One of the biggest draws to starting a self-hosted WordPress blog is the plugins.

Plugins are totally the new shiny object part of WordPress and can be a whole lot of fun to play around with.

But when you’re switching from a free service like WordPress.com or Blogger to a self-hosted site, how do you enable all those cool plugins?

Step by Step Guide to Install a WordPress Plugin

There are a 2 ways to install a WordPress plugin on your blog that I recommend for newbies.

First, it’s important to understand that plugins come from 2 different places. They are either stored by WordPress.org in the Plugin Directory or they are hosted by the plugin developer on an external site. Plugins that are stored by developers are often the premium, paid, plugins and everything in the Plugin Directory is free (although some have paid features and upgrades.)

Install a Plugin with the WordPress Admin Search Feature

The first method of plugin installation we’ll cover is for those free plugins that are on WordPress.org.

To get started, log in to your site and navigate to the Plugins>Add New section of your admin menu.

Next, search the plugin name or topic in the search field and click “Search Plugins”.

You’ll now see a list of plugins that have related titles, tags or keywords. Navigate to the plugin you want, and click “Install Now.”

After clicking Install Now, you’ll see a security dialogue box pop up, go ahead and click “OK.”

The last piece to finish up the install is to actually activate the plugin. Simply click “Activate Plugin” and you’re done!

Every plugin functions a bit differently and the settings for the new plugin can be in a number of places in your site. Depending on what the plugin does you may find it’s options under “Settings,” “Tools,” “Widgets” or it may have it’s own tab in your menu.

Install a Plugin with the WordPress Admin Upload Feature

If the plugin you want isn’t listed in the WordPress plugin repository then how do you get it into your site?

This is a great question and one that comes up a lot as my clients start to really explore the plugin options that are out there for self-hosted WordPress blogs.

The first step is to download the plugin that you want to use on your site. If you purchase a plugin, most often the developer will send you a link to the download. To upload properly, the plugin will need to be a .zip file.

Again go to Plugins>Add New but this time click on “Upload” and choose the plugin .zip file you want to upload from your computer and click “Install Now.”

After uploading it’s simply a matter of clicking “Activate Plugin” as you did before, when using the search feature.

It was nuts, I went cross-eyed. It was not good, except for the 7 sets of social media icons – that my friends, was all good.

Lately, the biggest request I get from my fabulous clients is for social media icons that are official colors of the networks. But they don’t want the 3D square button looking things either. You know, subtle but not so subtle.

When you look online for social media icons you either get ones that look crazy, (social media cupcake, mmm, yummy!) or boring and one solid color. Not to mention if you try and find a set with Pinterest and Instagram – you crazy!

Happy medium? I think we may have found it.

Here’s a collection of social media icons sets that are all in official colors with different types of textures and patterns so they can add a little bit of pizzazz without being too pizzazzy.

The Tech Specs

Seven different sets with 12 icons each including: email, Foursquare, Facebook, Google +, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest “P” and Pinterest pin icon, Rss, Twitter, YouTube logo and a YouTube icon. The icons are 128px in diameter and in psd format.

Download, share, whatever brings you joy. I’m a big believer in Karma so attribution is appreciated but not required.

Click for download instructions

Moving your blog off a free platform (Blogger, WordPress.com, Tumblr) to your own hosting account (aka self-hosted!) is a big step but it’s one most people make when they want to start taking their blogging more seriously.

What’s the difference? Why should you consider self-hosting?

Think of it like this: a free site is sort of like living in your parent’s basement.

Sure, you may own your TV  but you still have to follow their rules. You can put posters on the walls but you can’t repaint or renovate.

That’s pretty much what free sites are like. The writing is yours, just like your furniture, but ultimately you have to follow someone else’s rules.

Self-hosting is like owning your own home.

You have to pay taxes to use the city services but you can alter the house inside and out. Later, you can even sell the house and make money – it’s totally your show.

With a website, you pay monthly fees so you can use their servers for your website files.

The downside of full ownership is that if the roof breaks (or website), it’s also your show.

Ultimately, self-hosting can equal more rewards but it comes with more responsibility.

If self-hosting your site isn’t all rainbows and lollipops why do you bother?

Well, there are some crazy awesome advantages to self-hosting that push most people over the hump into the land of website ownership:

• Customization: adding plugins (cool WordPress add-ons) is one of the easiest ways to make your site do all the fancy stuff you see on other sites. Think social sharing, Pinterest, photo galleries, recipe plugins, cool sidebar stuff – most of that is done with plugins.
• Advertising: Most free platforms restrict your ability to put your ads up on the site. They are free to put their own ads up but it’s so they make money, not you.
• Control: Me? A Control freak? Just a little ;) Self-hosting means that your stuff is your responsibility. You can back it up and keep it safe.  Remember the great Blogger blackout last May? When the site went down for 2 days without a lot of answers while the whole mess was going on. Once service was restored, some bloggers lost a lot of content – for good. That would scare me into self-hosting if I didn’t already, how about you?

Now it’s your turn: What’s Your Biggest Self-Hosting Anxiety?

I’m working on a series about self-hosting your website, transferring your posts and all that fun stuff that makes you get a bit freaky (or panic!)

While transferring over 200 sites over the last few years I’ve learned a lot of tips and techniques that can make the whole process feel so much easier.

I’d LOVE to hear from you so I can make sure that your fear, anxiety or frustration is answered asap.

Here’s the general flow of the self-hosting process to help stir up some questions:

• Buy a domain (your http://yourblog.com)
• Pick a host provider
• Install WordPress on your new hosting account
• Pick a theme (free or paid)
• Transfer your content
• Add plugins and customize your theme to make it all purdy!
• Redirect the old blog to the new blog so no one gets left behind

In the comments below let me know your biggest self-hosting dilemma! 

Showcasing recipes takes a special flair and you amazing kitchen ninjas need a beautiful way to display your creations so that the recipe not only looks good enough to eat but displays well on you blog too.

I can’t help with the picture taking/recipe creating part (I am available for testing!)  but here’s a list of my current fav 3 recipe plugins (plus some bonus ones at the end!)  for WordPress so you can show off your recipes in a beautiful, easy way and benefit from appearing in Google recipe search!

ReciPress

Currently free, with future paid add-ons scheduled, ReciPress is one of my favorites not only because it’s easy to use (a must!) but it also looks really sharp and can help your food blog look really pro.

This plugin adds a box below your text editor in the post edit screen that you can check off to include a recipe. At that point, a handy template opens up for you to fill out all the necessary information to have it appear in your post.

If you’d like a more detailed overview of the plugin you can watch the overview video below:

ReciPress Website

ReciPress on WordPress.org

RECIpage

Not so much a plugin but more of a service that meets the same need, RECIpage hosts your recipes and allows for embedding of the recipes on your site.

You can then create a dedicated recipe page that has loads of search functionality that normally would involve some pretty tricky coding. The service also enables printing, emailing and various social sharing options.

There are 2 things to note when using RECIpage. First, you have to login to a separate site to add your recipes and those culinary delights are loaded up to that site, not your blog. Those recipes are then embedded on your RECIpage page on your site (that you create), not in your blog posts themselves. To get them to appear in blog posts you have to write them out again.

It sounds like a lot of work doesn’t it? No one said blogging was easy ;) but it is a commitment for sure. The search functions and dedicated recipe page is a great convenience for readers so that’s something to consider.

If you’d like to see RECIpage in action you can check out Angela Liddon’s blog Oh She Glows.

RECIpage Website

Easy Recipe

Easy Recipe adds a recipe input function to your post edit screen that makes adding a recipe a breeze, just like the name suggests.

After installing Easy Recipe, your post edit toolbar will have a new icon. Once clicked, this icon will bring up a recipe input screen that prompts you through recipe creation so it appears all fancy on your blog.

Once the recipe set up is complete, your finished recipe will look something like this:

Easy Recipe Website

Easy Recipe on WordPress.org

Other Food Blogging Plugins Worth Checking Out

1. KitchenBug
2. Recipes to Grocery Lists
3. hRecipe
4. ZipList Recipe Plugin
5. Recipe SEO (for Blogger, WordPress.com and Tumblr)
6. GetMeCooking Recipe Template

 Do you have a favorite plugin for your recipes? Let others know and share in the comments below!

I nearly chocked writing spring in the title of this post considering I spent a good portion of this morning shoveling a foot of snow – in April, but I digress…

Last year around this time, we discussed the finer points of  WordPress blog maintenance and I thought why not shine some light in the dark, murky corners of Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest with a handy social media checklist to get everything spruced up for spring, if it ever comes.

Twitter

1. Update your bio & photo

Those 160 characters that make up your twitter bio are premium real estate, are you using them to their best advantage? Take a look at your bio and see what changes you can make to improve it.

How recent is your profile picture? Does it reflect you and how you want to be viewed on social media? If not, switch it out to something that’s more current or engaging.

I’m going to assume that you don’t have the Twitter egg as your profile pic but there are some other things that are easier to overlook like:

• Is the image used in your profile as clear in the larger profile page version (81px square) as it is in the smaller, in stream version (48px square). I know you know what it is, but that doesn’t mean everyone can see that it’s you doing a handstand at the top of Machu Picchu when it’s reduced to the size of a postage stamp.
• Does your profile image have text in it that’s too hard to read when reduced to the 48px square most people see? Keep in mind that your twitter handle and name appear right beside your tweets anyway, so is text really necessary?
• Does your image stand out in the stream? Stand up, take a step back and see how your image stacks up in the stream? Does it blend in? Pop out? Try a bright background color or a picture with eye contract to make a great impression.

2. Update your header image

One of the newer ways to add personality to your twitter profile is through the header photos. With a larger size (520px x 260px) you’ve got quite a bit of room to showcase your awesome. The header image has a lot of prominence in the mobile interface so don’t overlook this great opportunity to visually connect with potential followers.

3. Review you followers

Managing followers gets a bit crazy the larger your account gets and keeping on top of it with a periodic cleaning is a great practice to get into, not just at spring time.

There are a lot of services out there that can make this take more manageable but I really like Tweepi‘s free and premium service. Tweepi can help you see who’s followed you but you haven’t followed back, if there’s dead accounts that you can delete and also helps you follow interesting people with some advanced search features.

Speaking of following interesting people, how about adding some fresh ideas to that Twitter stream? One of the best ways to grow your following is to follow interesting people! Spend some time following new people as part of your spring spruce up!

4. Update your lists

Do you have any twitter lists? Should you? Twitter lists are a great way to actually see tweets from people you want to interact with especially when your follow count gets pretty high. Another bonus of lists? You don’t have to actually follow people to put them on a list and keep up to date. Lists are a great and flexible tool that make Twitter a whole lot more user friendly.

5. Recheck those app permissions

You know all those apps that you can log into using your Twitter profile and give access to your account? That list can get mighty long over time and it’s always a good idea to keep permissions to a minimum.

Facebook

1. Update your cover photo

With Facebook’s freshly designed newsfeed, your cover photo has greater prominence in a “liker’s” newsfeed when they give you that initial thumbs up.

How does your over photo look when cropped like this?

Second, Facebook has recently changed it’s cover photo guidelines to allow calls to action while maintaining the 20% text rule. So what’s the mean for average blogger with a Facebook page? It means you can now as for the Like again, point to the like button or invite visitors to come to your website (or list a product you have for sale or for free.) As long as your image is 80% picture and those calls to action stay at 20% of the total image, you’re golden.

2. Check your about bio

The about section on your Facebook page can get just as stagnant as your Twitter bio. Check it out and make sure it reflects your blogging brand and the vibe you want to put out in the world. You don’t get many chances to capture that like when people land on your page so make that first impression count.

Another great tip, have your blog url in your about section so you’re not making people hunt for it! Start building readership through Facebook by encouraging that click through.

3. Are you using your tabs effectively?

You know those tabs hanging out on your Facebook page? The ones beside the about box? Now’s the time to figure out what to do with them so you’re utilizing them to their best advantage.

You can:

• Showcase your blog with Networked Blogs or Involver
• Put up your video content with Involver or Heyo
• Highlight upcoming events like twitter chats, races or blogging events and milestones with the defaults events tab
• Build your email list through your Facebook page with the app from whichever company you use

4. Review your Facebook posting strategy

Is your fan page growing like you want it too? If not, review what you’ve been doing (or not doing) and mix it up. Write out some daily and weekly steps you’re going to take consistently over the next few months to actually work on your page and your engagement. If you’re stuck on how to do this, get Googling!

5. Like new people and pages as your Page, not as your profile.

Did you know that you can like people and pages on Facebook as your page? Your blog’s page on Facebook has it’s own newsfeed! One of the best (and under-utilized) ways to grow your Facebook page and interaction is to start liking and interacting as your page.

When signed in, simply go to “Edit Page” and select the drop down Use Facebook as “Your Page.” After that, like pages and subscribe to public updates from individuals, leave comments and interact as your page. This way, you bring more awareness to your page (and not your personal profile) and have better content to share, right from your page’s newsfeed.

Pinterest

1. Update your about section

Notice a theme? Updating that about section is a key to keeping things fresh. Try to resist the urge to copy/paste your bio from each social network. Every social ecosystem has a different flavor so try to embrace the unique environment you’re in while keeping true to the way you want to present yourself.

2. Update your profile image

Remember those twitter rules for your profile image? Some goes for Pinterest!

3. Clean up your boards

Is your virtual pinboard starting to look like your garage? Things all jammed up in the back with no rhyme or reason to anything?

Take some time to re-organzie your boards to help your visitors find you more follow-able. Here’s some quick tips to help you get started:

• Put your “best” boards in the middle of the top row, studies have shown these get the most visual attention.
• Add, delete or re-organzie your boards so things are easy to find and reflect your interests and topics you pin. The top 2 rows get the most attention so put your best stuff up top.
• Lots of huge boards? See if you can break them down into sub-topics to make them more manageable and searchable.
• Set your board covers to something visually appealing by hovering over current cover image and clicking “change cover”. It’s as easy as re-centering an image or just picking a new one if you’ve had the same ones for months.
• Do all your boards have a description and a category? (Mine sure don’t, oops!) Just click on Edit on your board to add a few quick details to help your boards be discovered by more people through search.

4. Follow some new Pinners

Like every social media network, your experience, and success depends largely on who you follow. Your stream of pins will be far more interesting and re-pin worthy if you follow more people. Spend some time seeking out new people to follow that share your interests. You’ll not only have new stuff to share with your followers but you’ll have a much more enriching experience.

Do you have a spring cleaning tip from your social media accounts you could share?

There are 2 main types of subscribers for your blog: your RSS subscribers and your email subscribers.

The RSS folks use an RSS reader to puruse your blog. Something like Feedly (which is totally awesome btw) or Google Reader. Email subscribers are sent new posts via email (I know, imagine that!) This is done through services like Feedburner, Feedblitz or the native WordPress subscription option built into JetPack.

With all the talk about Google Reader leaving us July 1 and the uproar late last year about Feedburner possibly dying out too, it’s a great time to take control of your blog’s email subscriptions so that you actually own that list and aren’t left at the whim of a company’s product realignment.

There are a lot of options to manage email subscriptions for your blog and I’m not going to go through them all here. You only need one after all and you can always Google to your hearts content to find another alternative if you like.

Why I don’t depend on Feedburner to manage my email subscriptions

What I do for this site and what I do for many of my fabulous clients is set up their email subscriptions through Mailchimp and have it handle the email subscriptions instead of a service like Feedburner.

By setting up your email subscriptions through an email manager service like Mailchimp (or AWeber) you own that list of emails. You can download it to your computer, print it out and wallpaper your bedroom, upload it to another service if Mailchimp goes belly up – it’s totally yours. If Feedburner shut down today, your email list is gone too.

You wrote the content that earned those email subscribers and I think it should be completely in your control.

As an aside, I’ve worked with a lot of bloggers who, when first starting out, didn’t think they would ever need (or want) an email newsletter or “mailing list.” As their blog grew, they maybe started selling online personal training or started a nutrition counselling practice and wished they had started growing their list earlier. If you set up your blog’s email subscriptions this way now, you’ll have the added benefit of having a mailing list later on, you know, just in case ;)

How to Start Using Mailchimp to Handle Your Email Subscriptions

To set up your email subscriptions through Mailchimp, it’s pretty much as easy as following along in the tutorial from the Mailchimp blog. Don’t get intimidated when you see Merge Tags, non-techies can totally do this!

Next, you’ll need to install a handy dandy email sign up box in your sidebar so you can start getting people on the new list you just made.

I have a sign up box at the top of the right sidebar and another one at the bottom of this post if you’d like to check out a sample. Don’t be shy about signing up either, gotta make sure those babies work ;)

Sign up boxes are created by copying and pasting the code (provided by Mailchimp) into a text widget on your site.

For bonus points, you can use Magic Action Box or Optin Skin (both are WordPress plugins) that makes adding email sign up boxes super easy and they look a lot sexier than the standard Mailchimp ones.

How do you handle email subscribers on your blog? Any great resources you love that aren’t mentioned here?

Additional Reading & Resources for Overachievers

1. Import your Feedburner email subscribers into Mailchimp
2. Magic Action Box: WordPress plugin form builder free but with premium option
3. Optin Skin: premium WordPress plugin for adding email sign up boxes to blog without coding

No affiliate links were harmed or used in the making of this post.

When designing blogs for people, I am honored to get a small window in their hopes and dreams because how I design their WordPress blog has a lot to do with what they want to achieve with the site.

The most common stumbling blocks to achieving those dreams aren’t design related (I didn’t just say that, did I!??) or readership or money, it’s not dreaming big enough dreams!

Why do we shortchange ourselves and rob the world of our unique blogging gifts? I’ve found 3 “frequent flyers” that come up most, let’s take a look and figure out how to overcome them in 2013.

Blogging in a Fog

The most basic of roadblocks are the bloggers without a plan at all. If you haven’t taken the time to really figure out why it is you’re blogging, then you fit right here.

Blogging takes a big time commitment. Between writing content, social networking, social media, researching, etc. you’ve got your work cut out for you. If you don’t have a clear idea of what it’s all for, you may end up as one of the folks that gives up after 3 months.

If you start blogging because it looks fun and cool but don’t ever take the time to formalize what you want out of it, you’re bound to get frustrated.

Bring your blogging goals into focus by sitting down right now and grabbing a pen and paper (yup, go total old school on this one) and brainstorm your big, craziest goals for you blog. Just give it 10 minutes and write down everything that pops into your head, no matter how outlandish.

Once you have ideas & goals you can turn them into projects and actually start working toward accomplishing them!

Not Being Honest With Yourself

Blogger: “I would really like more readers.”

Me: “Awesome, why?”

Blogger: “What do you mean why?”

Me: “What does having more readers enable you to do?”

Blogger: “I’d probably be able to work with more companies and maybe do one of those Wal-mart mom sort of things, or maybe my ads might make some money too.”

Me: “So you’d like to make more money then?”

Blogger: “Well it just sounds so gross when you say it like that!”

Sound familiar? Usually an affliction of women more than men this one can be a sleeping giant.  Not-being-honest with yourself because you feel that your dream is selfish or greedy kills it before you even get off the ground. And just because you don’t openly acknowledge your goal doesn’t mean it’s not lurking behind the scenes, quietly nagging at you.

Wanting to make money isn’t being greedy. Most of us do have jobs and most of us need to make money to pay bills. You don’t apologize for going to work do you?

Do you wait until all your neighbors have gone for the day before sneaking into your car and slinking off to your job? Then, if someone asks what you did all day, you make up some story about sitting in front of the TV doing nothing because you’re embarrassed you need and have a job?

That’s kind of how I feel about people being ashamed of making money online with their blogs. This is work, the hours you put in are worth something, you create something and that is valuable! Just because a lot of the people you know don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it’s gross or icky to make money at it.

If your goal is to make a second income or even a primary income with your blog – own that truth and shout it (even quietly) from the proverbial rooftops.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be about money either. If there is a blogging goal you have that you’re not owning up to for whatever reason it’s going to eat at you until you do something about it or give up.

If this is you, take 10 minutes and write down your secret blogging desire on paper – make it real. Write down why you have a hard time owing up to what you really want. What about this makes you uncomfortable and explore that a bit so you can start to unravel some of your biases that are holding you back.

I’m Not Good Enough

Or smart enough or pretty enough or whatever enough to make it. Are you holding your big dreams back because your insecurities are getting the best of you? Do you constantly compare yourself to other bloggers and get jealous or frustrated?

First of all, that happens to just about everyone from time to time. It’s not the feeling that’s the problem, it’s dwelling on it and letting it get into your head and defeat you that’s the issue.

Nearly every blogger started with a blank page, a crappy design, a first post, a feeling of who is going to care what I have to say. The difference between the people that succeed and those that don’t is that the successful folks just keep doing it anyway. They learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

If you feel scared about writing a certain post, chances are it’s the exact one your need to write.

If you feel inadaquate about taking on a new opportunity, chances are it’s the exact one you need to accept.

Growth comes when you take chances and step outside of yourself to do what you never thought you could.

Now take 10 minutes and write out the insecurities that are holding you back from dreaming big and achieving big with your blog this year. What choices have you made recently out of fear of failure rather than risk success? Identifying the times you let your insecurities get the better of you can help you spot similar situations in the future and make better choices.

Do you see yourself in any of the blogging roadblocks? Should I add one that I missed? Let me know in the comments.

If you found this helpful, please take a minute to pass it along to a blogger you know that might be stuck and need a hand. Thanks so much!

A hard core fan will still find ways to share your content on social media, with browser extensions or a good old fashioned cut and paste, but do you really want to make them work to share your stuff?

Visual clutter is everywhere on the web and sometimes finding those social media buttons can be a task itself even if you do have them on your blog.

So, what’s a blogger to do to help their social media buttons and profiles stand out? Oddly enough, it’s often the simple images that make the biggest statement.

I went hunting for some simple, stripped down, but unique (and not so common) social media WordPress plugins to help your blog stand apart.

Social Media WordPress Plugins

Flare

I recently came across Flare on another site while surfing about and really liked the aesthetic of it. Similar to Digg Digg, Flare allows for floating sidebar social media buttons that “follow along” as you scroll down the page.

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Pinterest and Email are currently supported with really simple, elegant icons and no unnecessary visual clutter. You can add your Twitter account name to the sharing feature to have the share be “via” your Twitter handle.

The social media buttons also don’t appear right away, but fade in as a user scrolls down the page.

You can also place the buttons above or below the posts as with other social media WordPress plugins and you have the ability to put them on pages and other content types.

Flare also comes with a Follow widget for your sidebar or any widgetized area that has the same look and feel to the icon set.

 Download the plugin.

Juiz Social Post Sharer

Juiz Social Post Sharer is a great little social media WordPress plugin, again, with a different set of sharing icons that you’re used to seeing.

I’m currently trying this one out at the bottom of the post so you can see it in action if you like.

With above and below post options, the ability to show only icons (with a cool rollout expansion on mouse over) and to open shares in a new browser window, this plugin has everything you need in a nice looking package. There’s also share counts scheduled for future versions.

Twitter, Digg, Facebook, Google+, Linkdedin, Email, Pinterest, StumbleUpon and Viadeo are currently supported. Similar to Flare, you can add your Twitter account name to the sharing feature to have the share be “via” your Twitter handle.

There are 5 social media icon types that come with the plugin, all very simple but their simplicity makes them stand out.

Download the plugin.

What’s your favorite Social Media WordPress plugin?

What’s new with WordPress 3.5?

Media Manager

The biggest change in 3.5 is the media manager.

You can now review your media files in a grid with large thumbnails, rather than a long vertical list. The attachment details section is now on the right side when an image is checked. This change really streamlines the editing process and makes viewing images so much easier.

New in post media gallery view with WordPress 3.5

The Gallery creator has undergone an overhaul too. In previous versions, the native WordPress gallery would display all the images attached to a post or page when a gallery was selected. You couldn’t pick and choose images and have one image at the top of the post and then a gallery of different image below. Not unless you used a plugin or other method to make that happen.

Now, you simply open your media library within the post screen and select the images for your gallery.

New create gallery interface WordPress 3.5

Then drag and drop the images in the order you prefer.

New drag and drop gallery interface WordPress 3.5

New Default Theme

With WordPress 3.5 you’ll see a new default theme, Twenty Twelve. In the tradition of Twenty Ten and Twenty Eleven before it, this new theme is simple and clean with Open Sans typeface (one of my current faves!) and a mobile ready design.

Graphics Upgrades

To accommodate the higher resolution displays that are all the rage these days, the menus, buttons and icons didn’t escape redesign in this version of WordPress. Personally, other than the styling changes, I didn’t notice a huge difference on my lower resolution devices, but on my Retina Display devices, WordPress is looking pretty awesome.

Changes for Developers

There were some changes “under the hood” as WordPress likes to say, but for the average user, the main change is that XML-RPC is always enabled. If you use a service like Windows Live Writer to upload and edit posts, you use this feature already.

In previous versions, to use WLW, you would have find the little checkbox under Settings>Writing to enable the service.  It stumped a lot of people since they didn’t even know what they were looking for (or what XML-RPC was.)

Compatibility

So far we’ve updated 46 sites to the new version without incident but as always, back up your blogs before proceeding with any update!

If you haven’t heard, tomorrow our Blog Improvement Challenge opens for early bird registration (with some pretty cool bonuses) for 7 days only.

I ended up losing about 3 hours of my day pouring over all of her successes and struggles and seeing so much of myself in her battles. Having known her fairly well back in the day, but having lost touch for over a decade, it amazed me how parallel our lives were, even with all the differences.

We connected again after years, all over a blog.

The power of the medium really left an impression on me. So much so, that it wasn’t long after first discovering my friends’ site that I started a little blog of my own on a free wordpress site.

So I did what anyone who starts a blog does – I wrote. I wrote and wrote until my fingers couldn’t type anymore and I published countless posts in a fury of creative brilliance. Unfortunately – most of the posts were terrible but that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm.

After a week or so, my blog induced hysteria was dying down and I noticed something. No one was reading it. Ok, not literally no one – maybe 5 people (you guys totally rock and know who you are.) But it sure felt like no one.

Aren’t people just supposed to come? Aren’t they just supposed to find you?

Unfortunately, blogging isn’t a field of dreams and if you build it, the won’t and don’t come.

What made this random rejection of the internet Gods worse was that I was sharing heart felt stuff, like the real deal, and none of that seemed to matter.

I know this story sounds familiar to so many of you. You hit publish and sit and wait and refresh (then refresh again) and no one comes. You get a comment here and there and it feels like the best. thing. ever. but it doesn’t happen that often.

Then you go read some of your favorite blogs and they get like 100 comments before you finish your morning coffee. That feeling sucks. That feeling of not know what to do to get your site to be what you know it can be in your head. I get it, I was right there too.

I’d like to help you if I could. I’ve been at that point, when you feel like giving up, when you feel like the dream in your head just isn’t going to happen and you start to doubt yourself.  It’s a pretty rough place to be.

Sometimes all that’s missing between you and your goals is a little information applied in the right way at the right times using skills you already have.

Ever since that little free blog I’ve spent countless hours researching and testing everything I could about blogging.  I’ve had failures and successes. I’ve learned and adapted. And I’ve spent this last year putting all that information together, here, for you:

Are you ready to find out what’s missing?