Blog Tips and Award Business!

Just like Nena, My first blog post was in July of this year and I remember feeling apprehensive about what the whole blogging experience would be like. I experienced my first mishap with WordPress right off the bat because I scheduled my post for a particular time and it ended up posting at the wrong time.

I realized(a month later) it was my fault because I did not have my blog set to my time zone 😛

I actually didn’t realize it posted at the wrong time until I kept seeing when the post would say it was most popular or someone had just made a comment. I was excited because someone actually read and liked my post! But I was also frustrated that I couldn’t make WordPress work like I wanted it to.

Blogging is a wonderfully amazing thrill that never allows me to to sit back and come of my tippy toes for the very moment I do I feel like I am missing something, but in a good way, LOL.  Being able to express my thoughts and bits and pieces of who I am with the world has allowed me to feel connected to the world in a whole new way that I have never felt before. However, I would not have been able to feel as confident and motivated to give to others if it were not for you…my readers.

The best part of blogging is the community of people out there, bloggers and non-bloggers, that support the freedom and beauty of expression.

People like Nena and Claire that so graciously nominated me for the Liebster Award. They are both beautiful bloggers with gorgeous spirits who are encourage, love, and support in life in its many endeavors and are worthy of following so I would recommend checking out their sites.

Exposing yourself to the world through writing can be difficulty enough without including the learning curve for managing a site.

Here are a few technical blog tips and links that have helped me find my way around WordPress and improve my blogging experience:

1. How to add a photo gallery like I did in my Challenge | Photography post
2. How to Reduce Your Bounce Rate
3. How to add multiple pages to a post like I did in my 33 Questions post
4. Pingback to alert a fellow WordPress blogger of a post you mentioned them in (I used this to notify my nominees for this post; link to a specific post on their site instead of linking to their main URL/site name)
5. WordPress Smilies Commands
6. How to Add a Downloadable Printable to a Blog Post
7. Adding Titles and Alt Text to Images
8. WordPress.com versus WordPress.org

Hope this list helps some of you like it has me 🙂

Ultimately, the key to a successful blog is being a giver like those I mentioned above. Visiting and sharing your genuine thoughts and “likes” on other blogs will result in the reciprocation of that same love back to you.

In the spirit of giving, I am going to pay forward the Liebster Award nomination to all my nominees for the Blogger Recognition Award.

The following are the rules for the Blogger Recognition Award:

• Thank whoever nominated you and include a link to their blog.
• Write a post and give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give a piece of advice or two to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to.
• Let the nominees know you have nominated them and provide a link to the nomination details.

*For the rules on the Liebster Award visit Anand’s post or click on the Liebster Award image above. If you have already received the liebster award, then feel free to use the idea of paying it forward to at least one blogger.

Nominees

1) Finesseh

2) The Happy Healthy Kiwi

3) Deborah Bryan

Keep up the sword and pen and enjoy your love for expression!

Much Love,

Chris