Well we are certainly in full swing with our Step-by-Step Guide & Quick Tips and have more to cover (like monetization for one!), but what else you want to know! After all, the purpose of this blog is to be helpful to you, so I thought I'd ask you this:
What are your burning blogging (or life online) questions?
- Fill in the blank: "I wish I knew how to _____________."
- What sorts of things have been most helpful so far?
- What do you still want to know?
Your feedback might just turn into its own post and help everyone!
So, talk talk to me! What blogging tips are you looking for?
Be sure to check out the Step-by-Step Guide & Quick Tips, and then head on over and check out Works for Me Wednesday to see what others are asking in the blogosphere today.
Here at BloggingWithAmy you'll find tips, tools & tutorials about blogging and websites. In plain English. Want to 
All your tips have been so helpful, Amy! Here are a few things that come to mind:
I'd love any suggestions on smoothly moving from Blogger to WP (like how do I make sure subscribers aren't completely lost, updating any feeds, etc.)?
How do I create a graphic "button" image for my blog, and where is the best place to host the image? (I actually did this years ago, but I'm going to have to relearn how I did it!).
Do you recommend a plug-in such as "share this" or "sociable"? (In addition to the Facebook "Like" button.)
Do you use only Google Analytics (loved that post!) for your stats, or do you use an additional counter?
What are your thoughts on the "Featured Content" plug-ins? (And what is the best way to utilize them?) They seem eye-catching, but are they effective or just distracting/"buggy", etc. Plus there seem to be many to choose from… what is the best way to get one up & running well?
Well, there was a list.
Thank you so much for your blog!
Blessings,
Michele
It wasn't clear to me where I was supposed to ask "I wish I knew how to " so this is the only place I found to place this question.
I would like to know the stuff you do and use to construct your posts and keeping records. For instance:
1. what do use to record your income and expenses. ( by the way I use a Mac ).
2. what do you use to capture your screen shots that you included in your emails and
how do you do it.
3. what do you use to record your video's and how you do it. Do you have someone holding the camera or do you set up on a tripod.
4. Is it necessary to know HTML to do the things you do?
5. The steps you take when you are writing a post and you want to link back to a previous post you did or direct the reader to a website, especially one where you are an affiliate.
6. Speaking of Affiliates, how about sharing some gray matter on this subject.
7. This should provide you with some ideas you can share with us.
8. You do nice work here so follow these instructions to the letter, pat yourself on the back for a job well done then park you know what ,you know where and start typing.
This is really frustrating me. I will enter the space code " while in HTML view. When I switch to visual, then back to HTML, the codes I inserted are gone. I end up having to re-insert them. Do you know why this happens?
Also, I would like to increase the default paragraph line spacing in my theme. How can I accomplish this?
Thank you for your blog. It's been a godsend!
Amy,
I can't tell you much I am enjoying your website. It has made everything seem so much more doable!
I have really enjoyed being able to watch your videos and follow along as I implement them. Because I am using bluehost and Atahualpa, it has almost been like you are right there showing me what button to click! Awesome.
My favorites so far have been the nitty gritty, how to set up a blog posts and the design posts.
I have lots of questions…since you asked
More information on making my blog look better. More specifically I am spending way too much time trying to learn how to :
- Style the horizontal navigation bar – make it wider, put the search box in it…
- Make the main category links in the side bar look nicer – each link in a box with the title in a nice font. How to create these and add them to the side bar. (I'm not sure if that makes sense.)
- How to add the rss, email, twitter and facebook icons (and links) to the side bar or header area.
-
A blogging schedule. What do you find works best? Writing in blocks of time a few days a week or shorter periods daily?
Where do you keep a list of post ideas and how do you organize them?
How important is setting a launch date and what are your recommendations for actually launching?
I'm sure I'll think of more questions as the day goes by…
Thank you!
Many questions.
1. How do I do a screen shot?
2. How do I make a cool banner picture at the top of my blog…either with my own picture, or with a picture from the web.
3. How do I get clip art types pics on my blog?? Preferably without violating any copyright restrictions.
How do install the social icons everyone has in the sidebar. rss feed, twitter, facebook or how to make a custom one.
How to do a drop down menu. Can't do that one to save my life
I second those questions! I have been trying to figure them both out, although I think the drop down menu mostly comes with paid themes, right?
A dropdown menu requires a plugin you don't need a paid theme. I have tried several plugins and I can't get it right.
Hey Jordan and Shelly, I answered your questions about drop down menus in this post: How to Add Drop Downs to Your Navigation. (Well, I hope I did anyway.)
Thanks Amy!
Hi Jordan, I answered your question about social media icons in How to Add Social Media Icons to Your Sidebar.
I'm new around these parts and haven't had time to see if you've already done this topic, but I'd love to know what some of the best plugins are and how many plugins are too many? There are some things I'd like to do on my sidebar, but I don't know if it's a design issue or just a plugin I could install. (See Tip Junkies sidebar – tipjunkie.com) Thanks! Love this site Amy!!! WordPress is like a foreign language to me! We transferred from blogger in March thanks to our designer, but it's been frustrating at times trying to figure out the back end!
So I'm grateful to you and your site!
I have noticed that the frugal bloggers are all adding a little symbol at the bottom of the posts for a link to their disclosure policy. I would love to know how do add things to the bottom of posts (like that button or a printable page button).
I seconf all of those questions. Plus, I would like to know how to make it easier for my blogspot friends to leave comments on my page and for me to leave comments on theirs.
Thanks!!!
Jana
Hi Amy!
I would really like to know how to transfer my Feedburner feed from a Blogger {blogspot} site to a WordPress site, if you can redirect a stat counter in a similar way {Google Analytics/Sitemeter}, and if you can transfer a Google Friend Connect!
Sounds like you've got a great list so far–you'll have posts for months just from this list! Here's a few things I'd like to learn:
-How to make a smooth transition from blogger to WP.
-How do you do your videos?
-BlogFrog
-Skype
-How do you do the little tv thing like the Gather Inspirit girls? Totally new to that one!
I'm getting ready to launch a new blog and am LOVING this info, Amy!! I have three big questions:
1. How can I find out for sure what my obligations are regarding disclosure? I have a disclosure policy page, but on a post by post basis I'm getting conflicting info – some say you have to have full, relevant disclosure info a the bottom of each post while others say you can have a link at the bottom of each post. How do I find out which is true?
2. Any info about launching a blog would be great. I'm hoping to launch in a couple of weeks. Since I write a newsletter that goes to almost 6,000 subscribers and have a personal family blog that gets 1K – 9K hits/day, I think I should be able to have a pretty busy and exciting launch. I would love any/all tips for this!
3. I would love to learn more about handling photo management tasks in a really time efficient way. Many of my posts will be photo-intensive and I need to learn how to save time editing, resizing, uploading, etc. Also wondering the best place to host the photos (my blog is run on a joomla platform). I don't want to spend a gazillion hours a month dealing with photos since I'm a homeschooling mom with 8 children and need to make good use of my time.
Thanks!
Kate
I'd like to know how to set up a mirrored theme page to mess with before installing it on the main site. Also, once I have it set up, how do I go about transferring those files/database, etc to the live site.
Yowza!! What great questions! Thanks so much for responding everyone. Clearly I have my work cut out for me.
I'll do my best to answer your questions…and keep 'em coming!
Hi Amy,
I remember a post you made at the beginning that talked about registering your domain with a company that would distribute it to search engines…I think. You sent us to someones blog that had all that info. I can't seem to find it now on your site. Can you direct me to the post?
As far as questions go, I would also love to know how to make a blog button and also know these things :
What does it mean to make a post sticky? Is that good?
What benefit does a tag have on each individual post…does it just help me organize my posts, or are those tags there to assist me in being found on the internet when those words are being searched for?
Thanks so much, you have been a gift to me these past months
Hi Turkana,
Your first question is answered in How to Optimize Your WordPress Settings Part 2 (see "Change 'Update Services' and the pinging services list).
As for tags, check out The Difference Between Categories and Tags.
How about "no follow"? What it means and how to best deal with it.
I would like any tips you have for streamlining the blogging process – you know, so I can blog and actually take care of my kids in the same day.
In particular, I'd love to know about pictures. I know I should use pictures regularly, but I rarely do, because it's such a pain to get them ready. Getting them into a WordPress blog post is pretty easy. But if they aren't the proper size, etc. already, then it either takes up a ridiculous amount of storage space, or it takes a ridiculous amount of time to open up a separate program, resize a single picture, save it, and exit back out before going to finish a blog post. All of which sounds really petty, but it adds up! Surely there's a better way to do this?
Oh, and is there any way to find out how many people are subscribed to a feed, outside of FeedBurner? Some stat that will give this away?
How do I do a vlog that shows the computer screen and my voice? I'm sure there's an actual term for this one…
Hi Angela,
I posted about how I do my screencasts here.
All of my questions have been asked above, but I wanted to specially thank you for the help that this website has provided me. Really great info here. It's like a concise encyclopedia that I can check for all of my WordPress questions. I'm learning so much!
Just had a quick question. How do I get my photo to show up beside my name when commenting on a WP blog?
You can find the answer in How to Get Your Photo to Show Up With Your Comments and Other Places Online.
I would love to learn more about using Google AdSense. It's one area of monetizing that I haven't tapped into yet.
I took your advice on downloading those plug-ins you recommended.
Two of the plug-ins require that I mess with the settings and do certain things before they can actually work – "Yet another related posts plugin" and "all in one SEO pack".
I'd love it if you could do a video post walking us through how to set all of that up. I'm really confused on it!
Thanks!
I wish I knew…how to use Stumble more effectively.
Not really sure if that is a "blogging" question really, but would be very helpful!
Thanks much!
~Liz
I'm still stuck a bit back in "branding": I can't come up with a name that has an available domain! I've been trying for MONTHS to find something… and so many of the domains aren't being used — people are just holding them! So annoying.
I'd love to hear stories on how others got their names
Is it OK to use something other than .com (is a .net a kiss of death??)
Am I just over thinking this?
Hi Camille, so glad you stopped by! Did you happen to see How to Choose a Domain: 10 Tips? I'm guessing you may have, but just thought I'd throw it out there in case you hadn't.
You might also try asking others for ideas, especially others in your niche. Sometimes it just takes another perspective to have a lightbulb moment.
And no, I would definitely not say a .net is the kiss of death.
Hi Amy, I would like to know how you found the time to became so knowledgeable about blogging with 4 kids and a husband to take care of?
My real question is what do you use to send those professional emails to us. I am now noticing more & more emails are coming personalized with our first names in the body, I'm sure that is done automatically by the program being used. What programs are available to us and which do you recommend?
Keep up the good work.
Those emails are automatically generated by Feedburner. Here's How to Get & Optimize a Feedburner Feed.
Is there a WordPress plug-in I can install to allow my replies to commenters to get emailed to them (like the one in this comment box "Notify me of follow-up comments via email")?
I did a search in the plug-in area for "comments", but no luck.
Thanks!
I use "Comment Reply Notification" which you can search for via your Dashboard.
Hey Amy,
I decided to just include my blog title etc. already in my banner image so I don't need to show my blog title, etc. The question I have is the that my banner image is slightly shorter than the rest of the web area…how do I change or stretch my banner image width to align w/ the rest of the items.
It looks like this:
|xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
|**image**|
|xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
I want it to look like this:
|xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
|*****image*****|
|xxxxxxxxxxxxx|
Does that make sense? I tried googling it & couldn't find anything.
Thank you!
Oops! Sorry, I responded to your last comment without seeing this one. Looks like you're way ahead of me.
As far as making your image fit, you can either redo your image according to the pixel dimensions of your header space on your blog (if you "stretch" it, it'll be out of proportion and look badly so redoing it is what you'd have to do), or, you can edit your CSS and decrease (I'm guessing) your header height.
I would like to know that when we pay monthly 10$(hope amt is true) in wordpress.org, do we get .com or still .wordpress,com