Thomas Baugh Media

A few months back, I was asked if I would help out a local charity by designing a website for an upcoming event.

The Hanley Regatta is raising money for the Donna Louise Trust, a children’s hospice providing respite and end of life care for children with life threatening conditions. It’s a wonderful cause and one I’m delighted to support.

Naturally, I designed the site using WordPress and the excellent Genesis Theme developed by Brian Gardner at Studiopress.

There’s a picture below, but click here if you want to visit the full site.

The event is actually tomorrow, so if you just so happen to be in the Stoke-on-Trent area, please do head over and support a great cause.

If you can’t make it, but would like to donate to the charity anyway, you can do so by visiting their official site.

Another great way of donating and getting something rather nice in return, is by purchasing the Hanley Regatta mug, produced by Emma Bridgewater to mark the event and with all proceeds (except VAT) going to the Donna Louise Trust.

I love blogging.

You might not have guessed it by the infrequent nature of the posts on this site, but I really do.

I blog for a handful of UK-based businesses (which unfortunately I’m unable to disclose) and also for fun, throwing in my two cents about the goings-on at my beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers. Feel free to check out that blog by clicking here and using it as a reference point for some of the things I’ll talk about in this article.

I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject, particularly with superb resources like ProBlogger and Copyblogger knocking around, but I’ve picked up one or two things, which someone out there might just find useful.

Having looked at a few of the articles about building a blog readership, I believe I might able to add one or two things. You see, most advice on the subject is centered around having great content, attracting links from other sites, posting regularly etc, which is all great advice.

But I’d like to offer something different and share some tangible features you can add to your blog to help build a readership. (Please note that I do refer to WordPress frequently, but the ideas and tools I suggest are more than likely available on nearly all blogging platforms).

Let’s fire a few bullets:

• Automated Twittering – Getting the word out about new content on your blog is crucial, especially when you want to attract as many new readers as possible. Twitter is a great tool for doing just that. But if you don’t have the time to spend hours networking, you can simply configure you blog to send out a Twitter update automatically, everytime you add a new article. If you’re using WordPress, just sign up for a Twitter account and download the WordTwit plugin.

• Bookmarks – When people visit your blog, you want them to come back. That’s the key to building a readership; keeping the visitors you already have and constantly adding new readers over time. If you can persuade people to bookmark your site, the chances of them returning increase significantly. You can add fancy Javascript to your site, but I’ve found it’s much simpler to just explain how to do it in words. This is the text I’ve used, which you’re welcome to copy and paste: Add [Blog Name] to your list of bookmarked sites by pressing ‘ctrl’ and ‘D’ on your PC or by pressing ‘cmd’ and ‘D’ on a Mac.

• Subscriptions – Much like bookmarks, if you can get people to subscribe by email to your blog’s RSS feed, they’re far likelier to become frequent readers. Sign-up to a service like FeedBurner, which will give you everything you need to offer this functionality. Once you’re setup, you don’t have to do a thing, as it will automatically email your latest blog posts to the people that have signed up.

• Top Commentators – This is a particularly nice feature. Add a list of the top commentators (i.e. the people who have left the most comments on your blog) to your sidebar. This gives your existing readers an incentive to comment frequently and new readers a reason to get involved. It also shows your biggest contributors that you value them, which is important. In my experience, once someone gets to the number one spot, they don’t like giving it up without a fight, so they comment more to defend their crown, which is healthy for creating a thriving community. If you use WordPress, you can visit their site to download the Top Commentators Widget.

• How To – Don’t take it for granted that every single person on the face of the earth knows how to get the most out of a blog. You’d probably be surprised at the number of people who don’t know how to even leave a comment. It’s worth taking the time to add a ‘How To’ page to your blog outlining how to perform various tasks such as commenting, getting in touch, etc.

• Contact – I visit a lot of blogs and many don’t have contact details listed for getting in touch with the author. I fully understand that some people are concerned about privacy issues, but you’ll almost certainly miss out on some great opportunities for spreading the word about your blog, if people can’t get in touch with you. I highly advise setting up a dedicated ‘Contact Us’ page on your blog if you don’t have one already. Outline the kind of requests you’re happy to receive and list your email (like this to avoid spam: tom[@]thomasbaughmedia.com) or use a dedicated contact form. And if you don’t want to use your personal email address, setup a free one dedicated entirely to your blog (I recommend using Gmail).

• Threaded Comments – If you don’t know what threaded comments are, it’s very simple to explain. When people comment on a blog the oldest comment usually appears at the top of the list and the newest at the bottom, or vice-versa. Threaded comments allow users to reply to a specific comment, so it appears just below it in the list. This facilitates multiple conversations taking place in response to an article, which is great for building a community and allowing commentators to branch off and start their own new, interesting discussions. If you use WordPress and your theme supports threaded comments, you can simply switch them on by going in to the ‘Settings’ menu and the ‘Discussion’ options. If your theme doesn’t support threaded comments, I found this excellent post explaining how to implement them.

• Comment Reply Notification – Following on from threaded comments, another useful tool for community-building is the ‘Comment Reply Notification’ plugin. This does a very simple job. When someone replies to a comment, the person who posted the original message is sent an email to let them know that someone has responded. They might then choose to come back and add another response, which triggers another email and so on. It’s easy to see why this is such a great piece of software. You can download the Comment Reply Notification plugin here.

I sincerely hope there’s something in this post to help you out, should you have stumbled across it.

Please feel free to add your own tips or ask questions in the comments. You can also contact me directly if you’d prefer by using the form.

Here’s something I reckon people will find useful; a quick post and plugin (of sorts) to help you integrate an Amazon aStore into a WordPress website.

This is something I myself had to search for not long back and although I was able to find some good explanations, I thought I could go one better and provide the file you need to add specifically – the Amazon aStore WordPress page template

Download Amazon aStore page template

• aStore.zip v1

Installation

• Download the Amazon aStore WordPress page template
• Upload the page to your site (inside the specific themes folder)
• Configure your aStore and when you are given the choice of how to display your store, select ‘Inline Frame’.
• Copy the code that Amazon provides.
• Log-in to your WordPress website and go to ‘Design’ and then ‘Theme Editor’
• Select the aStore page template (aStore_page.php)
• Paste your aStore code over the top of the default code that’s there, which is for my store
• Make sure you update the file so it saves properly.
• Now go back to your control panel and click ‘Write’ and select ‘Page’.
• Give your page a title such as Store or Shop or whatever.
• Scroll down to the bottom where you can select a page template from the dropdown and select aStore Page.
• Publish that page.
• Now when you visit that page your aStore should display.

Configuration

The aStore by default will create a really long page, meaning you have to scroll down for ages until your footer becomes visible. However, you can easily configure the height and width of your aStore simply by going back to the Theme Editor and editing this line of code in the aStore_page file:

width=”100%” height=”2000″

Possible Problem

The file I’ve supplied doesn’t call for the sidebar. The reason for this is that the aStore takes up so much room within a theme, that there often isn’t the space for it. My sites all have navigation across the top so it isn’t a problem but if your primary navigation is in a left or right sidebar, you’ll have to do some more editing I’m afraid. Remember though, Amazon does provide an option to add a link back to your homepage within your aStore so this can be of great help, if not a perfect solution.

aStore Page Example

I’ve now done about 3 or 4 of these aStores, all pretty much following this format. To see an example of one in action, click here.