The Profitable Business EdgeThe Profitable Business EdgeA brutally honest look at marketing your small business
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Stay In The Conversation
2012-05-16 01:01:00 It’s now much easier for you and your commenters to keep track of the conversations you’re involved in across WordPress.com. Some recent tests have shown that by subscribing commenters to new comments by default, they are more likely to stay engaged and come back and comment more on your blog. With that knowledge, we’ve changed the default comment following behavior to help you get more conversations going on your blog. We made the initial changes last week and after great feedback from you we just launched an update. Here’s how it works: By default, posting a comment will now subscribe you to receive follow-up comments via email for that specific post, keeping you updated on the conversation. This is indicated by the checked box in the comment form. If you have a WordPress.com account, you now have a global setting to change this so that by default you will not be subscribed. If you don’t have an account, then you can create one over here. If you don...
Look at These Gorgeous Blogs
2012-05-15 20:05:00 We’ve added a user showcase where you can view stunning customizations made by people just like you. From complete redesigns with CSS to adding pizzazz with Custom Fonts to clever use of options like background and header, this showcase will spark your imagination and inspire creativity. Discover details about what each showcase blog is doing with WordPress.com themes and customizations by clicking a thumbnail to see a colophon-style list of credits on the left. We’ve also updated footer links so blog owners can show off the types of customizations they’ve made and visitors can learn more by clicking the “Customized” link in WordPress.com footers. A “Customized” link will appear next to the theme name for blogs that are using Custom Design tools like fonts or CSS. Things we like to see when looking for showcase-worthy customizations are blogs with good traffic, beautiful design, well-written articles or stunning images, recent content updates, and i... More About: Blogs
Find Friends Who Use WordPress
2012-05-01 21:32:00 Are you curious to see how your friends are using WordPress? Give the new and improved Friend Find er a try to connect with your Twitter, Facebook, and Google contacts who have WordPress sites! After authorizing WordPress.com to use your Twitter, Facebook, or Google account to find your friends (don’t worry — none of this account information is saved!) you’ll see a list of people you know who have WordPress sites. Click Follow and each time your friend publishes a new post it will show up in your Reader under Blogs I Follow. If you have multiple blogs, make sure to set the Primary Blog in your Settings so the correct blog is shown to friends when they find you. If you’re interested in finding more cool blogs to follow, browse our collection of Recommended Blogs and try adding some topics to follow in your reader using the box in the bottom left. More About: Wordpress , Friends
Integrate Cool Applications with WordPress.com
2012-04-12 21:00:00 We are happy to announce our new REST Application Programming Interface (API) that lets developers explore, interact, and create great new content with the vast community of sites on the WordPress.com network and, in the near future, Jetpack-enabled sites. The API gives developers access to posts and comments, as well as the ability to Follow, Like, or Reblog content for users. Other features from WordPress.com, like the daily handpicked content on Freshly Pressed, are also available through the API. An excellent example of an application that uses the new API is the Windows 8 WordPress.com app, available now. Our goal with the new API is to simplify the experience of using and adding to the data available on WordPress.com. To do this, we now use the OAuth2 protocol to authenticate requests for data. To retrieve public data, you can make unauthenticated requests. To perform actions, such as making new posts or comments, you would need to make authenticated requests. When the API re... More About: Wordpress , Applications , Cool
How to get more comments
2012-04-12 16:24:00 People blog for different reasons, but many post with hopes of seeing feedback from readers. Here at WordPress.com we’ve studied why some posts and blogs get more comments than others, and want to share our advice with you. You need visitors before you’ll get comments. You won’t get comments until people visit your blog. Start by reviewing our famous post on How to Get More Traffic to understand the basics of building an audience. Posting on a regular schedule is an important part of building traffic, which will lead to more comments. Have a clear and strong position in your posts. Clarity in writing helps readers form their own opinion to share. A post titled “I’m not sure if I like bananas” is less likely to compel a response than “How I learned to love bananas” or “Why I will never eat a banana again”. Writing well and having interesting thoughts is by far the best way to encourage more comments (and follow The Daily... More About: Comments
Custom CSS gets an upgrade
2012-04-05 22:26:00 Heads up, Custom Design users! The Custom CSS feature on WordPress.com now supports all of the new features of CSS3. This means that you can use gradients, animation, multiple backgrounds, @media queries, and many more new features in your custom CSS. If you want to make your images pop and tilt, give your post titles a polished letterpress embossed look, or add high-dpi graphics for retina displays—you can do that. If you’ve just got to have a Machu Picchu color palette complete with linear gradients to show off your lovely llama, you can do that too. CSS3 opens the doors to all the latest cutting edge things going on in the web design world today. If you can dream it, you can do it.TM The CSS editor itself has been upgraded too! Now that we’re using Ace, it’s just like having a desktop code editor in the browser: syntax coloring, auto-indentation, and immediate feedback on the validity of the CSS you’re writing are just a few of its features. If you d...
New Theme: On Demand
2012-03-29 18:00:00 Another beautiful theme worthy of the red carpet has been added to our ever-expanding cast of premium upgrades. Designed by Jason Schuller of Press75, On Demand was created to bring videos front and center. Adding them into posts is a snap, and you’re free to use virtually any embeddable video format from any video service. On Demand also works brilliantly with WordPress.com shortcodes. On Demand: Home Page Also included in On Demand is a custom Featured Posts widget that allows you to pull in any number of posts from a specified category, as well as several nice Theme Options to help you show off your site content exactly as you’d like it. There are lots of other goodies offered by On Demand. A custom background color, custom website logo, social media links, four widget areas, and full width page template all come rolled into this video-friendly theme. On Demand is a premium upgrade for your blog; read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into pr...
Keep Your Upgrades in Order
2012-03-26 19:00:00 As more and more of you take advantage of our fabulous Upgrades , we’ve been conscious of the increasing need to offer a great way to manage your purchases. What if you could track all of your upgrades, manage them, renew them and *gasp* even cancel them, all in one place? Well, starting today you’ll see a new page in the Store section of your dashboard: My Upgrades. On that page you’ll find the list of the upgrades purchased for the site you are managing, followed by a lists of the upgrades you have on your other sites, if any. Domain registration, mapping, Custom Design, Space upgrade, VideoPress or Premium theme, you will find them all here, along with links allowing you to renew, enable auto renew, update credit card data, or cancel ( and get a refund within the appropriate timeframe ). As you can see, the status of each upgrade and its expiration date are clearly displayed there, with some handy color-coding: One-time purchases (Premium theme in the screensho...
New Themes: Standard and Chalk
2012-03-22 21:18:00 Today I’m happy to announce two great new additions to our collection of premium themes. First, we have Standard , a sleek, exacting theme designed by 8BIT for professional blogging with an emphasis on contextual display of your content. Your content, in each of its various forms, deserves to be presented with unique distinction. Thanks to Standard’s support of post formats, it can. Image, video, quote, status, and link posts all receive a beautiful visual treatment. If your visitors are browsing on a mobile device or tablet, Standard has got you covered. Its responsive layout adapts gracefully to smaller screens. View it in action on the demo site, or head on over to the Theme Showcase to read more about Standard and its features. Next, we have Chalk , an innovative theme designed with a strong focus on online educators by The Theme Foundry. Posts containing to-do lists, chats, links, podcasts, photos, and video are beautifully styled. Chalk comes equipped with a responsive... More About: Themes
Celebrate Your Milestones
2012-03-21 18:01:00 Once in a while, it’s important to stop, catch your breath, and look at your accomplishments before you move on to the next thing — to put a stake in the ground that says, “I made it this far!” Today, we’re rolling out a couple of notifications to help you celebrate your blog activity milestones. From now on, whenever you hit a milestone for how many followers your blog has (5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and beyond), you’ll get a badge: We also created badges to celebrate when you receive lots of likes from visitors: In addition to celebrating your achievements, we wanted to notify you when you’ve had a particularly good day for receiving likes or new followers. From now on, we’ll let you know of your best days for such activity: Keep in mind that we’ve only started counting your best days this March. We all blog for different reasons. Some might chronicle their travel adventures, others might detail their culinary undertakings. If you ... More About: Celebrate , Milestones
New Themes: Ari and San Kloud
2012-03-20 17:46:00 Today, I’m excited to introduce the latest additions to our ever-growing collection of free themes. First up is Ari—a responsive and minimal blog theme designed by Elmastudio. This theme is beautiful out of the box but it’s also packed with cool features including two color schemes, three custom color options, a custom header image, a custom background, and a custom menu. With all of these features, the Ari theme will be suitable for a wide range of blogs. Yes, for yours too! So be sure to read about it on the Theme Showcase page. Ari Theme Next up is San Kloud—a bright, colorful theme with a playful feel—perfect for a tumblelog or journal. It features three color schemes, fun post format icons, and support for a custom header image and custom background. See more details on the Theme Showcase. San Kloud is designed by Theme.fm. San Kloud Theme More About: Themes
A Faster Way to Publish Posts
2012-03-02 00:18:00 The process of publishing new posts just got simplified big time. Starting today, any time you’re logged in to WordPress.com, you can create and publish new posts without the leaving the page you’re on. So instead of having to visit your blog’s dashboard each time you want to publish a post, now you can start a new post the very second you’re inspired to create one. Simply click the New Post button on the right side of the toolbar, and you can instantly start a new post with the editor that slides down from the top of the screen: First, select the type of content you want to share (text, photo, video, quote, or link). Use the Write a Post tab if you want to include multiple images in your post (or if you want to write a text-only post). If you just want to quickly share a single photo, select the Post a Photo tab. When the post is ready, add some tags if you like, then choose the blog you want to post to (if you have more than one) using the drop-down menu b... More About: Publish , Posts
New Theme: Sundance
2012-03-01 17:02:00 I’m excited to introduce a brand new free video theme brought to you by the team here at Automattic. Despite its minimalist design, Sundance was crafted with clean, elegant typography and close attention to detail. The home page offers a featured video carousel where you can highlight a maximum of ten posts that are assigned to the video post format. In the sidebar, you can add your social network links — Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Flickr — so that your readers can stay connected. Sundance is designed with responsive design in mind. It provides a tailored layout depending on the device you are using. This makes your blog look good not only on desktop browsers, but also on devices with smaller screens, such as the iPad and iPhone. Sundance supports an optional widget area in the sidebar, a custom background, and custom header image. As always, you can click on over to the Theme Showcase to read more about Sundance.
New Theme: Retro-fitted
2012-02-14 18:34:00 I’m pleased to announce the latest addition to the ever-growing collection of free themes here at WordPress.com. Retro -fitted by Justin Tadlock mixes subtle textures with clean lines and shadows to create a beautifully balanced composition perfect for all types of blogs. Retro-fitted can be personalized in a variety of ways. Customize the look of your blog by uploading a header and background image. Take control of you navigation by configuring the dropdown menu. Add widgets to the sidebar for a two-column layout or leave it empty for a single column design. Check it out in the Theme Showcase.
Your Stats Have a New Home
2012-01-26 17:46:00 Are you addicted to checking your site stats? You are not alone. The stats dashboard has always been one of the most popular admin screens. It’s gratifying to know that people are visiting your place online. With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too. Stats are becoming more and more about interacting with your readers and other bloggers. You’ll still see your summary stats and chart on your main dashboard, and the full stats page in your dashboard will remain for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com front page will soon become the home for the most comprehensive view of your stats. While adding the My Stats tab to the front page, we also gave it an updated look by making the panels regularly spaced, using rounded gravatars for your commenters, and giving it an overall lighter feel: We’ll be adding even more feature... More About: Home
Join Our Censorship Protest!
2012-01-18 02:25:00 Have you been paying attention to all the hubbub online about the proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that threatens internet freedom? I wrote about it last week over on WordPress.org, but the gist is this: there’s a bill in the U.S. Senate that if passed would put publishing freedom severely at risk, and could shut down entire sites at the whim of media companies. Fight for the Future created this nifty video to sum it up better than I can. On January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week — S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com VIP I Can Has Cheezburger? will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action. Here on WordPress.com, we want to participate as well. Freshly Pressed will be bl... More About: Censorship , Join , Protest
Black Friday sale: free Custom Design with any Premium theme
2011-11-25 11:00:00 It’s that time of the year again, and we decided to take care of all our users whether they feel like lining up in the cold to take advantage of today’s bargains or not. This year’s offer is about two upgrades that first saw the light of day during the past twelve months: Custom Design and Premium Themes. For the next 24 hours if you pick up any of our Premium Themes we’ll throw in a totally free one year subscription to the Custom Design Upgrade, which would usually cost you $30. Depending on the theme you choose, that’s between 30% and 60% of the Premium Theme’s value. Don’t miss this great occasion to stand out from the crowd, by adding a great Premium Theme to your site, and customizing its fonts and CSS to make it truly yours. If you already have a Custom Design subscription, no problem, we’ll add an extra year to it for free. If you’re not sure on what Premium Themes and the Custom Design upgrade actually do: Premium Themes... More About: Free , Sale , Black , Friday
New Themes: Anthem and Luscious
2011-11-17 18:11:00 I’m happy to announce that we have added two great new premium themes to our ever-expanding Theme Showcase! First up is Anthem – a responsive, minimal design from The Theme Foundry. Anthem is perfect for artists, designers, and photographers who want their images to take center stage. Choose from seven different post formats to give each post a unique look and feel. Anthem provides 4 customizable widget areas in the footer as well as 3 custom menu locations. You can also upload a custom logo image which can be cropped into a circle. Want to find out more? Head on over to the Theme Showcase! Next up we have Luscious by StudioPress. This eye-catching design has been custom-tailored with bloggers and publishers in mind. The deep red tones of Luscious are embellished with bright red and yellow accents drawing attention to each post’s heading. Choose from 6 different layout options, 2 custom menu locations and 7 widgets areas. Read more about Luscious in the Theme Sho... More About: Themes
Easier Invitations Mean More Followers and Blog Contributors
2011-11-15 14:30:00 We’ve made two big changes that make it easier to encourage friends, family, and colleagues to interact with your WordPress.com blog. First, now you can invite people to follow your blog. If your blog is public, anyone can use the Follow button to sign up to receive an update each time you publish new content. But if you’d like to share your blog with specific people, we’ve made it easy to send them an invitation to check out your site. Try it out now and invite some friends to follow your blog: 1. Head to your dashboard and click on Users → Invite New. Type the users’ email addresses or WordPress.com usernames. 2. Set the Role to Follower. 3. If you like, add your own message to personalize the invitation, then click Send Invite. When your friend accepts the invite, they’ll start receiving email updates each time you publish a new post. Secondly, you can also use the new invitations to add contributors to your blog. Have you ever thought that it ... More About: Blog
Notifications, the Pulse of Your Blog
2011-11-07 21:45:00 Your blog lives and breathes. Today we’re launching a new way for you to check its pulse. It’s called Notifications, and it lives in the right corner of your Toolbar (Admin Bar), which appears at the top of your screen while you’re logged in to WordPress.com. Whenever another WordPress.com user follows your blog, or likes one of your posts, Notifications will tell you who your newest fans are by adding a new note to the stack: You can even follow them back, right from within the note. After all, blogging is a journey of discovery and community. If you’re a fan of Google+, as we are, a lot of this will be familiar as many parts were inspired by Google’s toolbar, and a bit by Facebook’s new real-time stream. What will Notifications do in the future? We’ll add more activities, such as comments. We’ll give you a way to go back and see all of your notes in one place (right now, we show the 9 most recent activities). We’ve got... More About: Blog
Your Email Marketing is Missing thi?
2006-08-20 20:18:17 Nope, that is not a typo, so don’t go emailing me or anything… This represents the appearance of the typical subject line in many email marketing campaigns. Too many characters! Good thing I incorporated enough interest - gaining copy in the first few words, or you wouldn’t be reading this post right now. Not a good thing. [...] More About: Marketing , Mail , Email , Email Marketing , Market
Should You Just Throw Away Your Direct Mail Campaign?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 Well, should you? Do you get the feeling that is where all of your postcard or envelope style mailings are going anyway? How do you relieve this “pain” in your marketing? Take two of these and call me in the morning…message and market! Message What does your message sound like? That’s right…I said sound like. When you read [...] More About: Mail , Just , Direct , Your , Campaign
Can Having a Unique Product or Service Help You Market Your
2006-08-06 20:06:07 Of course it can! But do you have unique product or service? Or is yours like everyone else within the same category? No, really… Most business owners make the same critical mistake when positioning their business in the large ocean of competitors they market with. They fail to define what it is they [...] More About: Market , Product , Service , Your , Help
For you Internet Marketers?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 I found a valuable resource not too long ago… A site giving away free Inter net Mark et ing tools, a whole bunch of them.. Click on the image below to access… More About: Intern
Does a Successful Mindset Help Market Your Business?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 You bet it does! As a matter of fact, if there was one thing that could destroy a business or build it faster than a McDonalds…this is it. A successful mindset is the foundation from which all of your business marketing, and the results you track, springs forth. As business owners, we tend to [...] More About: Business , Market , Success , Your , Mind
Do you go the extra mile for your customers?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 Then why do you need new ones? Or…do you bang your head against the wall trying to get new customers? The best marketing technique in the world is (drumroll please?)… Marketing to the customers you already have! Here are a few questions to ask your business and tips to make it better: 1) How many times do your customers [...] More About: Customers , Customer , Your , Mile , Extra
It?s Independance Day!
2006-08-06 20:06:07 Yep. I am going to be like everyone else and post to their blog on Independence Day…and I wish America and everyone a happy 4th of July! But one more thing… In addition to America’s Independance, and since this is a marketing blog…I am going to give thanks to some very special people who helped give me my [...] More About: Dance , Epen
You Want to Market Your Business, But Do You Have Time?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 Well, do you? If not, how do you have time to run a profitable business? By profitable, I am not just talking about money. I also include time to do what you want in profitability. Time is money right? I am going to give you golden nuggets of time management wisdom that I personally use in [...] More About: Business , Market , Your , Have
Can Internet Marketing take your business to the top?
2006-08-06 20:06:07 From The Overture Keyword Selector Tool (please either right click this link and open in a new window, or use the back button to return) you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with [...] More About: Marketing , Business , Internet , Internet Marketing , Market
Are You Leaving Your Yellow Pages Advertising Results To Cha
More articles from this author:2006-08-06 20:06:07 Well are you? When a potential customer looks through the Yellow Page s, they are looking for someone to help them with something pretty specific (i.e. plumbing, auto repair, attorney, etc…). This is about the most targeted prospect you are going to get in your marketing efforts…yet I can tell you that you are missing out [...] More About: Advertising , Results , Your 1, 2 |
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