the platform. Each has its benefits and not everyone wants or needs all the WP bells and whistles.
.-= Terry Heath´s last blog ..Could Your Creative Work Be The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread? =-.
I did research on Google Friend Connect, but it’s not catching on as you might think. However, the advantage is that most of us have Google accounts. I think Facebook Connect would be more successful. Info: http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php — but I haven’t studied that one yet.
.-= Meryl K Evans´s last blog ..40+ Writer Uses for LinkedIn =-.
“”"nice article.., very informative..
”"”