Thankfully, there are numerous resources online. Gaining access to conferences, even joining in virtually, is easy. The problem is, since there are so many topics and themes to choose from, it can get quite overwhelming. So, we have prepared a resource for all the blogging conferences you MUST NOT MISS for, right here:

Podcast Movement

Podcasting is just like another form of blogging. There are almost a hundred presentations from podcasters all over the world. If you are wanting to shift into a podcasting career, joining this conference is surely a great idea.

Digital Nomad Summit

This is the biggest summit for remote workers and digital nomads in the world. It is a place where bloggers can come together to be inspired by many big names in the industry. This summit has invited speakers featured in big media companies.

Tastemaker Conference

Talking about premier food experience? If you are into food blogging or are in the food industry, don’t miss the Tastemaker conference this coming September. Lifelong connections, new friends, sponsors, and the gift of food. These are just some of the things to look out for.

Inbound

A three-day experience that features big-named speakers like Oprah, Hasan Minhaj, and more. It is not exactly just about content creation or blogging. Instead, it is about getting inspiration, education, and energy to create a brand that bloggers can be confident with.

Traffic and Conversion Summit

Again, if you are a blogger, learning the nitty-gritty behind ranking your page, SEO, networking, and all that are just some of the things you surely need to learn. other than the sessions, there are exhibitions, workshops, and parties bloggers could attend during the conference as well.

Content Marketing World Virtual

As we all know, being a blogger isn’t just about writing anymore. It is also about how to take your content to a whole new level. Doing this requires more knowledge too, however. Analytics, marketing, social media – these are just some of the things that would be discussed at this conference. There are hundreds of sessions to choose from.

International Food Blogger Conference

Food blogging is one of the more popular trends nowadays. Social media gurus, food company representatives, bloggers, – you name it, this conference has it. It may be the biggest food blogging event of the year. Content creators from all over would not only enjoy learning but eating as well.

Pinners Conference & Expo

This is a year-round conference held in various locations around the US. It is intended for bloggers and creatives who are into Pinterest-based content creation. There are classes, networking opportunities, and more during the conference. Creators can work with hundreds of businesses and represent their products.

Phocuswright Conference

Another popular trend in the digital content creation industry right now is travel. The PhocusWright conference is a great place to learn how we create travel content (or any other content, in general) that does not get boring for readers and followers. The main topic for this year’s conference is how creators can get through the industry’s challenges as the world is entering a new phase of ‘normalcy’ that not many of us are familiar with yet.

Social Media Week

Social media plays such a big role in the creation and marketing of content. It is only right that bloggers join in on conferences that teach them how to maximize social media for their blogs.

Google News Initiative

One of the best and longest conferences for the year, the Google News Initiative is available live on YouTube. This means that bloggers can take advantage of staying at the comfort of their homes to learn more about data journalism, machine learning, and the like.

Clamour Creator Summit

Industry professionals and top creators are invited to join in on the Clamour Creator summit for 2022. In this particular conference, content creators are going to have ’roundtable’ discussions with fellow content creators about tips, strategies, ideas, and more. But the most important for this summit would be meeting with potential sponsors that can help bloggers further their content and their brands.

There’s more?

Did we forget a blogging-related conference? Please contact us directly and let us know.

Thanks for your help!

Related Post: Which Blogging Conferences Would You Go To

The post Blog Conferences to Look Out For appeared first on The Blog Herald.

This post may summarize just that and which options are the best, depending on the content you are looking for. Here are some of the best WordPress books to read in 2021:

Introductions, How-tos, and Beginner-friendly books

WordPress for Dummies

Author: Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Kindle Price: $18

Paperback Price: $25.36

Already in its 9th edition, this book helps readers learn all aspects of WordPress in the simplest and least overwhelming approach. Teaches basics on how to customize themes, add plugins, and create a post. Basically, this book considers its readers as users of established WordPress websites. Mainly focuses to help bloggers and editors navigate through WordPress as a content management system, and less on the technical aspects of it.

WordPress: the Missing Manual

Author: Matthew MacDonald

Kindle Price: $30.99

Paperback Price: $33.86

The full title is WordPress: The Missing Manual: The book that should have been in the box. Unlike the first book, this beginner’s manual teaches users how to use WordPress in building a website. It boasts of being jargon-free that teaches basics on setting up WordPress, creating a website, and adding features to it. It also teaches basics on how to use backup tools for the website. Not only that, but it also gives tips on how to use SEO and site statistics in attracting a following. If you are looking for an all-in-one resource, this might be the best to read.

WordPress for Beginners 2020

Author: Dr. Andy Williams

Kindle Price: $4.49 but free for Kindle Unlimited Users

Paperback Price: $12.99

This is only one of the wide collections published by Dr. Andy Williams about WordPress. It is the latest release so it pretty much covers the latest version of WordPress. What is great about this book is that each step-by-step tutorial has screenshots to support it. The book teaches everything from the beginning – how to set up web hosting and domain registrations. How to properly install (the right version) of WordPress. How to use and install WordPress themes. And more. This is a great book to read if you want detailed instructions on how to set up a website to how to manage it.

1-Hour WordPress 2020

Author: Dr. Andy Williams

Kindle Price: $3.69 but free for Kindle Unlimited Users

Paperback Price: $11.99

Can you imagine learning everything you need about WordPress in just under an hour? This is exactly what this book promises its readers. The goal – to teach ANYONE how to build a fully functional WordPress site in less than an hour. If you are creating a website on a whim, and need it ASAP for a small project but have no budget to hire seasoned designers, then maybe this is worth a try.

SEO, Data analysis, and Management books

SEO for WordPress 

Author: Kent Mauresmo

Kindle Price: $5.97

Paperback Price: $5.97

Also, SEO for WordPress: How to get your website on Page #1 of Google… Fast! Teaches a lot of things about permalinks, correct tag usage, image optimization, keyword analysis, and advanced keyword research. Pretty much everything SEO is here.

Make Money Blogging

Author: Lee Sebastian

Kindle Price: $2.99 but free for Kindle Unlimited Users

Paperback Price: $13.38

Also, Make Money Blogging: How to Set Up a Blog on Your Own Self-Hosted Domain and Make Money. There is very technical information here that teaches passionate writers not only to become successful bloggers but also to learn how to manage websites to make them more profitable.

How to Blog for Profit without Selling Your Soul

Author: Ruth Soukup

Kindle Price:$9.99

An Amazon Best Seller, this is the content creator’s best friend. It teaches how to create action plans on how to produce a profitable blog. It also helps readers on improving productivity and more.

SEO for WordPress Power Bloggers

Author: Karen Callahan

Kindle Price: $3.97 but free for Kindle Unlimited Users

SEO is indeed essential knowledge for bloggers and content creators. It is important to master it so it could be used to your advantage. This book teaches how to use SEO specifically for WordPress websites.

Building, Coding, Design, and Development with WordPress

WordPress Security 2020 for WebMasters

Author: Dr. Andy Williams

Kindle Price: $3.69 but free for Kindle Unlimited Users,

Paperback Price: $8.99

Security is one of the most technical, and most important, pieces of knowledge every WordPress user must know and understand. It is a crucial aspect of website building that could save you from completely losing a website and its content. This book focuses on how to tighten up security for WordPress websites and how to prevent hackers from getting in.

Building Web Apps with WordPress

Author: Brian Messenlehner

Paperback Price: $34.99

This is a great book to read for seasoned programmers who are new to WordPress website building. It compares design and development using WordPress with the usual programming languages like PHP, CSS, and more. It also gives ideas on how to build customized plugins for personal use. A great book to read for seasoned programmers.

WordPress Theme Development

Author: Rachel McCollin

If you want to expand your knowledge beyond creating and building WordPress sites, this is a great go-to book. How do you build your first WordPress theme? Which language is best to use for this? This is a great book to read if you want a bit of a challenge.

WordPress 5 Cookbook

Author: Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake

This book familiarizes uses with common problems encountered when building WordPress websites. It also teaches what kinds of solutions are available and how to avoid such problems. It is a great book that is newly published and is worth a read.

Related Post: Level Up Your Skills With These 14 Free Writing Workshops Online

The post 12 Best WordPress Books to Read in 2021 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Here are some of the best plug-ins that you REALLY need in your WordPress site for 2022:

For SEO Solutions and Google Analytics

Yoast SEO

Pricing and Plans: 

The basic plan is completely free. Premium Yoast costs about $89 for 1 site.

Why you need it:

• It is considered as the #1 WordPress SEO Plugin
• The plugin will surely supersize your website’s SEO performance
• This helps optimize your site for searchability and even grades content for SEO performance (and possible room for improvement)
• Premium version has better features

MonsterInsights

Pricing and Plans:

The Plus plan costs about $99.5 per year, the Pro plan costs about $199.5 per year, Agency plans costs $399.5 per year.

Why you need it: 

• It gives an overview or summary of website performance on just one page.
• All the statistics presented are always in real-time.
• Google Analytics is always a friend when it comes to website performance
• This plugin allows to track clicks, visitors, and traffic without Google’s comprehensive analytics tool

All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

Pricing and Plans:

The basic plan costs $49.50 per year, Plus plan costs $99.5, Pro Plan costs $199.5, and the Elite plan costs $299.5 per year.

Why you need it: 

• It is easy to manage and access
• Allows schema markup to get more traffic and clicks (Rich Snippets Schema)
• It integrates easily with social media platforms
• The plugin has an audit feature to check for critical errors
• It allows submission of content to Google News

The SEO Framework

Pricing and Plans:

Absolutely free!

Why you need it: 

• The features allow maximum SEO performance without needing advanced SEO knowledge
• It allows for optimization of metadata because it “follows Google’s webmaster guidelines to the letter”.
• The plugin offers suggestions on how to improve your pages with color-coded guidelines.

For Backups

UpdraftPlus

Pricing and Plans:

Offers a free version. The premium version is available for only $42 per year.

Why you need it: 

• The plugin offers restoration and backup of data and content
• The backup has many options including cloud backup
• Automatic backup schedules are easy and convenient for users
• It deals with hackers, server crashes, and error detection
• The premium feature offers free support via forum and email for one year, also offers free storage subscription to Updraft Vault.

VaultPress (Jetpack Backup)

Pricing and Plans:

There are multiple packages available. For daily backups, the price is $3.99 per month. For daily security, it costs $9.99 per month. For real-time security, it costs $24.99, the complete package costs $49.99.

Why you need it: 

• The plugin backups data in real-time
• It protects the website against malware, accidental damage, host outages, and hackers
• It is powered by Jetpack

BackupBuddy

Pricing and Plans:

Prices range between $52 to $357 per year. The lifetime plan is only $357 per year

Why you need it: 

• It detects user errors and bad commands
• The plugin protects against malware, hackers, and server crashes
• One feature is to restore deleted files
• Backups EVERYTHING on a WordPress website include (but not limited to) plugin files, media library, widgets, comments, users, themes, and more

BackWPup

Pricing and Plans: 

The basic version is open source but the pro version could be bought for $69 for one site.

Why you need it: 

• It offers a complete backup and support
• The plugin is a standalone app for ’emergency restoration’
• It also offers a database backup and WordPress XML Export

For Security

WordFence Security

Pricing and Plans:

Offers services for free. The paid version is only $99 per year.

Why you need it: 

• It is free to use for as many sites
• The plugin is very sensitive to breached password usages, limiting failed login attempts, and more.
• Monitors hack attempts and records time spent on the site, IP address, and origin of a possible hacker.

Sucuri

Pricing and Plans:

The basic plan is free and the pro version is sold for only $299 per year.

Why you need it: 

• The plugin cleans up WordPress sites at no additional cost in case of malware
• It is very easy to set up on the dashboard
• A feature is a protection from all known attacks
• It has a track and log of EVERYTHING that happens on the website including logins, failed login attempts, and file changes.

iThemes Security Pro

Pricing and Plans: 

Blogger plan is offered for only $80 per year, Small business plan is only $127 per year, and Gold plans are offered for $199 per year.

Why you need it: 

• It has a file change detection feature
• The plugin protects against brute force login attempts
• The bad users are automatically locked out of the website (generating too many 404 errors)
• It also offers database backups.

Jetpack

Pricing and Plans:

The basic plan is free and the Security Daily Plan is only $19.95 per month.

Why you need it: 

• It has a one-click restore feature
• The plugin alerts website owners via email if the website is down
• Real-time backups are offered every time something on the website is changed.
• Automatically blocks spams in comments

BONUS: For email marketing needs, etc

WP Forms

Optinmonster

MemberPress

Constant Contact

Related Post: Free Mind Mapping Tools Online to Stimulate Your Creative Juices

Related Post: 5 Killer WordPress SEO Plugins You Might Not Have Heard Of

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Mind maps can be used for strategizing, problem-solving, planning, and more. A note-taking tool that is taken to the next level!

What is a mind map?

A mind map is a brainstorming tool that uses a simple diagram to visually present information. The purpose of a mind map is to create varied ideas (or branches) from a ‘central idea’. This is great for bloggers that want to stick to a central niche and explore different topics that touch-up on the same ideas. If you are just planning out your blog, a mind map is a great way to explore topics and ideas. The chosen niche becomes the central idea. Then, the branches are the categories for your blog. The subbranches can then be considered as future topic ideas.

Furthermore, bloggers can regularly use mind maps when writing. For instance, a writer or blogger can choose a central “theme” for a month or a week. The branches of the mind map are the specific topics and the subbranches can serve as the article outline. Bloggers have many ways to maximize a mind map!

Are online tools necessary?

Well, yes AND no. If brainstorming is a task that must be done as a team, then online tools might be necessary. There are tools available online that can be shared virtually. If you need to present your mind map with your team, and you think it is valuable that your team can jot in their ideas, then an online tool may be necessary. Another helpful thing about keeping a virtual mind map is that you can access it, and expand it anytime.

However, mind maps can be created even on any piece of paper. If an idea randomly pops up in your head and you only got a pen and paper? Then go ahead and map the ideas out to get the momentum going and to squeeze all the creative juices out of it. Although let’s be honest, it is still more fun to create mind maps if you have fun shapes and colors to choose from.

Here are some of the best free mind mapping tools online:

MindOnMap

MindOnMap is an incredible mind mapping tool you can use on any browser. Here are the best features of MindOnMap:

• Draw any maps and diagrams for free based on your needs.
• Straightforward interface and button settings.
• Enable to design the appearance of your mind map by yourself.
• Can insert images and links into mind maps.
• Share links of mind maps with others online (you can encrypt links).
• Export mind maps and diagrams as JPG, PNG, PDF, etc.

Mind Mup

Some of the best features of MindMup are the following:

• Allows publishing and online sharing of maps
• Easy to convert maps to different formats like PDF, JPEG, and PowerPoint
• Manageable using Google Drive
• Allows document attachments and image uploads
• Cloud allows for collaboration
• Completely free with no registration requirements

Mind Meister

Here are the best features of Mind Meister:

• Allows signup using Google and Facebook
• Available for easy download via the App store
• Very user-friendly
• Can be used using different devices
• Easily customizable
• Basic is free with registration requirements
• Chatting in the app is a paid feature

Coggle

Coggle has the best features here:

• Offers a free trial (for paid services) but the basic plan is free
• Allows real-time collaboration where users can collaborate at the same time
• Every change is saved and can be retrieved or viewed when needed
• Drag and drop option for image and attachment upload

Canva

Canva also has impressive mind mapping tools:

• No download required
• No registration required
• Multiple templates and ready-to-use formats are available for free
• Easily customizable
• Elements, photos, audio, and videos can be added to the mind map

Lucid Spark

Lucid Spark offers impressive features such as:

• The basic plan is completely free
• Collaboration feature is available
• Freehand drawings are allowed
• Voting mode is available for paid plans

Lucid Chart

Lucid Chart is a mind mapping tool while Lucid Spark is a brainstorming tool. Additional features for Lucid Chart are:

• Basic plans are free
• Saved documents are editable
• Hundreds of free professional templates

Xmind

Being one of the best online tools available, Xmind boasts of the following irresistible features:

• Can be downloaded for free
• Has a mobile and desktop version
• There is a gallery of available templates
• Real works from real users are available for viewing

Miro

An online whiteboard, Miro has impressive features such as:

• Allows seeing collaborators’ cursors in real-time
• Screen sharing is available
• Tagging (@users) can be used to call the attention of team members
• Chatting and commenting features are available
• Registration is free, and basic features are available for free as well

Free Mind

Here are the best features of FreeMind:

• Users prefer this as it is open-source
• Downloading this app is completely free
• Can be saved or exported in different formats
• Can be used in different OS (Windows, Linux, iOS)
• Developed by Java

Related Post: Level Up Your Skills With These 14 Free Writing Workshops Online

The post Free Mind Mapping Tools Online appeared first on The Blog Herald.

That’s because the typical case in slow websites is that they’re bogged down by unoptimized images. Take a quick look at your WordPress image gallery and if you see some image sizes with “MB” instead of just “KB,” you got yourself a problem that image optimizer plugins for WordPress can certainly fix.

Otherwise, it could be some server-related issues, but in any case, even if you think your images are optimized but you never used any plugins for them, then it’s high time you give them some meticulous care. Check out these WordPress plugins to help your images and your website speed.

EWWW Image Optimizer

By far, EWWW is one of the most popular image optimizer plugins for WordPress. It provides near-unparalleled ease of use since it optimizes the images you upload on the fly. This can save a lot of time especially if you’re used to manually reducing the sizes of your images as those require external software.

Moreover, EWWW performs image optimization on your own servers. You don’t even need an account of your own to use EWWW, though you can still sign up for it if you prefer. To that end, EWWW is completely free and has no image or file size limits.

Notes:

• Free, no account or signups required
• No file size limit
• Easy-to-use, good quality of life features.
• Works on your servers

Optimole

Uploading an image and then not worrying about it anymore once it’s in your media library is Optimole’s strength. It tailors your images to fit in users’ specific mobile devices or different kinds of screens. Of course, WordPress also has something like this but Optimole improves upon that feature.

Optimole is also intuitive enough to have its own dashboard outside of WordPress so you can tweak the intricate details of your images. You also don’t have to worry about your images loading slowly with Optimole.

Notes:

• Free, but requires an account
• Uses a Javascript workaround to ensure your images always load
• Free plan only allows 1GB of total image data per month

Compress JPEG & PNG images

If you have a ton of old images you left unoptimized due to your website or blog being old, you might find optimizing them one-by-one tedious work. Compressing JPEG & PNG images can be a timesaver in that regard. It’s also one of the free image optimization plugins for WordPress but only allows for 100 images to be optimized per month (free account).

What the plugin makes up for is its ability to bulk-optimize images all at once. It also optimizes any new upload while you’re in the process of doing it. You also get an automatic image-sizing parameter with every new image upload; the plugin will automatically crop or resize the image according to your preferred size.

Notes:

• Free
• Free account has a 100-image limit per month
• Great for bulk-optimizations

RELATED: How to Optimize eCommerce Product Images for Search and Social Media

Imagify

The user interface is where Imagify excels. It has arguably one of the most stylish layouts and dashboards among all image optimizer plugins for WordPress. The minimal menu and option design is also user-friendly and can shorten the time you spend tinkering with image compression.

Additionally, Imagify lets you pick a lossless compression for your images if ever you want to preserve the image quality while still managing to reduce the image size. As an added bonus, Imagify can also optimize your WordPress theme for you.

Notes:

• Free
• Free plan allows 1GB of image data
• Great minimal UI, easy to use
• Lets you use lossless compression

reSmush.it

reSmush.it is often regarded as the best out of all the image optimizer plugins for WordPress by many users in regards to how much it can compress while retaining the image quality. Like Imagify, it also has bulk optimizations for your older images as well as automated optimization upon upload.

Perfect as it may seem, reSmush.it does have some shortcomings; it doesn’t let you choose different compression levels. Optimization is also only available for images below 5MB (free account), 4K images or anything bigger might be exempted. If that’s crucial for your website, then you might want to use another plugin.

Notes:

• Free
• 5MB maximum image size limit for free accounts
• Bulk optimization
• No compression options

ShortPixel Image Optimizer

ShortPixel is highly similar to Imagify especially when it comes to appearance. Both have minimalist UIs but ShortPixel gives you an advanced page if you want more customized images. There’s also a 100-image limit per month for free accounts.

Where ShortPixel shines is its thoughtfulness; it gives you a comparison of your original image versus the compressed or optimized image so you can tweak the settings to achieve your preference.

Notes:

• Free, 100 images per month
• Easy UI, lots of options too
• Lets you compare compressed images with the original
• No file size restrictions

Smush

Not to be confused with reSmush.it, Smush is also quite popular as image optimizer plugins for WordPress go. It also has automatic optimization upon upload and lets you bulk optimize older images– up to 50 images all at once and you can even make them lossless.

You also get plenty of compression options from resolution changes to scale-downs. The downside is the rather limiting free mode; Smush only allows 1MB maximum filesize for images (free accounts).

Notes:

• Free
• Each image can only be 1MB maximum for free accounts
• No need to signup
• Robust bulk optimization

As for which plugin we’d go with, reSmush.it apparently takes the cake when it comes to the compression-quality ratio. Of course, feel free to test out other options depending on your needs.

RELATED: How You Should Decide Which Images to Use on Your Blog

First published in 2019; updated February 2022

The post Best Image Optimizer Plugins for WordPress in 2022 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

However, there is more to being a good copyright citizen than just writing your own content, quoting only what you need to in your entries, and attributing your sources. Your blog is much more than just text and there are many copyright “hazards” that even well-intended bloggers can step in.

In the past, I wrote an article about holiday copyright hazards for bloggers to avoid. But while the holidays are an especially dangerous time for copyright issues, they are a potential thorn in the side year round.

So with that in mind, here are five copyright hazards to avoid, regardless of the time of year.

1. Images

If you treat Google Image Search as your personal stock photo library, you’re pretty much asking for trouble. Not only is it likely a copyright infringement, unless you filter results for images that allow reuse first, but as image matching technology improves, including services such as Tineye, more and more rightsholders, large and small, are tracking their works.

When you seek to include an image with your post or use one in your theme, it is important to make sure that you have clearance to do so. Failure to do get permission can, and often does, lead to big headaches down the road.

How to Avoid: Avoiding this one is simple, when you look for an image, find ones with Creative Commons license that you can use. WordPress users can use the PhotoDropper plugin to greatly speed the process along.

2. Themes

When it comes to copyright and blogs, few things are stickier than themes. Themes have many different components, some of which may or may not be GPL depending on your blogging platform of choice, and many theme developers, though well-intended, make mistakes when clearing the rights to the work they use.

To make matters more complicated, many themes have licenses that require the user to keep a footer on the site or pay a certain amount to remove it.

Considering how critical your theme is to your site, it makes sense to make sure that it is up to code in terms of copyright.

How to Avoid: You have to think of themes in three different parts, the code that runs the site, the stylesheets/JavaScripts that aid it and the images that make it give it polish. If you use WordPress, the code itself is probably GPL-licensed, making it available for you to use, but the stylesheets, other scripts and images probably are not. As such, you need to make sure that you are complying with the license of the theme itself and you will likely want to replace the images in the theme, both to ensure proper licensing and to make the theme “yours”.

Also, try not to stray from the official WordPress theme directory for free themes. The requirements Automattic places on themes for inclusion (full GPL themes, no hidden links, etc.) ensure that the themes are safe from all sides.

3. Embedded Content

Though the odds of you getting in trouble for embedding YouTube clips into your site is fairly slim, putting content into your blog that you know is likely infringing can leave you with broken embeds and a lot of embarrassment.

It may not be as bad as some of the other hazards in terms of the consequences, but having a lot of “video removed” embeds on your site is ugly, especially considering that YouTube doesn’t notify embedders that the content has been removed (just the submitter). As such, the down videos could stay on your site for a very long time without you being aware.

How to Avoid: The easiest way to avoid this problem is to embed only from official YouTube channels or from official sites such as Hulu and TheDailyShow.com. However, one has to be careful even there as these videos often “cycle off” after a certain number of days, making them no longer available. While still annoying, at least you know of it beforehand and it doesn’t say the video was removed for copyright or terms of service reasons.

4. Comments

Comments may not seem like much of a legal danger, and indeed they aren’t on many sites, but as more and more blogs focus on interaction and community, comments become a more and more crucial part of the site, oftentimes outweighing the original post many times over.

You may not control what people post on your site, but as the one with the power to use the “delete” key, you do have obligations under the law, at least if you are blogging from the U.S., EU, and other regions with a “notice and takedown system”. As such, even if it is only an outside chance, it’s important to be prepared for the possibility you may be called upon to act.

How to Avoid: First, discourage comments that are infringing, a key element of any set of comments guidelines, and delete any comments which are clearly infringing. Then, make yourself available and ensure that your contact information is easily located on the site. If someone contacts you about an infringement that takes place in the comments and does so in a way that complies with your local requirements, remove the infringing material.

Doing that should ensure that you avoid the worst of the potential dangers.

5. Fonts

Using a font in an image, perhaps for a logo, or using it to design isn’t going to land you in any hot water, however, if you embed the font or otherwise have users download the font to their machine, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a copyright dispute.

Though we tend to think of fonts as being trivial things, they are, in most cases, protected by copyright. Though you can use them in the intended manner, distributing them to others is not allowed without permission.

As such, you need to be careful not to distribute fonts on your site without a license to do so. This pains many graphic designers and typographers, who wish to use custom fonts on their site, but the legal risks are very real.

How to Avoid: The easiest way to avoid this is to not make any fonts available for download. Even if you use a free one, you may not have the right to redistribute it.

But more than a potential copyright violation, it is also annoying to have to download a font to make a site work correctly. As such, it’s best to stick to web safe fonts and put your fancy text, which should be kept to a minimum regardless, in your images.

Bottom Line

The Web, at times, can seem like a copyright minefield and for good reason. There are a lot of pitfalls to worry about and void. Some of it is common sense, but many of the dangers lie beneath the surface.

It’s worthwhile to educate yourself on the law, especially as it relates to you and your site geographically, and follow it closely. Failure to do so can result in a slew of copyright headaches and results in all of or parts of your site being shut down.

If you’re spending the time to write a blog, craft new content, and promote it to your readers, you owe it to yourself to take the extra time to make sure that it is around as long as you want it to be.

It doesn’t make any sense to risk your hard work because you were unaware of the pitfalls around you.

First published in 2009; updated in January 2022

The post 7 Copyright Hazards to Avoid appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The high surge of content creation and vlogging has further increased in the past couple of years. This makes installing WordPress Plugins for video quite a necessity for bloggers. Nowadays, internet users of ALL ages find excitement in engaging with others not only through watching videos but also in creating and sharing them. This is especially true during the current pandemic when people have found that internet videos (watching, creating, and sharing) are a great source of entertainment.

In fact, internet videos are so influential that a good majority of social media platforms have adjusted their designs to encourage their users to create and share more videos. This is quite evident with Facebook Stories, Instagram Reels, and TikTok. This has encouraged websites and blogs to adjust and incorporate more videos into their content.

While, yes, you can easily embed some code into your blog post, there are many WordPress plugins for video. From helping you share self-hosted videos to displaying videos from YouTube or social media in a beautiful way, there’s something for everyone.

Quadlayers TikTok Feed

In the last two years alone, the quantity of TikTok users has grown exponentially. TikTok’s content is made up entirely of videos created by its users and learning how to integrate a website with the platform can be highly beneficial. This Quadlayers TikTok Feed plugin (or WP TikTok Feed) allows for the easiest integration. So, what benefits can we gain from installing these kinds of WordPress plugins for video? It simplifies video uploads onto your WordPress site. Other than that, it easily recovers data from your feed including likes and comments.

Embed Plus for YouTube

If YouTube is your go-to video site, this plugin will help you save time. You can search and directly embed videos, view analytics and even see what people across the web are saying about a video. Its settings page also allows you to automatically set defaults for videos you embed. The latest update also puts ease in embedding entire channels which allows readers to scan through a channel’s entire gallery. All these are among other great features.

Instead of copying and pasting HTML code, all you have to do is copy and paste the YouTube video URL into your post. That means no more messing around with code, and with the proper dimensions for video embeds set in the defaults, no need to edit that either.

The best part about this plugin? Well, it is compatible with both the Gutenberg block editor and the classic WordPress editor.

Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is more of a gallery plugin with a WordPress capability. Still, for its designated purpose and the bonus, it’s one of the best, meaning you wouldn’t want to ignore this one. It comes with its own Videos Addon feature for WordPress and this lets you grab clips from YouTube, Wistia, or even your own self-hosted WordPress videos.

Additionally, you get plenty of options when it comes to customizing your video embeds for your website. Envira Gallery lets you display videos with several options and easily too. The said plugin lets you drag and drop to add videos or a gallery of videos on your blog. Of course, some of its more advanced functions come in at a premium price, but you can stay free if you want.

All-in-One Video Gallery

The downside to incorporating internet videos into any blog is the fact that there are just too many video types and formats. What this plugin boasts about is that it supports all types of videos and video-hosting services. Its flexibility and compatibility are what hooks bloggers to this plugin – even if your blog and your video have different hosts. Although the free version is a bit limited, it is still complete enough for any blogger’s use.

YourChannel

Up next is a plugin that’s most likely best suited for content creators who also dabble in videos. If, in addition to your website, you’re also a YouTuber and want an easy way to both manage your YouTube channel and embed your videos to your main site, then YourChannel is perfect for you. It’s not as popular as some of the more mainstream options in this list but it also has a free version.

With YourChannel, you can easily turn your website or blog into a place of engagement similar to YouTube. The best part is that you don’t even need additional storage for this; YourChannel lets you load your videos and playlists from the comfort of the WordPress site, with no need for additional messy tabs, leading to overall better user experience. It’s also quite easy to set up.

RELATED: Improve Your Blog With These 5 Types Of Blog Video Content

VideoPack (formerly Video Embed & Thumbnail Generator)

Depending on what you’re working on, some videos may not be best uploaded to a site like YouTube. For example, if you’re selling a product or wanting a video to be seen by only a select group of people. With Video Embed & Thumbnail Generator, you can easily embed self-hosted videos in a wide variety of formats. Once a video is uploaded, you can choose a thumbnail from the video to set as the featured image, or add the URL to a different image.

What is great about this plugin is the fact that it automatically selects the resolution closest to the size of the player, or nearest to what you have set as default. Viewer control also isn’t an issue as you can provide a button for your viewers to manually select their preferred resolution. Videopack’s blogger favorite feature should be the Videopack Ads premium add-on. This allows bloggers to add advertisements to the videos.

ARVE

ARVE sounds like new bleeding-edge technology and depending on how much you like it, you can treat the plugin that way. It actually stands for Advanced Responsive Video Embedder. As such, it does what it’s been named for and then some more. ARVE is compatible with a wide variety of video formats and websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox, Facebook, HTML5, and more.

For some, ARVE might even be the best there is given its versatility and flexibility when it comes to different video types. To that end, you can think of ARVE as a Swiss Army knife for video embeds. It likely has a solution for every compatibility problem you’ll face if you want to show videos on your website. Surprisingly, it also comes with a free and premium version. It is also compatible with both the classic WP editor and the Gutenberg block editor.

Elite Video Player

Elite Video Player’s name precedes its reputation. That “elite” moniker is not just for show or marketing– it really is one of the cleanest and most functional WordPress plugins for video. Unlike other plugins, this has unique features that bloggers simply can’t pass on. One unique feature is its compatibility with YouTube’s live-streaming and 360 VR videos that gives viewers a unique omnidirectional experience. Another would be the plugin’s support for Google Drive and Dropbox videos.

Spider Video Player

Spider Video Player is similar to Elite Video Player but can be simpler to operate. It also allows for customization provided you know how to code a little bit with HTML5.

Additionally, Spider Video Player proudly boasts compatibility with a lot of devices from phones, desktops, to even tablets. This has much to do with how it implements utilizes for Flash and HTML5 where the latter would be a backup to the former if it turns out that a device does not support Flash. Thankfully, such generous features also come with a free version in case you’re just starting out.

Video Portal

More of an add-on than a plugin, Video Portal extends and improves features of your existing video plugins. One unique feature would be its Facebook login component. This allows users to review videos watched, playlists, “liked” videos that are linked to their personal Facebook accounts, in case they wish to embed them into their blogs.

If you are looking for WordPress plugins for video – these are probably the best ones to explore!

RELATED: How to Turn Your Best Blog Posts Into Even Better Videos

The post Top WordPress Plugins for Video appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Uploading and downloading works on the internet is a gray area for many. A lot of photographers and artists do not get attribution for their work while many content creators do not acknowledge the origin of the images that they use. Crawlers and browser search algorithms are much stricter now when it comes to reusing works without licenses. A webpage could be taken down for simply re-using an unlicensed image.

This is why it is inevitable to purchase licenses of works from artists and photographers on the internet. Google Image Search even has a feature that links to the licensing of images on their search results. However, not every writer has the capacity to purchase licenses for their works all the time. The great thing is that artists and photographers are willing to share their work online for free, these are called ‘creative commons’.

Here are some websites where writers could get news-related images for free:

Superfamous

If you are looking for any artsy images, then Superfamous is the place to go. The collection does not have that many photographs and does not necessarily focus on a particular topic or genre. However, anyone looking for a show-stopping piece may visit the website to choose from any of the stunning images in the collection. The deal about Superfamous images is that they all have creative commons licenses. This means that they are free to use as long as proper credit is provided.

Travel Coffee Book

The best travel moments can never be captured by photographs, but they do come close if taken with great care. Travel Coffee Book is one of the best depositories of travel and landscape images on the internet. It pretty much covers almost every corner of the globe from Asia to Europe. The website was created in 2014 and the owner does explicitly say that the images could be used for free. However, the creator does accept donations or minimal payments from those who are generous enough to pay for as low as $5.

KaboomPics

This website is very similar to popular image collections like Pixabay and Pexels. According to the website, the photos could be downloaded and used for both commercial and non-commercial use. They do not require attribution. The images could be used on books, posters, shirts, or whatever. This is as long as the images are not used for any criminal, illegal, or offensive activities. The owners are only very strict about redistribution of the images, altered or not. What they are strict about is selling the image as a ‘stock photo’ on a separate website.

Gratisography

This is a good collection of the ‘non-standard’ stock photo. The images are quite artistic, in a quirky kind of way. All the images are free and could be used even for commercial uses. The rules about the redistribution of the images, just like in Kaboom Pics, are very strict. Images should not be sold by anyone as a stock image, since the images are downloaded for free.

Death to Stock Photo

What is great about Death-to-stock is that they have not only images but videos and vectors as well. The images are all unique and authentic. All the artworks could be used for both commercial and non-commercial uses. However, unlike other websites, Death-to-stock is free only for 14 days. Subscription is required for a minimal fee, in financial support of the artists creating all the pieces on the website.

Jopwell Collection

Talk about taking stock photos to a whole new level! These are great photos that are not cringe-y and meme-able like your standard stock images. It features real people and real communities. One of the main goals of the images is to not only represent inclusivity but also practice it. Many of their images, feature models of different races and genders. A lot of their editors, analysts, leaders, and the like are Asian American, African American, Hispanic American, and even Native Americans. The Jopwell collection provides hundreds of free-to-download images that can be used by anyone, as long as proper credit is given back to Jopwell.

All in all

There are multiple sources for images online. The websites indicated above are among the best to use for free images. However, downloading and reusing images are always tricky. For safety, always attribute the sources of an image and backlink to their accounts. This not only helps the artist but is also a nod to respecting their work.

Also Read: Platforms for Guest Blogging and Why You Should have Collaborative Content

First published in October 2020; updated January 2022

The post Sites to Get Free News-Related Images appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Here are some cool gift ideas for bloggers:

Physical gifts and gadgets

Robot Vacuum

With all the work bloggers have on a daily basis, we don’t really get the time to clean up. A robot vacuum is a great tool that could help bloggers ease up on housework. A robot vacuum is a great playmate for their cats and dogs, too.

Vlogging Camera

One of the best gifts to give our blogger friends would be something they could use for their work on a regular basis. A vlogging camera and there are a lot of brands out there, is definitely a great (albeit expensive) choice. So, if you dearly love your blogger friends or you are a blogger looking for a gift for yourself, a high-quality vlogging camera is always a worthy investment.

Planners

A planner is something cute a lot of us get to use for a few months before we forget about them for the rest of the year. But, hey, maybe this year is different, right? A planner is a great gift, for bloggers and non-bloggers. This is a great tool that could help us with schedules, meetings, reminders, and notes. Or, it is also a great place to practice our calligraphy hobbies. Let us let our blogger friends de-stress by practicing their scrapbooking and calligraphy with a great planner.

Portable Espresso Machine

Honestly, we all know that bloggers work late nights and early mornings – editing, writing, and planning. If you are looking for a gift for your best blogger friend, the best thing would be something that would perk them up. Why not purchase a portable espresso machine for them? These are easy to carry and lightweight, something they could bring anywhere they go for that yummy coffee fix anytime and anywhere.

Digital Clock

Blogging is not all about the work, sometimes it’s also about the aesthetic. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to a cool and quirky digital alarm clock, right? Besides, with all the work bloggers have, a digital clock is a handy tool they need to remind them that THERE ARE DEADLINES TO MEET.

Subscriptions and virtual Presents

Because we are still in a pandemic and going out is not the same as before, why not give your blogger friend a virtual present? These could come in digital cards, subscriptions, and even gift cards. Here are some of the best virtual gift ideas:

Print at home gift cards

We don’t want to be wasting money on gifts that our friends would not be able to use. If you are pressed for time to think of a gift, an Amazon gift card would be a great choice. Not only can our blogger friends be able to choose a gift of their liking, they could also choose a time to spend it.

Spotify Premium

Listening to music is one fo the best ways to relax after a long day of work. Giving our friends a Spotify premium subscription is a thoughtful gift. Not only are we thinking about the work they do, we also show them that we care about their relaxation and well-being.

Grammarly Subscription

THIS. This is probably the ultimate, most-trust worthy gift anyone could give a blogger. Not only would it make their work so much easier, a Grammarly subscription is also a useful tool not only for their writing work but everywhere else.

Uber Eats Gift Card

There will be days when bloggers have so much work, they don’t have the energy (or time) to cook. An UberEats gift card is a thoughtful gift that they could use anytime, and anywhere.

Also read: How to Research Content for Your Blog Post

The post 9 Gifts for Bloggers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you are looking for a few underrated, but good, websites that could help you in your blogging journey, these websites are the best for you.

For Content Generation

Uber Suggest by Neil Patel

Ubersuggest is created by SEO expert, Neil Patel. This website is intended to help bloggers in generating keyword ideas for their content marketing. Simply type in a keyword, and the website will provide high-success suggestions based on competitor performance. Why do we need this? We all know how important keyword management is for maximum SEO success.

Answer Socrates

Are you feeling like you have nothing to write? This is a good website to visit for content ideas. Simply type in a topic, and the website will generate all the questions that users have typed in on search engines about it. It is important to note that these are questions that real people are asking Google, so the chances that your topic will get picked up by Google SERP are going to be high. On top of that, you can also create varied content on a single topic, based on what users are asking about it. It is a very helpful content generation tool.

Tip of my Tongue

Some people call it a writer’s block, we call it a writer’s obstacle. Sometimes, the flow of our content is affected by the times we can’t find the best ways to write the words down. We experience this multiple times in the course of our blogging careers and finding that word at the tip of your tongue is challenging. Thankfully, we have this tool to help us.

For Social Media

Gravtag

We have to admit that, as bloggers, social media hashtags help us get more organic traffic. Gravtag is a website that helps us generate good hashtags that will help us reach more people on Instagram. But, we can also use it to generate hashtags for other social media platforms.

SnapTik

If you are looking for a way to download TikTok videos without the watermark, and in HD quality, SnapTik is one of the best apps for you to download. It can also help you bookmark your favorite TikTok videos. For bloggers, content on social media platforms like this helps create new content.

For Graphics and editing

Photopea

In one way or another, as bloggers, we would need to edit images to use for our content. Whether it is a commons resource or a photo you have taken yourself, editing will bring more life to your images. However, Photoshop can be a little overwhelming to use. On top of that, the licenses can get pretty expensive. So for newbie bloggers out there, Photopea is one of the best photo editing resources you could use.

The Noun Project

If designing your blog is also one daunting task you have, the Noun Project is a good resource for you. They have generic icons and photos for, as they claim, everything. If you are on a tight design budget and want to save up a few bucks for images and icons, try searching this website and you might find just what you need.

RemoveBG

Again, photo-editing can be an overwhelming task, and simply removing an image’s background can do so much for us to lessen our load. This website offers its services for free with no download or signups required. However, signing up for an account can also be helpful for more perks.

Placeit

Are you looking for a tool that will help you in your design projects? This might be a helpful resource for you. Subscription does come with a fee, but rest assured that it is affordable.

For SEO

Spyfu

Every blogger needs a tool to help in boosting SEO. There is a multitude of resources available on the internet, but Spyfu gives just about the same performance as expensive tools out there. This website helps in providing comparative analysis between your and your competitor’s website.

Link Whisper

Building internal links can be a tricky job, but Link Whisper is a simple but useful app you could use for this. It could be downloaded and installed as a plugin for your website. Then, it would generate suggested (highly relevant) links to your new posts based on your content history.

SEO Minion

A good browser plugin, this is a great sidekick to any blogging job. It helps bloggers perform SEO tasks that look and feels menial, but does so much improvement to a blog or website. It could be downloaded and installed to your browser completely free.

For Time Management

Eggtimer

Let’s be honest, time management is one of the biggest obstacles any content creator or blogger has. With so much content to be planned and written, on top of everything that needs to be edited, posted, promoted, etc, you need a tool to help you manage your time. It may just be a simple countdown timer, but it works wonders for you to manage your time well.

Clockify

A lot of online blogging work is done remotely, and if you are managing a team, it could be difficult to track down the time everyone has worked throughout a period. Clockify is a good way to help you build a timesheet for your workers across all your projects.

Habitica

They say that it takes 30 days to form a habit, but that 30 days is always a challenge. There are times that we feel our work is overwhelming with the number of competition on the internet. But, do not fret as Habitica will help you form habits you never knew you could have.

For other random stuff

Outline

Research is a big task every content creator and blogger needs to face daily. And, reading resources all over can take a significant amount of time for us. Outline is a great tool that could help us annotate content from the internet.

Noisli

Keeping our focus during work can be a challenging thing with all the distractions surrounding us. If you have a deadline to meet, focusing gets even harder. Noisli can help us find relaxing sounds to help us with our focus.

Ratatype

Of course, typing speed is still one important skill we all must learn as bloggers. It may seem minor and simple, but a faster typing speed makes so much difference in meeting goals and targets.

Also read: How To Optimize Pinterest for Blogging

The post Useful, but Unknown, Websites Every Blogger Must Know appeared first on The Blog Herald.

So, if you are a blogger thinking of optimizing Pinterest for Blogging, here are some tips for you:

Make a board – always the first step

Every popular website on the internet has a presence on Pinterest because, by statistics, it can surely drive traffic to your blog. The best way to optimize Pinterest as a platform, as with any other social media platform, is to create content within it. To do this on Pinterest, you must create a Pinterest board. You can do this in many different ways but the simplest is to create one pin for every post. Now, we don’t want to overload a board and bombard it with too many posts or create one board for your entire blog. You can categorize your blog’s content and create multiple boards for similar topics or categories.

Connect your Pinterest to your blog

We use Pinterest so we can drive organic traffic from the platform to your blog, right? But, doing it the other way around is also a good idea. Put in a “Pin It” button on your blog so that your readers can pin your content to their boards. This is good engagement and creates an incredible ripple effect on traffic success.

RePin similar content from other content creators

RePinning similar content from other creators is good engagement. It is as helpful for them as it is for you. It is very refreshing for your followers to find rePins that align with their interests. Another option for this is to also follow fellow bloggers, industry leaders, and famous personalities on Pinterest. This way their followers can also find you, and maybe drive traffic into your blog.

Images are the MAIN point of pin boards

To have a presence on Pinterest, you must have a visually appealing board. You can create multiple boards for multiple topics. But, if you want your readers to click through your blog, you must be able to stand out. Images are heavily important for bloggers who want to maximize the platform. There are even case studies online that show the relationship between re-pins to image height, that is how important images are to Pinterest.

Sharpen your infographic-making skills

What you will normally notice for websites that use Pinterest to hook in organic traffic is that a majority of them use infographics to summarize their post, use these as the main image, and poof – a great pin for their board. Since Pinterest thrives on images, banking on the visuals is essential to Pinterest SEO. Pinterest is not useful just for lifestyle, fashion, food, or DIY blogs. If you have a descriptive and educational blog, using infographics will do you well. There are multiple free-to-use infographic-making websites online like Canva.

Try to optimize different “kinds”of Pins, especially Video Pins

A good way to have a successful Pinterest presence is through optimizing different kinds of Pins. There are a lot but the most common are App Pins, Article Pins, Product Pins, and Recipe Pins. The latest addition to these would be the Video pin and this may be one that proves to be most enticing. Why Video Pins? It is eye-catching and appealing for readers. Also, it is very fun to make.

Just imagine the success of social media platforms like TikTok that thrive on short personal videos. So successful that even Instagram has its own “Reels” now.

Create highly searchable pins

Of course, for you to get new followers, you must have highly searchable content. The good thing is there are multiple discussions online for Pinterest SEO techniques.

Engage your following

Just like in any social media platform, getting an organic following requires engagement. Now, engaging is not just posting pins and content consistently. It is about actively participating with your followers. You can start by liking and replying to comments. You can also create contests that will direct your followers to your blog.

Or, if you really want engagement why not follow them back? If you find something of theirs that is truly interesting, why not rePin their boards? Also, following back followers can help you in checking out their interests so you can get an idea of the topics they like. This way, you would have new ideas for your next content and your followers will appreciate you acknowledging them.

Also Read: There are Sites that Pay You to Blog, Here are Some of Them (Great for Beginners)

The post How To Optimize Pinterest for Blogging appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Numerous websites on the internet would pay you to blog. Find your niche, do a bit of research, and start sending in your sample works. 

Tech blogs

Site Point

Try applying to site point on this link.

Digital Ocean

Find more info here.

Travel Blogs

Great Escape Publishing

Their writer’s guidelines are on their website.

Transitions abroad

Check out application procedures here.

Wanderful

Here’s how you can be a contributor to Wanderful.

Finance Blogs

The Penny Hoarder

Income Diary

Get paid to write for this website.

Review Blogs

Apperwall

Get paid to write for Apperwall here.

Blogging, Writing, WordPress

Funds for Writers

You can submit your sample works on the website.

Hire Writers

Get job opportunities from their website.

Women on Writing

Get paid writing freelance.

Online Writing Jobs

List Verse

Submit your list on the website.

Hongkiat

You can apply as a writer for Hongkiat here.

General Niche Blogs

Dotdash

Apply as a freelance writer for Dot Dash.

Good.is

Apply to write for their website

Short Stories, Poetry

One-Story

Submit a story here.

Penpee

Become a member, and become a writer for Penpee.

How do you get a paid blogging job?

Finding a website that pays you to blog is easy, but looking for the blog that fits you best may prove to be challenging. Here are some tips on how to find the best website that fits you:

Write your sample works

Sample works, and experience, is the first thing that blog moderators look for in contributing writers. Established writers and bloggers usually have a digital portfolio to present. If you have a niche or topic you enjoy, but don’t have sample works for these, the best thing to do is to write one. It will also be helpful to showcase previous works to establish your experience. If you have previously published works, say from school or from your own social media platforms, it might be great to showcase these. A couple of your best works, together with your resume and your cover letter, maybe enough to fill in your initial portfolio.  

Bring forward your working schedule

This little tip is so easy to forget, establishing a work schedule. If you have a blog of your own, you will usually have a content map, a timeline, or a calendar of when to post which topics. If you are writing for somebody else’s blog, it would be great if you know what they require from you. Are you expected to work full-time, every day? Are you doing this freelance, with flexible working hours? Clear communication between you and the blog moderator is key to success. 

Also Read: How to Make a Website That Search Engines Will Love

The post There are Sites that Pay You to Blog, Here are Some of Them (Great for Beginners) appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The question on everyone’s minds is – how can anyone become a successful YMYL blogger?

Upgrade your website’s About or Author pages

Expertise and trustworthiness are two of the most important elements of a YMYL post. This goes together with authority. Your blog needs to establish that it has experts behind the content. Expertise could be shown by extensively and carefully writing ‘About’ or ‘Author’ pages. Contributors can write down their backgrounds and experiences. As a good addition, the page could also highlight their previously published works from reputable sources. Another option is to Invite credible guest collaborators every now and then.

Do your research

High-quality content can be identified not just by SERP algorithms but also by readers. Skip all the grammatical errors, wrong spellings, and incorrect punctuation. Also, be careful in auditing your own blog for layout issues, header sizes, backlinks, and the like. You would need your work to establish authority. A clean and well-written piece will certainly showcase the website’s trustworthiness to its readers.

Always look at a different angle

It is inevitable to write about the same topics, especially when dealing with YMYL. How can you write a news article about a trending event without putting in the same details as more established websites? What is the odd chance you will outrank them? The best way to write about the same topic without actually writing it exactly as other news websites is to always look at a different angle.

For instance, a prominent figure has passed away. Instead of writing a post announcing that the person has passed, why not focus the article on the person’s achievements, lifestyle, daily routines, favorites, and more. Your content is still YMYL as it is considered as news, but the possibility of producing similar content with other blogs is lower.

Choose a less sensitive query

If you are confident about your expertise in your niche, then go ahead and write answers for sensitive queries. However, we must still remember that SEO and YMYL still go hand-in-hand. Competition lies with more established websites. Yes, there are good chances that you will outrank them, but it will surely be difficult. So, the good approach for this is to choose a less sensitive query for the same topic.

Thinking of writing a post about deciding whether or not to get a mortgage? Instead of answering the YMYL query “should I get a mortgage on a house?”, go for the less sensitive route like “Should I mortgage a house or a condo?”. Both are YMYL queries but the latter query already establishes the premise that the searcher has already decided to get a mortgage and is just choosing between a condo and a house. There is no apparent danger of influencing an individual to get a mortgage and preventing readers from hiring professional financial advisers.

“Should you get a credit card” vs. “What to expect before you get a credit card”

Same but different

Establish your limit

It may be safe to say that even experts have certain topics they know little about. Also, in many cases, content creators have knowledge about topics but don’t necessarily have expertise about them. For example, a blogger may have knowledge and expertise in SEO analysis and optimization but have only enough knowledge about brand marketing.

Establish your limit. If you think that an expert can write about the topic better than you think you can, then why not invite a guest collaborator? Or, if you are unsure about what advice to give about a certain subject, why not skip that topic altogether. It’s better to admit that the topic is difficult than produce poor content about it.

How to be a successful YMYL blogger?

There are many ways to measure success in YMYL blogging. Simply follow these blogging principles, and you’ll be well on your way to good YMYL blogging. As a blogger, it is sure that you will learn more principles and rules along the way, but being equipped with these may be enough for now.

Also read: What is YMYL Content?

The post How to Be a Successful YMYL Blogger appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Why is it important to identify if your blog is YMYL or not? Well, Google Algorithms take special care in monitoring these kinds of content. The algorithm makes sure that only trustworthy websites are ranked on SERP making only credible information available for readers. If you don’t take extra precautions, you can have your website unknowingly de-indexed.

Usual YMYL Content you will see online

Here are some of the best examples of YMYL content we all see and read online:

• Law and government websites
• News and current events
• Health, fitness, safety
• Finance websites
• Generally, advise blogs that could influence “big decision making” (shoppinig, job search, etc).

Three SEO tips for YMYL Content

When writing YMYL content, the first thing to do for SEO is to remember this word – E. A. T.

Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness – These are the three main indicators Google uses to identify whether or not to index your content for ranking. In all honesty, E.A.T is not only important for YMYL content but for all kinds of content when it comes to ranking for SERP. Google algorithms will identify whether your content could significantly impact readers’ lives, and by how much.

So, that leaves us with the question – how do we optimize for YMYL content? Here are a few tips:

Invite genuine experts to write for your blog

If you are running a YMYL website but feel like you do not have enough expertise for the matter, it is good to invite writers who are. This establishes authority in your content and readers will have a basis on whether to believe your content or not. One question that arises from this is – how would readers know if your writer truly is an expert? There is a simple solution; invest in building up your online profile.

If you want to be more involved in your blog but do not have the expected “expertise”, why not build upon experience so you yourself could create content for your blog. Take up classes, take on more work for experience, or train as an apprentice under the guidance of an expert.

Build up an online profile

Building a strong online profile is one of the best ways to establish credibility. One of the most common ways to demonstrate your writers’ expertise on a website is through author bios. You can feature relevant content they published from other trusted websites. Or, you can also link their social media pages on your “about page”.

Another way to build up an online presence is to get to know people. It could be great to get to know professionals and experts in the niche you are writing for. In this case, you can even invite them to guest post on your blog. Another way to get to know people for the niche and industry you write for is to join groups and actively participate within them.

Factual accuracy is key

Now that misinformation and fake news is prevalent online, keeping factual accuracy is key to maintaining trustworthiness and authority for your blog. Research is the best way to produce high-quality, credible content. It would be best to include links and citations to your content is a great way to establish a factual basis.

Also, it is best not to offer advice for topics that you are not qualified for, especially if you know that it will seriously affect your readers drastically. This may include financial advice, health, and law.

Examples of Websites with YMYL content

Neil Patel’s SEO Expertise Website

Owning, running, and maintaining a blog is now considered either a job or a business. Neil Patel’s expertise in SEO helps lots of digital professionals.

The New York Times

Since it is one of the most trusted news and current events websites, NYT is considered a YMYL website.

The Street

This website talks about important topics like retirement, investing, and personal finance.

Also Read: How to Make a Website That Search Engines Will Love

The post What is YMYL Content? (And Why You Should Pay Attention) appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Let’s be honest, everybody loves fall. We all love everything about the season. The perfect not too cold, not too warm weather, the beautiful autumn colors, the rainy afternoons, chunky sweaters, pumpkin spice everything – we all secretly love it. And what better way to celebrate the change in season than redesigning our blogs with Fall and Autumn WordPress Themes?

Fall and Autumn WordPress Themes

Since fall is here, every blogger wants to bring in the warm colors of the season into their websites. Imagine hues of warm orange, yellows, browns, and reds as a design theme for your blog? There are autumn WordPress themes available on the internet for you to use in your blog. Here are some examples:

The Greenery Theme

Look Deep Into Autumn

Fall Colors Theme

Happy Autumn

The Greenery 2

Themes with Fall and Autumn color-pallettes

Of course, no one wants to design a blog for fall with strictly an autumn-designed theme. If you are looking for more versatility, why not choose themes that “feels” like autumn by choosing ones with a similar color palette? Here are some examples:

Love Where You’re Going

Textures in the Gallery

Freedom of Nature

Farming WordPress Theme

Cabin Vintage Theme

Fall and Autumn Design Elements in WordPress Themes

Any creative will know the typical things we see during the fall season. This could be lots of maple, pies, wood, thick scarves, and coffee. These are subtle elements that we could incorporate in our themes that would give only a slight hint of re-designing for the season.

What are the usual things we see in an Autumn-themed WordPress Theme? Here are some examples:

Fortunio WordPress Theme

Cake WordPress Theme

Maple Leaves

Corretto – Coffee Shops Theme

Vegetables Menu

Samples of Websites with Autumn Themes

If you want to customize the WordPress themes that we found and are simply looking for inspiration, here are some great examples of websites with Autumn and Fall themes:

Autumn Paperie

Thanks Giving – Aristotle

Also read: 30 Topic Ideas for Halloween

The post 17 Fall and Autumn WordPress Themes 2021 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Right off the bat, there are a lot of topic ideas for Halloween that you could write about. It could be about the holiday itself.  Here are some titles you could try about this topic:

The A-Z Of Halloween

Quick and Fun Trivia You Should Know as a Halloween Lover

Why Have a Halloween?

How to Make Your 2021 Halloween Fabulous

XX Ways Halloween is Celebrated All Over the World

However, if you like to write something more Halloween-specific ideas to make sure to drive in all the good, organic traffic, we got you covered. We have compiled a few good topic ideas for you to try out this Halloween.

COVID Halloween Ideas

Even if the world is already starting to recover from the pandemic, we are not completely out of it yet. So, your blog is a great platform to share ideas about how to do Halloween with COVID still among us. Besides, it is still better to remind our readers to err with caution. This is a good topic as it will be a question in a lot of parents’ minds – how do we do Halloween with COVID-19? 

Write about these titles if you’re in a rut:

Pros and Cons to Having a Halloween Party in 2021

Virtual Halloween Parties to Attend for 2021

Make Halloween Fun, and safe, at Home With These Ideas

XX Ways to Give Out Halloween Candy With Less Contact

How to Make Your Virtual Halloween Party Extra Fun

Halloween Decoration Ideas

We all have a few boxed-up Halloween decorations in the garage, and we all use them every year. But sometimes, we just want a little spice in our decorations. Everyone wants to make unique and witty designs that will make anyone who sees it say, “Oh, I wish I thought of that!”. Also, everyone wants to make the designs as spooky and realistic as they can. What’s the sense of doing Halloween decorations if not to spook out other people, right? Because of this, the topic (Halloween decoration ideas) is one of the most searched topics about the holiday. Putting it up on your blog will surely bring in some organic traffic.

You could try writing about these topics for fun:

XX Halloween Decorations from Your Recycling

Neighborhood Halloween Decorations on the Internet that Will Surely Get You Spooked

Impressive Halloween Decoration Ideas You Can Do with A Trash Bag and Some Paint

XX Reasons Why You Should Not Throw Away Your Old Halloween Decorations

Costume Concepts and Designs

This is probably the most searched Halloween-related topic on the internet every October – costumes. To meet the readers’ demands, why not put up a post on your blog about Halloween costume concepts and designs? Other than there is high demand for the topic, there is also an impressively wide range of topic ideas you could choose from.

Here are some topic ideas you could try out:

XX Costumes You Are Sure to See Everyone Wear This Year (Harley Quinn All Over Again, right?)

XX Places to Buy or Rent a Halloween Costume

Go for it: Inflatable Halloween Costumes to Try for this Year

XX Last-minute Halloween Ideas for Procrastinators

Comfort over Fashion: Halloween Costume Concepts That Are Comfy to Wear

Holiday Destinations for Halloween

Writing about holiday destinations for Halloween may sound like an unusual topic, but people still do search for it. Although, Halloween is not really ‘vacation time for a lot of people many of our readers live and breathe the holiday.  We all have readers that want to look for the spook instead of bringing Halloween home. Besides, anyone would look for any reason to take much-needed vacations, even Halloween.

Try writing about these topics about Holiday destinations for Halloween:

Celebrate Halloween-Like Traditions in These Great Places Around the World

XX Terrifying Places in the World That Will Surely Bring You the Spooks

Halloween every day: Look Out for These Halloween-related Holidays

Recipes and Ideas for Halloween Candy

Halloween candy is not what it used to be 30 years ago with whole foods, veganism, and other diet trends going around. Now, we must all be a little more cautious about what we offer kids as Halloween treats. Compared to writing about costumes and decorations, writing about Halloween candy recipes is a little more unique.

Here are a few tricks on writing about Halloween candy:

XX Vegan-friendly Halloween Treats You Should Serve This Year

Avoid These XX Candies for Halloween

Easy-peasy No-Bake Halloween Dessert Recipes For You to Try

A Compilation of XX Last-Minute Halloween Candy Ideas

XX Ways to Make Your Kids Eat Healthier Halloween Treats

Horror Stories Galore

We all know that Halloween is all about the horror, the spook, and the terror. Everyone loves a good horror story; compiling a few on your blog is sure to be a hit. If you want to write something about horror stories, there are a lot of topics to write about.

What about trying these topics for Halloween?

XX Spookiest Movies to Watch for Halloween Night

XX Scariest Stories and Threads to Read on Twitter

True-to-life Horror Stories We Didn’t Know About

Also read: How to Cope With Changes in SEO

The post 30 Topic Ideas for Halloween appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Like Facebook Groups, Twitter users now can get together and discuss similar interests and ideas. The only difference is that anything posted on a Twitter community page is still available to the public. This is compared to similar features in other platforms where moderators have an option to choose a group’s privacy settings.

The general idea of using Twitter Communities to boost blog traffic is straightforward. In fact, the rules can be applied to using any social media platform to market blogs.

Here are a few tips on how you could optimize Twitter Communities to boost your blog traffic:

Create a Twitter account for your Website

A website’s presence on Twitter is normal. In fact, a lot of brands use social media to update their readers on their latest content. If you are a blogger who wants to maximize Twitter communities to boost your blog, you need to create a Twitter account first. It might be even better to create a Twitter account for the website, instead of your personal account as a blogger. If you have a personal blog and you use your personal Twitter account to manage and market your blog, then perhaps that would suffice.

If you already have a “Twitter presence” then using the Twitter Communities feature would be easy for you. This means that you already have an established and stabilized activity on Twitter and some followers can already recognize you.

Let users share your content

The idea of the Twitter Community is pretty much like that of a forum. If other users find that they can trust your insights, then your ideas can be valued in discussions. This also makes your content so much more shareable not only within the community but outside of it as well.

Follow Interesting People

Since the beginning of time, everyone really values the opinions and ideas of “people who know people”. This may show that you are heavily influenced, and that famous people think the same as you. Join Communities that these famous people also joined. Follow people, who are actively on Twitter, you know share the same ideas to your content. You’ll never know, they might follow you back.

Join communities that share your interests

The main point of the Twitter Communities is to stimulate discussions among people with similar interests. It is its goal to put together “like-minded people”, based on search algorithms. It is creating a healthy “community” where ideas could be shared in a non-hostile environment. What is great is that users are allowed to search communities that they want to join. They are also allowed to create their own communities.

Use this to your advantage. Search for widely followed communities within the same theme or genre of your blog. Start conversations with people you know would be interested in your content. Asking questions is always a good way to start conversations.

Moderate your own Twitter Community

If you can’t find the perfect Twitter Community that represents your themes and niches, then why not moderate your own? Invite people you know to share the same interests. Use hashtags to gain attention. Make your Twitter Community highly engaging, and interesting.

Exhaust all avenues for communication, engage with others

A good leader once said that before you start talking business, you must let your investors feel that you are interested in them beyond work. Get personal with community members by commenting on their posts, hosting Twitter chats, or even exchanging email addresses with them. Do not limit your communication just to 140 characters.

DO. NOT. SPAM.

This is the Golden Rule in any online presence – you never spam. The audience needs to know that there are interesting people behind your blog. Also, we want new readers to discover your blog because they are interested in your content. Now, if we continuously spam the communities with our posts, it might get your account banned. This could, in turn, create a negative image for you and your blog. In all aspects, never spam.

What can we do instead? Of course, we could strategically choose when and what we post. Choose a time and a frequency to share your content. It is best to find conversations where you could link back to your blog seamlessly. It’s like citing it as a reference rather than randomly posting your blog’s link in the comments.

Also read:  Top 7 Untapped Blog Niches in 2021

The post How You Can Use Twitter Communities To Boost Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you have kids that are interested to blog, or you are a young blogger who wants to be inspired, here extraordinary kid bloggers we can all learn from:

Coco, 10, Fashion, Instagram (@coco_pinkprincess)

Can you imagine a 10-year-old luxury name brands like Moncler, Gucci, MCM, and others? Coco is one of the fiercest fashion “kidfluencers” on the planet. You can never think of any kid so fabulous as her, it’s so adorable! She has taken Instagram gaming to the next level donning fabulous luxury brands in every photo. Any luxury fashion you can only imagine buying, she has already worn it on her Instagram. Is she the next Anna Wintour? Maybe!

Any blogger will learn a thing or two from our dear Coco. The way she poses for her photos – professional! It’s as if the photos were taken from a fashion magazine. And let us talk about the background selection, too. Besides the clothes, there is texture, color, and quirkiness in the backgrounds.

If we want to be in the fashion blogging industry, we don’t really have to wear all luxury. But, like Coo, let go, be creative, and dress up.

Currently, she has more than 600k followers. On her Instagram bio, it is clearly stated that her Instagram page is run by her family.

Ryan, 8, Kid Content, YouTube (@Ryan’sWorld)

No matter how hard we try, we cannot shield away our children from the influence of social media and the internet. This is why parents are thankful for the presence of kid-friendly content that is educational and safe for children’s entertainment. This is the kind of content Ryan, aged 8, has on his YouTube channel. If you are also a young blogger, you can also ask your parents to create content of the same themes as his.

He and his parents perform simple, yet cool, science experiments for their followers. There are also animated episodes that are entertaining for the audience. Toy unboxings and challenges are highly watched as well. There is even a series created by his mom and dad. All is fun and play in Ryan’s World making him totally relatable to his audience.

What we can learn from Ryan’s World is that creating content online is a family affair. The teamwork among Ryan, his mom, and his dad is what makes the content worthwhile and safe to watch. Currently, he has 36M subscribers on YouTube, one of the highest following for kid content on the platform.

Ethan, 15, Gaming, YouTube (@EthanGamer)

Imagine being 15 and have billions of views on your account? This young lad did just that. He is well-known for streaming his Roblox gaming. He has unboxings, challenges, and even vlogs. Through the years that he (and originally his parents) ran his YouTube channel, he has been invited to many awards shows including the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards.

If there is anything we can learn from Ethan, it is to create content for our own enjoyment. When his YouTube video was affected by the COPPA Rules in 2020, he continued to create content because he enjoys it.

He currently has around 3 Million subscribers and almost three billion views.

Sam, Children’s Literature, WordPress, (ChildtasticBooks.Wordpress)

Nowadays, we rarely see kids with written blogs. Most of the younger bloggers today prefer social media as their platform. This is understandable, a lot of their target audiences are scrolling through these platforms more. It is absolutely refreshing to see a website created by a kid and her mom.

Sam and her mom read and review children’s books for fun. They write out their insights on their website to share with their audience. You could see how eloquent young Sam is in writing their book reviews. If you are thinking of creating your own website or blog, Childtastic books prove that it is possible.

Alyssa, 20, Educational, Tiktok, (@nasablueberry1)

Yeah, 20 is not really a kid anymore. But Alyssa Carson’s TikTok page shows how your love and passion for something could lead to creating good content. She has a lot of fun trivia about outer space and science that her content is just really interesting to watch.

If you are a young blogger who is so, very passionate about something, you can use social media platforms to share it. People with the same passion would surely take notice. And, those who like to learn new things would also surely take notice. Just look at Alyssa and her 117.3K followers on TikTok.

A little background on blogs by children authors

We all have the same question – is it legal for children to post content and create blogs online? The simple answer is, yes but there is a minimum age. On average, the most acceptable age for bloggers to control their own blogs would be 13. Other than that, parental consent (and control) is a requirement. Especially now that children may be exposed to a nasty and dangerous environment online, both parental presence and management really are essential for blogging success. Parents must be present to monitor posts, following, and comments.

So, if you are a young blogger under the age of 13, you might want your mom and dad to be 100% in support of you. Or, if you are a parent of a young blogger, be sure to provide at least a bubble of protection for your children.

Also Read: What is Negative SEO and How to Detect It

The post Learn From These Extraordinary Kid Bloggers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

A lot of times, bloggers can use tools and techniques to safeguard their websites against negative SEO. In fact, Google already has ways to catch and penalize behavior that seems like negative SEO. Regardless, it is good to educate yourself about what it is, how you can detect it, and what ways you could do to protect it.

What are the types of negative SEO?

Bad backlink blasts

Link building is an important SEO practice that every blogger must know to maximize the performance of their website. Now, some webmasters actually pay for backlinks that will point back to their websites (link farms). This act, known by many SEO experts, is an ill-advised SEO practice. There is no problem if a lot of websites organically link back to you. Websites can have hundreds of backlinks, for which not all of them are expected to be organic. A good source indicates that 40 to 50 good, organic links to a website are what is considered as ‘normal.

One important thing to do about this is to know what makes a backlink ‘toxic’. Normally, these are the links that violate Google’s guidelines. If your blog has more toxic or spammy backlinks than good ones, it is sure to be a problem. Or, if you have suddenly had a thousand backlinks and hundreds of these are spammy, then that may surely be an attack.

Spammy Anchor Texts

Spammy anchor texts are a negative SEO practice that is directly related to bad backlink blasts. Usually, these are spammy backlinks that use the same keywords. It is normal to have a couple of anchor links that are the same. However, if you have a thousand backlinks and hundreds of these have a noticeable pattern, then it is anchor text spamming. It could be considered as an attack.

Hacking

It is pretty difficult to regain trust and loyalty from users once a website has been hacked. Imagine trusting a website that could not trust your personal data and information? No matter how loyal a user is, it will be difficult to entice them to continue using your website. Attackers may get your users’ information to their advantage – subscription lists, emailing lists, and more. Hackers may also have the option to sell their users’ personal information to groups and companies that need them. Or worse, hackers can encrypt and move your database and ask you for ransom to restore your access to it.

This is why hacking is the most common negative SEO type. To combat this, it is best to know the different signs to know your website is being or has been attacked.

Duplicated content

When there are multiple duplicates of your posts on other websites, not only can it affect your search engine ranking but it could get your website de-indexed by Google.

This is also a pretty common trick. Unlike hacking which could get attackers heavy sentences, there is no heavy criminal liability with duplicating content on the internet. Why? Because it is hard to prove that only a single group or person is responsible for all the duplicated content. You could report each duplicated content but these reports would give individual penalties for individual reports. But a full-on investigation on whether or not it comes from one source is difficult to pull through.

Fake Negative Reviews

Ruining a brand’s reputation could lead to significant traffic drops. It is already hard to control bad reviews posted on the comments section of your own website. But, it is harder to ask other webmasters and bloggers to take down negative reviews on their own websites. Even though they are obviously fake, it is hard to take them down.

How can we fix it?

The first thing you must always do once you detect that your website is being attacked with negative SEO is to report it. Although there are no specific penalties that cover websites that use negative SEO. However, it could be considered under webspam and there are penalties under that category intended for negative SEO activities.

Being proactive is also one of the best ways to ‘fix’ negative SEO attacks. Install software and plugins that could detect attacks for you. Perform regular audits for your website to ensure that your content and data are safe against attacks like this. For duplicated content, you could download and install software or plugins that could find your stolen content on the internet and report it to search engines.

Tools to protect your blog against Negative SEO

Backlink Tracker

There are free tools on the internet that you don’t need to download that could help you track and check all backlinks to a particular domain. An example would be Small Seo Tool’s free backlink checker:

If you want full protection for a small fee, an example would be the Backlink Audit Tool by SEM Rush:

Spammy Link Remover

Once you have detected that your website does have numerous bad backlinks, you could install spammy link remover tools. An example would be this rmoov tool:

Duplicate content finder

There are tools available on the internet that could find and check duplicate content for you. Once you find duplicated content, you can then report it to search engines. Here is a sample checker from SEO review tools you could use:

Also read: How to Cope With the Changes in SEO

The post What is Negative SEO and How to Detect It appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Some architecture blogs are created purely for educational purposes and are made for students and budding designers. Others are created purely for inspiration. PRO TIP: If you are really considering writing an architecture blog, it is of best interest to focus less on news and updates. A lot of designers, decorators, and architects themselves are mostly looking for advice and inspiration when looking at architecture blogs. Publishing one or two news posts every month may suffice.

Sustainable Architecture

Designing a sustainable structure, known as green architecture, is a growing trend in the industry. For bloggers, this is a good niche opportunity as the topic is not as extensively discussed and represented so far. Sustainability does not just end in materials and construction methods. The overall design and aesthetics of a structure play a huge part in its sustainability. Remember that when creating content for sustainable architecture blogs.

The problem is, however, that it is not easy to choose WordPress themes for sustainable architecture. Using themes that have too much greenery or recyclables may be a bit too cliché for the niche already. Visually, sustainability in a structure is not visible to the naked eye.

Intervio

Landscape and Skyline Themes

These are the typical themes you will see in many architecture blogs. The background is usually a majestic or classy structure that could be considered architectural wonders by any standard. Mind you, these kinds of themes are great. Just by looking at the theme, you will immediately know that you are reading an architecture blog. Partnered with an equally impressive typeface, and a distinctive color palette – this kind of theme is surely a knockout.

Liarch

Mies Studio

Modern and Abstract WordPress Themes for Architecture

Any designer or architect dreams of being able to design a modern and abstract structure. Imagine taking an element from nature as an inspiration and transforming it not only into a structure but into an art. These are the kinds of blog themes that tell aspiring designers and students what the future of the industry can hold. Themes like this are great to use if you are looking for an artistic “wow factor” to your blog. Think neoclassical, art nouveau, and art deco – these are great design styles you should be looking out for when choosing a WordPress theme.

Wilmer

Inteco

Infinite – Architek

Interior Design WordPress themes

Other than designing how a structure looks against a backdrop of the world, a good deal of designing is required for the interior of a structure as well. People spend more time inside of structures than outside of them. The aesthetics of a room can dictate the overall mood of its inhabitants.

If you are considering producing an architecture blog, make sure you have content on interior design as well. Made popular by Etsy and Pinterest, interior design content is highly sought after not just by architects and decorators, but also by ordinary people who want to do DIY on their homes. It is very easy to find interior design WordPress themes on the internet.

Emaurri

Stoni

Minimalist Architecture Themes

The minimalist concept is also an ever-growing trend. If you are creating a blog about minimalist architecture, creating slide shows and features will not suffice. There are so many things to consider in a minimalist design – the color palette, the furniture, the size of spaces, and more. Take this into consideration when you are creating content about the niche. Also, usually, WordPress themes for minimalist architecture have an equally minimalist vibe to them.  

Vara

Kuns +

Luxury Architecture WordPress themes

Part of architecture, really, is to dream of what is grand and luxurious. Luxury is always a part of the design process. When building an architecture blog, the grandness of your website is also one thing to consider. Think Victorian architecture, baroque, gothic, and all other architectural styles that are both archaic and grand. These kinds of blogs are inspiring not just for architects and designers, but to any artist interested in taking inspiration from majestic structures.

The Architect

Luxe

Construction WordPress Themes for Architecture

At some point or another, it is difficult to separate architecture from construction. Remember, construction content in an architecture blog may gain good traffic. Any architect, decorator, or designer will need to know the best methods to construct their designs. Else, the designs will just be an ordinary thought project. Choosing a construction WordPress theme is quite easy as there is a vast collection available online.

Konstructo

Also Read: 15 Excellent Examples of Health and Safety Blogs

The post 13 WordPress Themes for Architecture appeared first on The Blog Herald.

So, if you are trying to create a health and safety blog, there are lots of examples online that you could be inspired by. First things first, since it is such a sensitive niche right now, it is best to do your research or partner with an expert so you could create content that matters for consultants, health officers, or any individual who wants to create safety plans for themselves and their families. Or better yet, you could try to enroll yourself in an OSHA 30 training course to better get a grasp of any information you would want to write about.

What should you be looking out for if you want to join the Health and Safety blog niche? Here are some good examples of styles and formats you could consider:

News-Style format for Health and Safety Blogging

Every day, there are new developments in the pandemic. Health and safety experts all over the world are doing their best to match the best practices with what is needed to lower the risks of employees against the pandemic. It is best to always keep your readers updated with what is the latest. This makes news-style blogs quite popular for all kinds of readers.

Here are some examples of health and safety blogs that present content via news:

Relentless Safety

OHS Insider

Forum-type and Safety advise Blogs

Ordinary people are looking for ways to better their health and safety protocols at home or for themselves. This makes forums and discussion pages quite popular during this pandemic. So, if you are thinking of creating a health and safety blog, it might be best to add a “ask your expert” page or a forum page. This is to ensure that there is continuous interaction with your readers. If readers get the “help” that they need, this usually builds significant trust for your content. One tip though, make sure to screen out spam comments.

SafetyRisk.net

Speaking of Safety

Ask safety Geek

How-to Posts for Health and Safety blogs

How-to blogs are usually the kind of content that gains the most internet traffic, especially now that we are in a pandemic. If you are thinking of joining the health and safety niche blogging, this might be one style or format you want to consider. For how-to blogs, it is best to keep your content on the basic level. We don’t want readers to be doing activities that require licenses or training. Instead, what you can do for these kinds of work is to provide resources for training.

Here are some good examples of blogs that present how-to content:

Hex Armor Blog

Good to go Safety

Eazy Safe

Informative Health and safety blogs

The safety culture is a growing industry. Now, more and more companies take it of great importance to invest in programs for the best interest of their employees. However, you still need to learn and re-learn good health and safety information throughout. For bloggers, this is a great opportunity to write about informative health and safety blogs.

These kinds of informative blogs could cover a great deal of content. It could be the legal aspect of the industry. Or it could also be focused more on the medical needs of health and safety. It could also cover government policies about the industry.

Here are some health and safety blogs that are informative or educational:

HSE Blog

Medsafe Industrial Safety blog

Just Health and Safety

Slice Workplace Safety

Health and Safety Influencer Blogs

If anything, you can be a “health and safety influencer”. You can take on social media or create your own personal blog to share your experiences with your readers. This can cover a lot of topics. For instance, you can share what readers would expect from a career in health and safety. Or another topic could be how rewarding it is to join the health and safety industry. You can then use your influence to spread awareness and information about the importance of health and safety in ALL industries.

Here are some “influencer blogs” or personal blogs that are worth the read:

Tamara Parris and Jamie Young of Safeopedia

Kevin Burns Blog

Kevin Jones of Safety at Work

Also read: 9 Fitness Blog WordPress Themes

The post 15 Excellent Examples of Health and Safety Blogs appeared first on The Blog Herald.

To perfectly embody the niche, creating design elements in your blog is essential. One of the first things you must consider is the theme as this will surely affect every other design elements like fonts, color palette, and background images. There are a lot of themes available for WordPress sites for you to explore.

If you’re thinking of starting out a blog, here are some of the fitness blog WordPress themes you could try out:

Yoga and fitness themes

Nowadays, yoga has gained so much popularity over the years. It is the kind of exercise you can do at a gym or even at home. A lot of people do private yoga and meditation practices, this is why creating a yoga blog is sure to hit a lot of traffic.

What kinds of content can you create for a yoga blog? There is a lot, really. Different forms and techniques of meditation can be a good topic example. You can also write about different levels of yoga practices – from beginner to advanced. Another good topic would be to write reviews about investing on equipment like yoga mats, yoga blocks, stretch bands, and more.

Here are some unique yoga blog themes for you to try for your own website:

Yoga Fit

Yoku

Anahata

Gym, bodybuilding, and CrossFit themes

These are the kinds of themes that show big, buff men lifting weights. Or, there are images of men using the equipment. The niche is so vast, there are so many things to write about all the time. Of course, there should be articles on gym tips, pros and cons, and the like. You can also create a gym finder blog. For instance, when a user types in “gyms in Orange County” it will point out all the locations, rates, and hours for gyms located in Orange County.

Here are great examples of themes for the gym, bodybuilding, and CrossFit blogs:

GymLife

 Gimox

Health and Wellness themes

If you are thinking of going into fitness blogging, you must also consider the health and wellness niche. What is the use of a fit body if you don’t achieve overall wellness? You could write different topics on nutrition, diets, sleep patterns, recipes, and more for this kind of blog. Another possible layout would be writing a fitness advice blog giving personal tips on healthy living and wellness. Or, you could write a blog for health and wellness on a budget. There are so many possible angles to write about in this sub-niche of fitness blogging.

Here are some of the best health and wellness themes for WordPress:

Wellspring

Healthy Living

Fitness blog WordPress themes for women

We all know that there is a wide gender gap between men and women concerning going to the gym. A lot of women, based on a study, avoid going to the gym because of a variety of reasons. It could be fear of being judged, harassed, or stereotyped. Many women are even intimidated by the gym because they worry that the clothes they wear will affect how others treat them inside.

This makes creating fitness blogs for women a worthwhile and profitable niche.  You can write about home practices, workout plans, goal setting, and the like. To help women keep their intimidation at bay, you can also create content about equipment basics and attire tips. Maybe you can even post articles on how to deal with, avoid, and report harassment. There are so many things to write about for women’s fitness blogs.

Here are some themes that you can use for fitness blogs for women:

Avada Fitness

Girly Gym Fitness Theme

There you have it! There are so many avenues and angles to write about when creating a fitness blog. There are also so many themes, both free and affordable, that you could use and explore.

Also read: 5 Blogs for Caregivers

The post 9 Fitness Blog WordPress Themes appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Putting up a blog for caregivers entails lots of research. There are so many things to consider that it could be quite overwhelming. Where do we start? What specific part of the niche should we consider? What kinds of content do readers want to learn about? There are so many questions!

 Here are a few tips and points to consider if you want to create your own blog for caregivers:

Care

A good blog idea is a ‘find a carer’. It is a resource for families looking for both short-term and long-term care. A lot of people need caregivers in their lives, and a lot of people are out there willing to give their time. It is a matter of creating a platform for both to meet.

A good example is the Care Website. What is interesting about this website is that it does not only provide search options for just caregivers. It provides a resource for all kinds of help and cares a person may need – pet care, housekeeping, tutorials, and even childcare.

This kind of blog provides resources for families looking for care and for caregivers looking for work. You can also write tips for families on how to select the best carer for their loved ones. And, you can also create content for caregivers on how they can manage difficult family members.

Alliance Home Care

For a lot of families, they need more than just help at home. There are a lot of cases where families need private nurses that could provide care for patients with considerable medical needs. You can create a website specifically for this – to match patients with at-home medical workers. A good example of this would be the Alliance Home Care Website that provides resources for all at-home medical care.

Caregivers Library

Nothing beats learning how to care for patients and the elderly through professional training. But, let’s face it, not everyone has the time, option, and finances to get professional help for their loved ones. Creating a resource that teaches the basics of caregiving is a good blog idea. A good example would be the National Caregivers Library.

You can cover topics like basic care and hygiene. Topics like must-have home care items, medical waste disposal are also good content. Why not also write about how to choose the right hospital bed for the home or, perhaps, how to choose the right wheelchair. There are many “basics” that you could cover, and it would surely help a lot of people.

Help Guide

Caring for people who are sick, or caring for the elderly can take a mental toll on the caregiver. If you are thinking of creating a blog for caregivers, a good idea would be to combine resources for emotional support. These could be support groups for families with loved ones who are sick, it could also be a resource for support groups for caregivers or support groups for families.

An example of this would be the Help Guide, which provides articles for any emotional and mental health needs of caregivers.

CareGifters

If there is anything a reader would want to know about caregiving, it is where they could apply for funds, donations, and financial support. Take the CareGifters website as an example, they give out $500 gift cards to caregivers for whatever use they need it for. It could be for utilities, food, rent, or even a vacation. If you are thinking of creating a blog for caregivers, maybe create a resource where they could apply for financial support.

It could be a reference-type of caregiving blog where users could find out the nearest location that provides financial aid and assistance. Or, it could be an educational blog that could teach family members how to secure funding and financial support from various sources.

Also Read: 6 Lesser-Known WordPress Features

The post 5 Blogs for Caregivers appeared first on The Blog Herald.

It is a fact that there are lesser-known WordPress features that not many users are aware of. Or, if they are actually aware of them, they don’t take the time to learn how to maximize these features. A lot of times, plugins will make using these features easier and faster too. Learning about these add-ons requires additional research as well.

So, here are some lesser-known WordPress features and helpful support plug-ins that might be useful for you:

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are probably the most useful lesser-known WordPress feature of all time. This does not work just for copy-paste-cut tasks. It is also not just for saving, undoing, or redoing tasks. It is for many other things like adding blocks, changing blocks, and more.

For more complicated tasks on the post editor, you can also use keyboard shortcuts. For instance, adding a page break or a ‘more tag’.

Add Keyboard Shortcuts

If using the existing shortcuts just don’t cut it for you, you can add your own customized keyboard shortcuts on WordPress.

Multi-page posts

Long WordPress posts are not unusual but they may pose various difficulties for readers. To help your readers navigate your website better and to help them better digest your content, it may be a good idea to break up these posts into smaller pieces. To do so, long WordPress posts could be broken up into multiple-page posts. This helps monetize your blog as readers will interact with more pages than spend more time on a single page.

WordPress has features that allow for post pagination. Simply go to your post editor screen and type in <!-nextpage-> wherever you want your post to be broken up. This is a manual method of adding pages to your post – it is easy to control but a bit hassle to do. The good thing is some plug-ins allow for automatic page breaks (like Automatically Paginate Posts plugin) to a long post.

Removing WordPress version number

The WordPress version number, if it is not considered such important information, is usually just within sight of any of our blog users. A good thing to do to protect our websites is to remove the WordPress version number anywhere on a blog. It may seem such a useless and minor thing to do, but it may create a great impact in improving your WordPress site’s security against hackers.

There are various ways to remove the WordPress version number from your display page. If hackers know which WordPress version you are using then it may be easier for them to compromise your website. This may be a lesser-known WordPress feature for a lot of newbie blog owners, but something that seasoned developers are already aware of.

Changing Log-in URLs

One thing that blog owners must always avoid is putting their blogs at high hacking risks. Security is one of the biggest problems of anything on the internet. Daily, hackers always find new, clever ways to compromise a website to steal, change, and even destroy information. It may be a hassle, but as bloggers who manage our own websites, we must always change things up to ensure that our blogs are not vulnerable to hacks.

Nowadays, using long and complicated passwords just doesn’t cut it. Why? Because hackers are aware that the log-in default for any WordPress site has the /wp-admin/ or /wp-login/ string at the end. If you create a unique URL for your log-in page makes it harder for hackers to find it.

PRO TIP: Changing up the log-in URL manually may cause errors. Instead, you may download and install a lightweight plugin (like WPS Hide Login or Change WP-Admin Login) that allows for a new log-in URL and also create a redirection URL for potential hackers.

PHP Error Protection

The White Screen of Death (WSOD) is a WordPress error nobody wants for their blogs. Usually, the WSOD is caused by a fatal PHP error caused by an update from the themes, plug-ins, or WordPress core itself. Most seasoned users do not prefer automatic updates and prefer controlling which features of the add-ons must be updated to reduce the risks of errors. The problem is, not a lot of newbie users know this hack, allow automatic updates, and get surprised by errors.  

WordPress has found out that the open-source nature of the themes or plug-ins may cause errors in the website. Thus, developers at WordPress have released a new feature known as PHP Error Protection.

This feature allows an administrator to access the dashboard, despite the WSOD. Once the dashboard is accessed, the administrator may roll back or disable whichever update caused the error. It is a cool feature that saves up developers’ precious time in backtracking errors and putting up a website back live again.

Also read: WordPress Plugins of Multi-Author Websites

The post 6 Lesser-Known WordPress Features appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Google Web Stories almost have a similar concept as social media snaps or stories. But in many ways, they are different. The idea of visual storytelling has been creating lots of noise in the last couple of years. This is a reason why video blogging became such a fussed about career. Google Web Stories is a good bridge between creating video content and creating a website to blog at.

What are the special features of these Google Web Stories?

Bloggers can use motion animations, images, texts, sounds, and videos to create web stories that they could embed on their blogs. Each web story has its own, unique URL. This makes it a separate entity to your blog, or your social media page. It is also what makes it different from social media stories.

Since these are considered separate SEO units by themselves, Google could index them. This means, your web stories can rank on Google Search Pages separately from your blog. If you target your stories to rank well on SERP, linking back to your blog could yield incredible results.

One of the favorite things content creators and bloggers have about Google Web Stories is the fact that it is highly monetizable. You can use affiliate links or get paid by linking your Web Story to a specific website or URL. Users can also put ads on their web stories through Google Adsense.

Can you create your own Google Web Story?

The simple answer is yes, and you should. Web stories are versatile and easy to create. Google has a drag-and-drop platform that is free to use. Even with the free version, bloggers may be able to embed their stories onto their websites. Google web stories just have so many benefits and potential that it is quite difficult to pass by. It is such a worthy experience to try.

There are just a few PRO TIPS you must remember in creating your own Web Story. Usually, a web story can be between 5 to 30 pages or (in short video terms) about 15 seconds of content. The dimensions are strictly 720 x 1280px – any larger than that your content is virtually unreadable. Make sure to avoid the top and bottom 83px of your images as there are dangers that this part of the story is unviewable.  

How to embed them in your WordPress Blog?

There are so many ways to create web stories online that are easily embeddable to WordPress websites. Some of these tools are free and others come at very affordable prices. Here are a few examples of tools and plugins to use for embedding web stories to a WordPress blog:

A new Google Web Stories WP plugin was made available back in late 2020. Because of this plugin, Google Web Stories became such a rave for bloggers. Lots of SEO content usually have them as they are fun to create (for creators) and fun to watch (for viewers or readers). The Google plugin for WordPress Web stories is an open-web software and is free for everyone.

Another drag-and-drop Web Stories builder would be the MakeStories software. It is also downloadable for free. The software allows for the creation of zero-code, highly customizable content.

There are various tutorials available online that teach bloggers how to use these tools and apps to create stories. These tutorials teach not only how to create stories but also how to embed them on WordPress sites.

How can it drive traffic?

Google Web Stories, just like social media stories or snaps, are a great way to drive traffic into your blog. You can do so by linking your story to anywhere in your content. Or you can have other people (like influencers) link your page from their stories. It is such fun content to create and it is also equally fun for readers and viewers to see.

How exactly can stories drive traffic? Here are some examples:

• It is a great way for new users to find your site
• The content is highly immersive and quick to scroll through
• This kind of content is highly-raved because of its ‘limited’ availability
• Web Stories are available on Google Search Pages and on Google images
• It can be used as a teaser to new merch, new content, new look – basically new anything
• Acts almost like a trailer for new content
• It can easily be linked to any content within your website

Also read: 8 Free WordPress Themes for Selling Books

The post How to Use Google Web Stories to Drive Traffic to Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.