For a long time, I misunderstood the meaning itself of being an introvert, let alone being able to appreciate the value. And that’s the reason I am compelled to share an incredible TED Talk with you about it in this post.
Earlier, when somebody told me that they are an introvert and still talked a lot about a topic of interest, I decided that they are just misguided. I thought they do not know who they really are. But the problem was, my assumption was far from being right.
When you are just thinking about learning to blog, WordPress.com may sound like a great idea because of one simple reason – it’s free! I did the same thing when I started exploring my options.
However, if you are serious about your personal/professional branding, and you know what you are going to share with the world, you need to be serious about how you choose your platform.
Interestingly, WordPress and blogging are almost synonyms these days. You search for blogging in Google and you will end up find more than you can chew about WordPress.
And that is great! WordPress is the most popular platform on the internet for bloggers and content marketers, period!
Who doesn’t want to be successful in their endeavor? Every entrepreneur wants success and if you are like me, you also want it as of yesterday.
Since starting my journey of entrepreneurship, I have studied success stories of many extraordinary entrepreneurs (Rich Devos, Sam Walton, Steve Jobs etc.), successful sports personalities (John Wooden, Tom Landry etc.) and some extremely successful bloggers (Darren Rowse, Michael Hyatt, Neil Patel etc.) and learned tremendous motivation.
I have mentioned on several occasions that I continue to attend many success seminars and workshops regularly as I continue to learn and grow. Seminars and workshops are definitely my favorite because of the power of association which makes a huge difference in our mindset!
When I started to blog using one of the free blogging platforms several years ago, I didn’t have any idea what I was planning. I just had to say something and I decided to say it using a blog. That’s was the extent of my plan.
But things changed with time and I began to see possibilities as my confidence grew. I soon realized I needed to allow people to subscribe to my blog so that they don’t have to wonder when I am going to post something.
Today, this is a no brainer. When you have a blog, you need to burn a feed and link it to your website. Pretty simple and everyone has it these days!
Well, I stayed that way for a long time and I wasn’t able to communicate with my subscriber community in any other way than through my blog posts. I wasn’t able to send follow up emails, share an eBook or anything of that nature.
Matt Cutts, who runs Webspam at Google rocked the SEO world with his latest post titled “The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO”. I have received countless blog posts, newsletters and questions from people all over since then.
And therefore, I decided to consolidate my findings in this post and provide my perspective of what is happening and what really is going to happen with regard to guest blogging in the short term and in the long term.
This is what Matt Cutts said and it has a lot of SEO experts worried (especially those who have been using guest blogging as their main SEO strategy):
Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.
The other day, I was in a Toastmasters meeting where we had a usual meeting with three speakers followed by three evaluators. We also had some guests and everybody did a great job that night.
However, something that drew my attention was a comment from one of the guests who appreciated one of our evaluators like this (and I paraphrase):
“What I appreciated the most was the way you did your evaluation for the speaker #2 in such an uplifting manner. You used empowering words like ‘phenomenal’, ‘absolutely’, ‘terrific’ and ‘amazing’. By using those words, you not only uplifted the speaker but also everybody.”
That remark by the guest made me think about what happens in the online world. Why is that I get so impressed when I watch Robin Sharma’s videos? And why don’t I watch videos by some other accomplished people that much?
Moving from one shared hosting environment to another was a lot of stress for me due to one problem or another. Sometimes it was their server’s performance. Other times the hosting company was complaining that my website was consuming way more resources than they allocated to my account. It was all very frustrating.
Looking for a better solution and to give myself a peace of mind, I decided to go for a managed WordPress hosting service. I knew it was going to cost me at least 15-20 times more than I was paying in a shared hosting environment, but I also knew I needed to get rid of those shared hosting issues.
By the way, you can check out my recent post where I shared why Managed WordPress Hosting is desired for serious bloggers and online entrepreneurs.
So, I decided to bite the bullet and signed up for what they call 'the BMW of managed hosting', WP Engine. I signed up for a $900 yearly plan and moved 3 of my websites, excited to see how my website performance and overall experience improves.
My goal with this post is to discuss some of the top WordPress plugins I use and recommend. If you have questions about installing WordPress plugins, you may want to refer to my earlier post about installing WordPress Plugins on your blog.
Photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos/merzavka
One of my favorite things about WordPress as a blogging platform, is the ability to extend its features by using WordPress plugins. A few clicks and you are on your way to having a fully functional website with some great features.
Since I posted about setting up a self-hosted WordPress and blog, many people have asked for my recommendations on WordPress plugins, and so this post.
Naturally, it is hard to decide what to install and what to leave from more than 22000 plugins available in WordPress Plugins directory, isn't it? However, with a careful consideration of your needs, you can choose what you need and leave the rest.
Have you noticed how much impact your first impression has on your overall experience in any interaction with another human being? Sometimes, a great first impression becomes a life saver in difficult situations while a simple transaction may turn into a nightmare based on how we perceive one another based on the first impression.
Back in the days when I just started working, right after college, I had a tough time understanding why people at work wouldn’t take me seriously unless I confronted them.
Not just at work, I soon realized I had the challenge of having a good transaction in most places of public service as well such as booking counters at railway stations, bank clerks, airport check-in counters and so forth.
