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Posted: 14 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time - but the moment was defining, it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in my blogging. It was a moment that resulted in my blogging moving from being a hobby that generated a nice bit of secondary income into a full time business.

It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing - but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret way to make money blogging, it wasn’t the day I stated one of my blogs… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change on my blogs - because it was largely something that happened in my mind - a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

‘You’ve got 6 months to make blogging full time.’

She then told me that if I didn’t get it to this kind of level I’d have to get a ‘real job’.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how blogging could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the earnings from the blogs so far and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK - the earnings graphs I kept showing her were trending up - I could see the possibility of one day being a full time blogger.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but V knew it and so she set me an ultimatum - a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my blogging.

In the moments after V’s ultimatum I had a realization that while I dreamed that one day my blogging would become a business that I’d been treating my blogging like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in going full time in the next six months that that had to change. I needed to start looking at my blogging as a business now - even though it was only earning a day or two a week’s income.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day I….

• started putting serious time aside for blogging
• became more focused upon my core tasks of creating content
• wasted less time on distractions
• became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards
• began to look for new income streams - beyond AdSense
• started hustling for advertisers - ringing up businesses in my niche and pitching my blog to them
• began to seek out guest writing opportunities on other blogs and even in main stream media
• started setting myself deadlines for posting a certain number of posts a day and developed an editorial calendar
• I started networking more with other bloggers
• began to invest more time and even money into my learning of different aspects of blogging
• started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to look at what I do as a business instead of a hobby

That day began the process for me of looking at what I do as a business.

While not a lot changed on my blogs that day - the impact over the last 4-5 years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my blogging work flow.

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

Tomorrow I want to share a free opportunity with you that I think will help many of us as bloggers to make this mind shift. You see many of us are stuck in the mindset of looking at what we do as a ‘hobby’ and need to make a shift into looking at things more as a business person.

Update: due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve pulled tomorrow’s post. I was going to promote something that I thought fit the bill but on further investigation - it doesn’t. My sincere apologies but I don’t want to promote something that doesn’t fit with my ethos.

However I do recommend people take this idea of learning how to build a successful business seriously. I did this through finding a business coach, reading books and networking with business owners (offline and online).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

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Hi
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1.Login to your WordPress account and go to the Dashboard for the blog that you’d like to transfer to Blogger.

2.Click on the Tools tab–>Export

3.Now download the WordPress XML export file by clicking on ‘Download Export File’.

Now save this file to your local machine.

4.Now Go to Wordpress2Blogger,

Browse to that saved WordPress XML export file and click Convert.

5.After converting,save that file to your local machine. In this file will be the contents of your posts/comments from WordPress in a Blogger export file.

6.Then login to your blogger dashboard–>Settings–>Basic tab and click “Import” to import the converted file.

Now you are done.
How to Import A Wordpress Blog into Blogger

Your WordPress database contains every post, every comment and every link you have on your blog. If your database gets erased or corrupted, you stand to lose everything you have written. There are many reasons why this could happen and not all are things you can control. But what you can do is back up your data. After all, it is important. Right?

Below are instructions to back up your WordPress Site and your WordPress Database. In addition, support is provided online at the WordPress Support Forum to help you through the process.

Making backups is essential because problems inevitably occur and you need to be in a position to take action when disaster strikes. Spending a few minutes to make an easy, convenient backup of your database will allow you to spend even more time being creative and productive with your website.

For Details See This Links =

http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups

Today, Amir Helzer from WPML (WordPress Multilingual) shares his experience building a custom WordPress theme.

When you’re designing your blog all sorts of options are open to you - starting with a free theme (that you can later edit), through a premium customizable theme (like Thesis or Revolution2) and ending with a custom theme, created just for your site.

In January, Web Designer Matt Brett talked here about how to redesign a blog (and part 2). These posts covered the design goals, functionality and implementation. I’d like to talk about the process of working with the designer - the person who’s going to create your theme.

If you’re thinking about getting a custom theme, following these steps can make the process shorter, more productive and more enjoyable for both you and the designer.

1) State what you need and define the scope of the work

We’ll start with a list of everything that we need from this design:

A WordPress theme - sounds obvious, but you don’t want the designer to supply you just the PSD files, or a HTML file that you can turn into a theme yourself, right? Specify which version of WordPress you’re going to use it with.

Logo - a professionally designed logo can be expensive by itself, so make sure it’s included. When you ask for a logo, remember that you’ll also want to use it in printed material (like business cards or in magazines). This means asking for a high resolution version of your logo with transparent background.

Copyright - make sure it’s crystal clear that you have full copyright and exclusivity. This implies that the designer cannot use anything that violates the rights of others.

The discussion about copyright should clearly mention back-links. Web designers often give away free themes in exchange for credit links. If you want to link back to your designer’s site, that’s great, but you should decide that. You can instruct the designer to get your approval for any outgoing link placed in the theme.

Testing - ask the designers to supply a preview of your theme on their server. Normally, you can’t test their work on your live site. You might need to supply contents for this, or just do with the standard Lorem Ipsum.

2) WordPress theme basics - which elements to ask for

WordPress is evolving and theme design is more than just putting HTML in pages. You need to specify what kind of functionality you expect to get from your website.

List everything that you know you need. Here is what I told my designer when we started:

My design should include:

• Front page
• ‘Regular’ internal pages - for general purpose texts.
• ‘Features’ internal pages - these pages should have a unique template that lets me highlight special features.
• Posts (with threaded comments)
• Category pages
• Search

The design should have site-wide navigation including top tabs with drop-down menus, breadcrumbs trail navigation and context-dependent sidebar navigation. There should also be room reserved for the language switcher (inside the header).

The sidebar should be widget ready. Comments in posts and pages must support threading. Every page in the website must be HTML clean (pass HTML validation).

This list doesn’t tell the designer how I want the site to look, it just lists which things I need. Since she was doing a redesign for an existing site, I didn’t need to explain much about the contents for each page. If you’re getting a theme for a new site, there’s more explaining to do.

3) Prototypes come before the design

Even though you’ve chosen great designers, they’re not mind-readers. Ask the designer to provide prototypes before building any HTML or coding the theme. This way, you can approve the design concept before too much work has been put into it.

A prototype is normally delivered as an image (JPEG or PNG). During your work on the prototype, you need to take care of all the design issues. This includes the color scheme, look and feel, layout and content arrangement.

When you’ve accepted the prototype, know that this is how your site will appear. There’s not much room for design changes later on in the process. The designer’s job changes from design to implementation.

4) Payment and delivery terms

Last, but not least, before the project kicks off, you should agree on both payment and delivery terms.

Design work is not like building a railroad. You can’t pay per mile. However, there are some checkpoint on the way:

• Prototype / wireframe design
• Working draft
• Completed and polished design

Both you and the designer would feel better if payment is split per delivery. You can make an initial payment, release payment when each milestone is met and the final payment is left for when the work completes and is fully reviewed.

Ready to begin your custom theme design? Here’s a quick checklist of what we talked about:

1. Project overview
2. Detailed scope of work
3. Payment and delivery terms

In the next part of this post (tomorrow), we’ll talk about how to help the design go smoothly and make sure you’re getting everything you asked for.

This post was written by Amir Helzer, founder of WPML, a mega-plugin that aims to turn WordPress into a fully featured multilingual content management system.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Designing a Custom WordPress Theme - Working with a Designer

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Posted: 01 Aug 2009 07:29 AM PDT

This is a guest post from Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, and author of the best-selling book The Power of Less. Leo has just released a free report for bloggers called How I Got 100,000 Subscribers in Two Years: Lessons from Zen Habits.

One of the things I’m proudest of at Zen Habits is not that I’ve grown a large readership for my blog, but that I’ve developed a very rewarding relationship with many of my readers.

It’s nothing you might call inappropriate (or illegal), mind you, but it’s vastly rewarding.

Because of this relationship, writing for Zen Habits is an amazingly positive experience, because my readers are so encouraging. Even more importantly, they contribute to my blog with their thoughtful comments, their criticism, their experiences, in ways I never could have imagined. They make my blog what it is.

And from a blogger’s perspective, there’s no better thing. Having such a genuine, engaging relationship with my readers means that they want to help me, in any way they can — they’re willing to buy and read my books, they want to follow my updates on Twitter, they want to talk to me and ask me questions, and that leads to all kinds of interesting things. I never planned for this to happen, but now that it has, I recommend it to all bloggers.

I think it can be consciously cultivated, just like any relationship. I did it less-than-consciously, just because I enjoyed conversing with my readers and trying to be of use, and I’m a naturally positive person. But you can do it consciously if you like, and I believe if you do it genuinely, it’ll be a genuine relationship.

That’s an important point to remember: you can’t fake this stuff. If you are just pretending to care about your readers, if you don’t really want to talk to them, they’ll feel that. They’re smarter than many people give them credit for.

Here are my suggestions for building a genuine relationship with your readers, based on my experiences:

1. A genuine relationship starts with you — you have to take responsibility for it. You can’t expect your readers to automatically be encouraging, supportive, kind, positive, loyal, helpful, and generous … just because you’re the awesome person you are. So start with a positive mindset, and be willing to work on the relationship, be open to what emerges.

2. Make your posts as helpful and useful as you can. Your posts shouldn’t just be about you, and how great you are (as true as that may be), but about your readers and their problems, and how you can help them solve them. Really try to help your readers in some way in every post. They will appreciate it.

3. Be helpful and positive in all interactions. In every comment you respond to, in every email with a reader, in every interaction on forums and Twitter and other social networks, you should try to be positive, try to be helpful, and try to build your relationship in some way. It’s the same when you build a friendship or working relationship with a co-worker, isn’t it? Being online doesn’t change how relationships are built — if you are always critical, defensive, offensive, attacking, sarcastic … well, that’s the kind of relationship you’ll have. If you’re just trying to sell stuff to people all the time, it won’t be a genuine relationship.

4. Encourage discussion in comments. You aren’t the only person who has good ideas or knowledge, so ask your readers to contribute their thoughts, to share their experiences, to add tips of their own. I like to do that at the end of a post, but even if I don’t, readers understand that I want this stuff by now. When readers give comments, thank them, respond to their questions and thoughts, interact. Sometimes, it’s good to get discussions going by asking reader questions in an “Ask the Readers” post — just pose a question and ask them to respond in the comments.

5. Accept criticism with grace. Bloggers have to have a thick skin, because inevitably we will be criticized. It’s the nature of the Internet, or any discussion of ideas actually — there is always criticism, and sometimes it’s harsh. And it can hurt. You get angry, or defensive, and when you respond to criticism in this way it’s not a good thing: 1) you look immature and defensive; 2) it discourages an open and frank discussion; and 3) you harm your relationship with your readers. Instead, thank your readers for their criticism, respond positively, and sometimes, acknowledge that they may be right. Because a lot of the time, they are, but our egos are too wounded for us to admit it to ourselves. Read more: How to accept criticism with grace and appreciation.

6. Build relationships in other channels. Having discussions in blog comments is great, but there are other ways to build relationships — through email, on Twitter, on Facebook, in forums (maybe even your own forums). While I can’t possibly respond to all the email I get now, I certainly did when my blog first started out, even when I had 10K subscribers — I tried to answer every question or thank them for every kind email. I miss that level of personal interaction, but I still try to connect with readers on Twitter and in comments. It’s a great way to take the relationship to another level.

7. Give back on other blogs. Many times, readers and commenters on your site will be fellow bloggers — which is actually how blogs emerged when they went beyond a log of interesting web links: they became a way to have a larger discussion on the web, as bloggers linked to each other and commented on each other’s posts. And so as other bloggers comment on and link to your posts, do the same for them. Go to their blogs, comment on their posts, link to them now and then if it’ll be useful to your readers. Write guest posts for them and invite them to do the same. Share their posts on Twitter if you like them. Building relationships with other bloggers is a great way to become immersed in the wonderful community of bloggers, and to build a relationship with some of your most active readers.

Read more from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, and check out his free report for bloggers called How I Got 100,000 Subscribers in Two Years: Lessons from Zen Habits.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

7 Steps to Building a Genuine Relationship With Your Readers

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There are four main questions that readers want answered on your About Me page:

1. who you are…
2. your expertise and how it addresses…
3. their problem or goal, and how they can…
4. contact you

Here is a sample “About Me” page that answers these questions:

Hi, I’m Jane Smith and I write TransitionMomBlog (who Jane is) to help women make the transition from full-time mom to successful entrepreneur (the reader’s problem or goal). I started TransitionMomBlog in 2004 (Jane’s expertise – shows she has been blogging for two years) to help other women deal with the sometimes overwhelming prospect of starting a new business while still running a household (how Jane helps them overcome their problem or achieve their goal). Prior to raising my family, I spent over ten years as a teacher, corporate trainer and workshop leader (Jane’s expertise, both as a mom and a business person). To contact me, please email XXX (how to contact Jane).

Other posts on About Me Pages include:

• Adding an About Page to your Site
• The problem of Default About Pages

Also check out our popular Blogging Tips for Beginners page.

from :http://www.problogger.net/

how-to-make-random-header-images

Written by Jai on May 2, 2008 – 12:14 pm - 7,378 views

22 Comments

You are using a neat WordPress theme with an image header but want to have multiple images that you can randomize on your blog? Here is how to go about it…

STEP 1 - Editing Images

Make all your header images that you want to randomize of the same size (dimensions) and format. For example, if you have GIF images then all should be of the same extension. I hope you get the point.

STEP 2 - Naming Images

All the names of your header images should follow a similar pattern. Here is an example we will use :-

blogtop-1.gif
blogtop-2.gif
blogtop-3.gif
blogtop-4.gif

We do this because when writing the code, we will try to randomize the number part (logically, randomization is done by numbers in any programming language) and keep the text part similar for all.

STEP 3 - Moving the Image Files

Move all your header image files to the “images” folder in your theme folder. Most probably, if you are using a theme that uses images, then it should have an “images” sub-folder. If not, make one and put all your header images in there.

STEP 4 - Randomizing the Images

Open your header.php file from the theme folder in a text editor. Put this code just below the tag.

<?php
$header_image = rand(1,4);
?>

The rand() function actually picks up a random number from the number of items you have specified. We are going to use this function to randomize and pick 1 item from the 4 header images in the “images” folder. So, if you have more than four images, just change 4 to your number.

STEP 5 - Using the Randomization in the Actual Header

This part can be a bit tricky as it will require you to find the code where your theme calls the actual header image (the one being used in the default theme). Usually, most of the professional theme designers define the header image through the CSS background property of the header DIV. So, you will have to get rid of that technique and use the old school HTML technique to call the image in the header DIV or the place where you want your header image to be located.

Ideally, the following piece of code will pull your header images in your theme :-

<img src="<? bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/blogtop-<? echo $header_image; ?>.gif" alt="header" />

So, basically this code will insert the value of the variable $header_image after “blogtop-” and this will pull out the image from the “images” folder. All you have to do is figure out where exactly to place this img code in your theme header.

This concludes the random header tutorial and if you have questions, just ask here in the comments.

artikels from: Blogohblog.com