I have over a dozen blogs. Some of my blogs are within another domain so I don’t have stats just for the blog like I have wanted until now. I did not know how easy it was to install the Wordpress Stats Plugin. I installed it on one of my blogs a couple days ago and within hours I had stats coming in.

If you have a self hosted Wordpress blog and want some stats, try using the plugin at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

Example screenshot taken from Wordpress site:

You basically upload the plugin, activate it and input your Wordpress API key. Easy as pie!

Enjoy

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If you are a blogger, you are sure to have seen the little Google Friend Connect widget on blogs all over the world. I actually had it on one of my blogs, but not a Wordpress blog. With Blogger, you are able to insert all sorts of widgets and gadgets in just a click or two. The Google Friend Connect service allows anyone with a Google account the ability to join any website/blog that offers the service to enjoy the social media features.

The idea behind the Google Friend Connect service is to give internet users a universal account that will give them access to many different websites.

Since most of my blogs are Wordpress blogs, I set out to find how I could add the the Google Friend Connect to my Wordpress blogs. I found the answer and it was simple. I will share the 3 easy steps with you so that you can add it too!

1. Login to Google Friend Connect at http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/
2. Click Set Up A New Site – Follow the instruction
3. Add the code to your blog – If you are using a widget ready theme, you will be able to paste the code as a text widget.

Easy enough huh? When you are logged into Google Friend connect, you have access to other gadgets, stats and more! You even can customize the colors on your widget to match your site. Now to add it to this blog!

Until Next Time
Stefani

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If you read blogs, you might already be aware of how popular Twitter can be with blog posts.  More and more you  are going to notice some sort of Retweet button on blogs. These buttons allow you to send out a Tweet on Twitter about the individual post you are viewing. Twitter is becoming more and more popular by the second. Even Martha Stewart is Tweeting!  Up until yesterday I paid no mind to the value of my blog visitors retweeting my posts. I have retweeted things but never sat down to find a way to allow my users to retweet my posts. I just only hoped they would think the post was so awesome that they would just do it manually.

One of the ways that blog viewers can retweet your blog posts is by using TweetMeme. For those that are not familiar with Tweetmeme, it is a service that aggregates links on Twitter to help determine what links are popular. There are a few other services that are similar that you might already be familiar with such as Twitturly and Retweet.com. If you are a Wordpress blogger, you can add a plugin that will automatically place the Tweetmeme Retweet buttons on your blog posts.  You should be able to see one in the upper right corner of this post. Tweetmeme also has a  plugin for Blogger, Typead, Joomla, Windows Live Writer, Drupal and B2Evolution. They also have a Retweet chicklet and other Retweet buttons to use if  you are posting via email, on a website, etc. With the Wordpress plugin, you have access to view Tweet stats which might help you see which of your Tweets are most popular. You can see how many tweets you are receiving in 24 hours. For the advanced Tweetmeme users with an App ID and App Key, you have access to a powerful analytics package too!

I have added the TweetMeme to almost all my Wordpress blogs. I am hoping to see some sort of increase in my stats using it.

View the Tweetmeme site at: http://tweetmeme.com

Feel free to share your opinions about TweetMeme by posting a comment below.

Enjoy
Stefani

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If you are a blogger, you probably have searched online for blog templates before. I have blogs both on Wordpress and Blogger blogs. While I prefer to use Wordpress, I just can’t get away from creating blogs using the Blogger platform either. Tonight I came across the site MyTemplateBox that offers free Bloggger templates, free Wordpress templates and even free CSS templates. I browsed through the templates and they have some ones that I might consider using.

Here is the link: http://www.mytemplatebox.com/

Until Next Time
Stefani

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If you are a blogger, you probably are already using a plugin that allows your visitors to share your posts with their friends using  the social bookmarking and networking websites. For most of my Wordpress blogs, I have some sort of social bookmarking plugin installed. Until the other day, I never gave the plugin much thought.

The other day when thinking of ways to increase traffic to one of my blogs. I made a post on Self Starters internet marketing forum about which plugin I should use. I figured that having the plugin could only improve my stats if anything else.  I got a couple responses on the forum that recommended using  Sociable. I then looked at their blogs and seen big social bookmarking icons. For some reason, I never even looked to see if I had already installed the plugin. I downloaded the Sociable plugin and when I went to install it, realized I had an older version of the plugin. So I upgraded. I then went to my blog and seen the little icons, see below:

Okay, this was not the icons that I seen on the other two blogs. When I installed the plugin there was an option to put a link to your own images. I knew this was the answer so I downloaded some bigger icons and changed the path. I refreshed by blog and they were still small. I right clicked one of the images and seen that they images were being scaled. So I knew I was not crazy. I then had to look for the answer which I found.

To make your icons a certain size, you have to edit the Sociable.css file. If you open the .css file, you will be able to change the height and width of your icons. Example below:

.sociable img {
	float: none;
	width: 48px;
	height: 48px;
	border: 0;
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

Once I uploaded the updated version of the .css file, I reloaded my blog. I was so excited to see BIG icons. See below:

I LOVE the big buttons. Now I plan on adding this plugin to this blog and a few others. I see so many people using small buttons and think that maybe they just don’t know how to make them bigger. If you want big icons, you can download a set of icons at iconspedia. You can download the Social Me icon pack that includes 30 icons in sizes of 32px, 48px and 64px. I choose to use the 48px icons above.

Until Next Time

Stefani

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Snipsly. All opinions are 100% mine.

Have you heard about the new site snipsly yet? This is a site that is on a Wordpress platform that allows you to make money on posting content. The catch though is that you have a Google Adsense account. You can earn money with Adsense by posting articles, videos, images, etc.

I just joined today to see how the system works. What you do is sign up to receive your login information via email. If you are familiar with Wordpress, you will have no problems with this site. Once you have your login information you are allowed to login the Wordpress dashboard to create your blog post. From what I can see, the site is pretty new as there is not too many posts yet. I made a quick post about turkey stuffing recipes since it is something that people are searching for right now.

If you join, be sure to input your Google Adsense account. Their Google Adsense impression system is based on a 80/20 split with the author receiving the 80%. You can also use this site to build backlinks to your other websites and blogs.

I have not made money with this site because I just joined today. I will try to keep you posted if I start earning $$.

Stefani

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When I logged into this blog today, I seen a link for new Wordpress plugins for today. I decided to take a peek. I read about a new plugin called Content Finder that some of you might be interested in. When you install this plugin, you are able to quickly add free keyword targeted articles to your blog. You can post articles to your blog in just a click! How neat is that?

You can read more about how to download this plugin at:
http://contentdragon.com/word-press-plugin/

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Many of you have probably tried to add a Paypal button to one of your Wordpress posts. You might not get the result you were looking for. I know this happened to me and I searched for the answer. I found a post online that was helpful titled “Paypal Button In A Wordpress Post“. I have this bookmarked and you might want to as well!

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Have you heard of Scratchback? It is a cool tip jar plugin for Wordpress. It’s not new, I seen it back in February. It is new to this blog though. If you look in the menu bar to the right, you will see a orange graphic “Are You In My Top Spots”. What this does is allow you to leave me a tip for my blog and get a link back to your site at the same time. The plugin is very easy to use too. You go to their site and signup for a FREE account. Then you create a widget for your blog. You will be given some code to place on your blog and you are ready to roll. In just a few minutes, you can have your own tip jar on your blog too!

When you receive a tip, you will receive 90% and Scratchback gets 10%. Sounds pretty fair to me. I have seen this plugin on many other blogs with the spots filled up, so it works!

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I have been working on a new blog the last few days for my Mommy Enterprises website. It is an article blog so I was looking for the option to remove the dates from the posts in the Wordpress control panel. I couldn’t find where to remove it so I started my search online. Luckily I found a plugin made just to do this. With this plugin, you can remove the date from all posts, certain posts or even remove the date after so many days. I installed the plugin last night and thought it wasn’t working at first. I then realized it does not work on the homepage posts but when you click the individual posts, the date was not there. This works for me! If you are interested in this plugin, please visit: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/date-exclusion-wordpress-plugin/

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