Business

Nov
12th

Step up your blog’s game – Part III

November 12, 2010 By PJ Mullen

This post is part of a guest blogging series I’m doing over at The Odd Dad Out and was originally published on November 10, 2010.

Over the first two parts of this series we’ve talked about a wide range of things that hopefully have helped with any questions you may have had. In today’s third part I’ve got a few final thoughts about some things I do with the sites that I manage.

Build a lab

One of my favorite things to do is create a “lab” for myself with each site I build. All I do is install another copy of WordPress to a “/lab” subdirectory of the domain through my host. This gives me the ability to try new things, test out code and work on design changes without affecting my production blog.

If I had a dollar for every time I crashed my site editing the custom function php file in Thesis I could probably get out from under the albatross of a house in which we live.

Building your own lab may sound unnecessary, but when you grow bored with the design of your site as often as I do it makes some sense. It has been a great way to learn without doing any permanent damage.

You can export your content to an XML file and import it into your “lab” environment to help you figure everything out. If you do this, however, you should also set your privacy settings under “Setting” to exclude this blog from being found by the search engines. It wouldn’t be much fun if Google knocked you for duplicate content just because you built yourself a digital sandbox.

Get engaged

This post series could go on for weeks if I started talking about the different services and plugins I use, so I’m going to cut it down to just one.

Social networking is all about the conversation and my favorite add on to my sites is Disqus. You may have had, or may know someone that had, a bad experience with Disqus, but it has always worked just fine for me on my sites. The only time I’ve integrated it into a Blogger blog the process wasn’t terribly smooth, but it did work.

What I like about Disqus is that with a little extra effort at set up your blog guests can choose to login using a number of social networking sites, or not at all. I also like the moderation panel and the way it looks on the site as compared with the basic threaded commenting system that is the default with WordPress.

They have recently improved their mobile site design to make it easier for people using smartphones and other devices leave comments on blogs that use Disqus. And, lastly, they will soon be releasing iPhone and Android apps to give moderators better on the go control.

If there any follow up topics (especially those pertaining to WordPress, plugins or premium themes) that you’d like me to cover, drop us a comment and I’ll write about them in a future article.

Filed Under: Blogging, Odd Dad Out Tagged With: Blogger (service), Disqus, Facebook, Google, iPhone, Tools, WordPress, XML

Nov
5th

Step up your blog’s game – Part II

November 5, 2010 By PJ Mullen

This post is part of a guest blogging series I’m doing over at The Odd Dad Out and was originally published on November 3, 2010.

Last week I started a series about how you can help step up your blogs game. For the first installment the information was very basic. Today we’ll be digging a little deeper to help give you some more ideas on how you can get your blog where you’d like it to be.

Learn a little HTML

I know enough HTML, CSS and PHP to be dangerous. There are a number of great online tutorials to help you brush up on coding, which I find can be quite relaxing. One of the sites I like is W3 Schools who has step-by-step instructions for HTML, HTML5 and CSS, among others. However, I can’t always find exactly what I’m looking for in these tutorials, so I turn to Google and there are hosts of blogs that are great resources to help you customize your particular platform.

Premium themes

All of the sites I’ve ever developed use WordPress, so that is the platform I can speak to the best. The first iteration of Real Men Drive Minivans was a free theme, but after nearly a year of looking at the same old thing I decided to make the investment in a premium theme.

From many of the things I had read on the Internet, I chose to go with Thesis and ultimately grabbed the developer’s license, which set me back a total of $164. It was pricey, but it was worth it and gave me the ability to resell the theme framework to clients, which I provided at cost as a value added to my services.

The third iteration of my site was when I added a third party skin to the Thesis theme to give it a semi custom look. The skin cost me $50 and since it was designed to work seamlessly with Thesis installation and customization were very easy.

The fourth and latest iteration of my blog that I recently completed is based on the Genesis framework from StudioPress. The old blog needed a fresh coat of paint and while I liked the concept of what the Thesis skin brought to the site it isn’t as clean as I would like it to be.

I wasn’t planning to make a change, but I had the opportunity to grab a license for Genesis for a client I was working with and it was like a shiny new toy I had to play with. It wasn’t cheap. I shelled out $250 for their Pro Plus package, but for as many sites as I manage it was worth it.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because in my view the premium themes have added a lot to the look and feel of my site, my knowledge of how things work (Thesis forced me to learn some CSS and PHP) and gave me a greater ability to customize my site myself.

No sites I’ve ever built are going to win any design awards, but I like to think they are clean and functional.

Graphics & open source icons

I’m not a graphics designer, so any custom design was out of the question due to lack of ability and cost of hiring someone else. Since I harbor no intentions of using my blog as business platform the prospects of dropping a grand or so on a custom design was out of the question.

Still, I really wanted a nice logo that I could be proud to display on my site. I did a lot of research into cost, however, when a friend referred me to crowdSPRING I knew I was onto something. crowdSPRING is a crowd sourced design community where you hold design contests and graphics designers present their ideas based on your requirements. For $250 I was able to procure a logo and a header file for the blog that I absolutely love.

Just about every other graphic or icon on my site was procured using open source items that are available on the net. If you are looking to add or mix up your social networking icons you can try out Icon Finder or Google “social media icons” for a plethora of posts with free image packages.

All told creating a blog similar to what I have will run you less than $500 upfront (hosting, premium theme & graphics package) and $85 per year thereafter, assuming you do the rest of the work yourself.

Filed Under: Blogging, Odd Dad Out Tagged With: Cascading Style Sheets, Crowdspring, CSS, HTML, PHP, StudioPress, Thesis, WordPress

Oct
30th

Step up your blog’s game – Part I

October 30, 2010 By PJ Mullen

This post is part of a guest blog series I’m doing over at The Odd Dad Out and was originally published on October 27, 2010.

Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of talk about how dad blogs suck. Even I got a little snarky about the whole matter. Among the many arguments made, both good and bad, was that many blogs don’t look professional.

If you are using your blog as a platform for more commercial endeavors, then it is important to keep in mind that your site is a reflection of you. A simple, yet solid design on the right platform with the right social outposts and calls to action will go a long way if you goal is to work with brands or if you are trying to develop your own personal brand.

I’m not normally the how-to type of guy (unless you count recipes), especially when it comes to parenting or relationships. Still, I thought I’d share some of the knowledge I’ve gleaned from assembling my three sites, as well as the numerous ones I’ve developed for clients.

None of this information is particularly groundbreaking, but I figured I’d consolidate the basics and give my personal opinion on things. If you were looking to upgrade your site and didn’t know where to start, then I hope that this will give you some direction.

Hosted v. Self hosted

There are plenty of platforms from which you can start a blog. You can go with services like Blogger, WordPress.com, Square Space or TypePad. You can even use micro-blogging platforms like Tumblr or Posterous. All but one is free and all are very user friendly.

However, depending on your purpose for blogging, there is benefits to hosting your blog on your own domain rather than utilized a hosted service. The two biggest benefits to hosting your blog yourself are customization and search engine optimization.

Free services like Blogger and WordPress.com blogs have limited themes (designs) unless you pay for some custom work. Also with WordPress.com, you are limited in the plugin options to enhance your user experience.

As an example, you can’t use a plugin that utilizes java script. From a resource allocation standpoint they just can’t offer something like that with as many sites as they are hosting on their servers.

With regards to SEO, if you update your blog regularly at a hosted service all the benefits of the links go to the host, not to you. By paying a modest annual fee for a hosting account those links will inure to your benefit giving you more exposure and, hopefully, organic search engine traffic.

Get a host

If you’re ready to take the plunge to using a self-hosted platform such as WordPress.org or Moveable Type, then you’ll need a host. There are plenty of options to choose from and most packages run about $7-9/month when paid on an annual basis.

Get a domain

If you are going to open a hosting account then you’ll need to acquire a domain name, unless you already have one. Even if you’ve chosen to not self-host, I’d still recommend getting your own domain. Blogger and WordPress.com (the two free hosted services I know the best) both enable you to use a custom domain.

You can register a domain through your host (some even offer one free domain name with per year) or you can use a service like GoDaddy and point (or redirect) the domain to whomever you plan to use for hosting.

If you have a Blogger blog it is best to purchase your domain through Google’s registrar partner so you don’t have to mess around with configuring name records or DNS entries. There may be less expensive options, but the convenience of it being automatic is a big plus.

We will stop here for now, but tune in for more as we continue to explore how you can step up your blog’s game.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: Blog, Blogger, Domain name, Go Daddy, Google, Movable Type, Search engine optimization, TypePad, WordPress

Sep
7th

Could Trust Agents have saved my mortgage career?

September 7, 2009 By PJ Mullen

This post is continuation of a column I wrote titled ‘Being a Trust Agent in the business of fatherhood’ over at my fatherhood blog, Real Men Drive Minivans. ‘Trust Agents’ provoked a lot of thoughts and ideas and not all of them fit over there, so I’m wrapping things up over here.

As I read Trust Agents it touched on a lot of things that I think might have helped me transform my career in the mortgage business by using tools like blogs and Twitter to continue to educate and share, as well as increase customer satisfaction and the awareness of my company.

About half way through the book I actually stopped to draw out a workflow for how I would have utilized certain social media channels. Still, despite this thought exercise, I don’t regret a single decision that led me to walking away. I was miserable and had become so disenchanted very little would have motivated me to alter the path I was on. I think that it is much more likely I would have dismissed all this social media stuff as garbage.

If you had known me back when I was slinging mortgages you would not confuse me for a character in Glengarry Glen Ross, as I didn’t really sell anyone. I took a more laid back approach where I spent more time educating my customers on how mortgages worked than dealing with things like rates, points and closing costs.

The reality of the situation is that all those things depended on quantifiable information – credit score, debt ratio and loan to value. Mortgages are essentially a commodity product, especially in today’s credit market with the drastic overhaul to product guidelines and eligibility.

No matter whether you get your mortgage from a bank or a broker, the money is pretty much coming from the same set number of places. The only thing that changes is who you deal with and how far down the food chain they are from the actual funding source.

As a result, there is very little one bank or broker can do for you to create any real value except educate and provide guidance. As I used to preach to my loan officers, guidelines are guidelines, so spend your time adding value by making them understand their loan.

I made a point of taking the time to let a customer know exactly what they were getting, why they were getting it and, if they had time in the case of a home purchase, how to fix what might be wrong to get something better. My approach, while successful for me, drove my boss nuts. Yet, somehow it got me promoted into management.

When customers would ask for a good faith estimate so they could see what it was going to cost them to get the loan I would always send two. One would show a higher interest rate with no fees and the other would show a lower interest rate with what I would charge for that type of a loan. Unlike many in my industry I was disclosing to the customer what I was going to make on the loan, the only difference was who was going to pay me – the bank or the customer.

I knew how much time I would have to spend to get their loan through underwriting and what I felt my time was worth, so I set my mark and stuck to it. If the customer walked because they thought they could do better, then that was the cost of doing business. Still, many stuck around because I was willing to show them the whole picture.

Why did I do this? To establish trust. Our firm did business entirely on the web and were at the time a very highly ranked LendingTree lender. As a result, I was unknowingly acting as a trust agent due to the fact that I met only a handful of customers in person. It was important to develop a measure of trust considering I was involved in one of the largest financial decisions these people would ever make.

After having read Trust Agents and taking time to reflect on its concepts, I believe that the knowledge I’ve gained will certainly help me since at some point I will need to return to the workforce. And while I started my fatherhood blog to connect with dads and moms to share in the life altering experience that is parenting, it also in many ways can be considered on the job training for a potential career transition.

Thanks to Chris Brogan, Julien Smith and Trust Agents I have some additional clarity and actionable ways to make that happen should an opportunity present itself.