What exactly does it mean to be a Pro Blogger?

The term has become so widely used that people rarely know what it means anymore. To be a professional means to be an expert in a particular field and to earn from your job in the said field. So, to be a Pro Blogger is to earn a living from writing and blogging.

The Pro Blogging industry is highly saturated right now and if you want to make a name for yourself and get noticed then be prepared to put in a lot of long hours and hard work. Nothing is impossible to achieve if you really set your heart and mind to it!

Before you go ahead, here are 10 important questions that you need to be asking yourself:

• Why blog?

Albeit a simple question, it is perhaps the most important one. Behind every action, there is a thought. What is your reason for wanting to blog? The amount of success you will attain is indirectly related to the answer to this question. You might want a space to share your thoughts or perhaps you want to teach the world your super skills (e.g. Instagram Makeup Artists) or maybe you just want to see what all the fuss is about.

All of these are perfectly valid answers but here are a bunch of answers that won’t get you too far – wanting to: gain immediate fame, have a large number of followers and quickly earn money. No one can stop you from blogging even if these are your motives but before you start earning for the content that you create, you must already be in love with what you are doing.

What is your passion?

While blogging, you will be catering to a specific niche. You cannot be everyone’s cup of tea! There will be people who love the work that you do and there will also be people who will think your work is absolutely useless. But to be able to cater to the people who do like your work you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. You might have to write about a certain topic for years and if you do not care about the topic then how will you find the drive to do this?

• How enthusiastic are you?

There has to be a certain level of excitement within you to want to share the content that you create. Whether it is writing, fashion, food, travel or even DIYs you must be determined to teach more and more people and another important thing is to always evolve with the times. In today’s social media era new trends are being discovered every single day and for you to remain relevant you must enthusiastically teach yourself new things as well.

• Will you study business and professional blogging?

Having a blog is similar to owning a business. Every amateur blogger waits for the day on which he/she will be able to blog for money. In order for you to achieve this goal, together with being an expert in your field you need to have some knowledge in sales, marketing, analyzing and advertising.

• How do you handle failure? Do you have a support system?

Failing is part of becoming successful. Most established Pro Bloggers have had to experience some sort of drawbacks; hence you should accept the fact that there will be times when you will feel like you aren’t getting anywhere and during these periods you should stay motivated, get plenty of sleep and then get back to work. It’s also helpful if you have strong support from your friends and family or fellow bloggers.

• Will you be happier than you are?

As mentioned above to become successful it can take many years, so if your plan is to immediately quit your current job and stay home to blog then it’s a bad idea. That’s why it’s difficult to become a Pro Blogger very quickly unless you have a massive bank balance. Ask yourself if blogging will make you happy if you feel that the extra work and long hours will just make you miserable then perhaps you should reconsider your decision.

What is your business strategy?

Let us be optimistic and assume you’ve gotten to the point where you will actually be able to make some money. How are you going to charge? Are your charges similar to what other bloggers of your standard are charging? You don’t want to overcharge and drive the client away but you don’t want to end up undercharging and decrease your value by doing so. A lot of market research is required to come to a decision.

• How are you going to fund your passion?

So, you’ve got something you’re passionate about, you have the drive and are willing to put in the work needed. But, you still need to figure out a way to fund your blog. Unless it’s something like poetry or fiction writing you need some source of income to help you become successful.

• Will you be able to stick to a schedule?

Together with your 9-5 job, it will be difficult to find time to blog. The first few days may be easy but eventually, we tend to slack off, therefore it’s important to create a schedule and then stick to it. Remember that consistency is extremely important.

• What happens if you need to pause/stop?

Even the best of us can get overwhelmed and need to take a step back to reevaluate our choices and check if we’ve made the right decisions. If, for some reason you are unable to blog what is your exit strategy going to be? Do you have something to fall back on temporarily? Will you be able to realize when it might be time for you to try something else? Even if you don’t have precise answers you should have at least thought of these questions before embarking on your blogging journey.

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A website is an irreplaceable resource in the business world today.  If you are in online business, you must have invested heavily on time and finances in developing a professional website. The benefits of websites and blogs cannot be overstated in the business world today, the convenience and flexibility to both users and service providers is amazing. As a business company, you are no longer restricted with working hours; online stores are available for twenty-four hours every day. All a business owner has to do is set up a customer care line in case customers need clarification or help concerning products and services. On the other hand, consumers enjoy the flexibility of shopping hours; if you want to buy at midnight, shops are available.

However, a website has its own share of problems. The advancement in shopping and other benefits of websites are threatened by security. Hackers and malicious parties can easily cripple your business if they get access to vital information. Usually, a website is integrated with finances and any sensitive aspects of a business including certifications and licenses; if such data gets to the wrong hands, be sure to lose more than money. While profit is your main goal of business, financial loses should be least of your worries. Some intruders are interested in ruining your reputation and cripple your business permanently.

WordPress is one of the popular website development tool and platform. It is simple and reliable; you can easily change themes to suit market needs and trends. Although it is considered safe by professional developers, it is important to use one of these WordPress security plugins.

Defender

It is one of the easiest plugins on the platform. The defender is freely available on the WordPress repository; it is easy to use the plugin because of basic elements on its interface. The primary goal of this security plugin is locking out specific IP addresses that threaten content on your website. It is easy to block and import blocked IPs from a specific location. The security plugin also limits login attempts, automatically performs security scans, checks if your site was blacklisted, and recommends security fixes.

WPS hide Login

The security plugin is distinguished because of its URL hiding capability. You can actually change the entire network path for multiple sites. It uses standard WordPress URL and protects your site from brutal force attacks.

All in One

If you have never used a security plugin, this should be your first because it is the best WP security. It prevents SQL injection, XSS, and CSRF among other security threats on a website. Intruders can easily compromise data of your website without this kind of security. With this plugin, you can secure file system, limit login attempts, activate spa protection, protect default user admin password, and backup sensitive files available on the website.

JetPack

JetPack is renowned for speeding up the performance of a website. The security plugin is available on the WordPress repository where you can directly download and install it. It strengthens social media performance as well as site speeds. It prevents any suspicious attempts to access the website irrespective of the IP’s location. Jetpack manages all plugin updates. Also, it also monitors any downtime and enhances performance accordingly.

Shield security

The developer takes your website seriously. Shield not only filters requests from IP addresses but also blocks any malicious and repetitive requests. Additionally, the security plugin locks itself after performing a security scan. To access the plugin, the owner has to initiate the password generation process and share it with users before they can gain access to the site.

IThemes security

This is probably the most appealing security plug in on WordPress. It has over 30 ways of protecting your website from malicious attacks. It reminds users to secure passwords with 2- step authentication every time they login. The security plugin guarantees you protection from brute force attacks irrespective of their encryption level.

WordFence security

It is an ideal plugin for small websites because of its limited functions but still effective. It allows users to sign with cellphones after an auditing process. Also, it has firewall suite tools and scan options. It is relatively cheap and easy to use.

Sucuri

The plugin begins testing your site immediately you download and install the plugin. It performs quick scans and monitors any malicious activities on your website. The frequency of alert is dependent on your settings. The interface is direct and simple; you do not need an IT expert to help you with navigation with the plugin. You can schedule tasks and scans, ignore specific files and folders during a scan, update security keys, and update WordPress firewall protection among other factors.

Akismet

If you are concerned about spam content and nasty comments as well as links on the website, this is your solution. Akismet allows you to preview comments before allowing the post to appear on your website. Comment moderation capability is necessary for blogging. It saves disk space and speeds up the processor.

Security Ninja

Security Ninja is one of the best WordPress plugins because of its strong and universal function. It is super-fast and comes equipped with a malware scanner. The plugin also functions as an event logger, core scanner, and auto fixer.

Websites have multiple challenges including internet failure and delays but nothing is magnified as insecurity.

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Social networking platforms have a wide range of significance for businesses in digital marketing. They boost the visibility of websites on the Internet, where millions of people around the world are accessible every day. The result is massive exposure of companies to the public for increased sales. For enhanced sharing of information, you need plugins that will boost your efficiency. Here are some of the most suitable social share plugins.

Since the majority of Internet users are active on social sites, it is a grand space for a great marketing opportunity. 70% of them spend most of their time daily on social media websites. Integration of social media plugins is a necessity for online marketers. They are able to make advanced branding of websites using the latest technologies.

Most people use search engines to seek add-ons and plugins to help improve their sharing experience. Social networking sites are the second most important tools to help drive huge traffic to your blog. With a strong social presence, your website will have a good opportunity to perform will and rank highly in Google’s SERP. Without a social media presence, you may not have a high chance of spreading knowledge about your website.

Fundamentally, more social sharing/liking of live posts helps to improve traffic to your blog. You will be accessible to unlimited opportunities for instance spread of information to your potential customers.

Currently, WordPress websites have consistent 24-hour access in millions of numbers. It has created amazing business opportunities. It offers a wide variety of WordPress social media plugins. You should use the plugins to automate your SMO (Social Media Optimization) activities and lead the digital marketing scene.

Here are 10 of the most common WordPress ( Read WordPress Guide ) plugins.

WordPress Social Sharing Plugin

This is considered the best and most popular social share plugin today. It has many useful features to help you become an effective SMO to raise your ranks in Google and other search engines. With the WordPress social sharing plugin, you can share your blog content to more than 100 social networking websites.

Social media share buttons and social sharing icons

These buttons can let you share information on over 200 social networking websites. You can gain the traffic you desired easily. There are 16 different design patterns to choose from in this plugin. It is known for social pop-ups on the newest posts.

Easy Social Sharing

This plugin was dedicated to making sharing easy as its name suggests. It helps you make quick sharing processes by offering many easy options. You may also embed 18 popular social sharing buttons connected to your blog. Other features include 7 design layout, 4 icon layouts, custom color schemes, and social count among others.

Social Share

This is the ideal social sharing WordPress plugin with minimal setup needs. It is best suited to kick-start your blog experience. It lets you share your content on all major social networking websites with a click.

Maria

Maria helps users be exceptionally productive. SMO experts can use this tool to improve overall visibility of your website on most social media channels and on www. It is popular for its impressive interface that is also easy to use.

WP Social sharing

This is a good solution for quality social sharing WordPress plugins. It will help you share content on major social networking platforms. With responsive sharing buttons, the plugin works well on smartphones too. The short-codes make quick and easy WordPress themes.

Kiwi social share

This plugin lets you automate your SMO activities for your blog. You will gain extra leads from various social media channels. It is popular because it can let you switch off and on the social media sharing option based on your privacy needs. It also has a likable user-friendly environment.

Social icons widgets by wpzoom

This plugin is a reliable tool used by many SMO experts because it comes in handy when automating social media marketing activities for more leads. It lets you add vital icons of the major social media websites to help you promote your website easily.

Add to any share buttons

The AddToAny plugin helps make automated SMO activities and improve your output. You may share info on over 100 social platforms. It also allows you to embed social media shortcode before and after the content. It is an efficient tool in making both vertical and horizontal sharing bars.

WordPress to Buffer

This is perhaps the best social sharing WordPress plugin for scheduling and positioning. It helps plan and make time slots as well as automating the tasks. As a result, you will be getting respites as you optimize blogs for higher ranking on search engines.

Conclusion

SMO and SEO interact well to give you reliable Internet presence. It is vital for marketing professionals to integrate both tools to help boost visibility on www. Businesses have a great opportunity of making progress and achieving their goals if they take time and choose the most suitable plugins for increased sharing across social media networks. These are 10 of the best social media plugins that can help you. Research on the best plugins that you need and make your online experience reliable.

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7 Things Most Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Bluehost

Do you know WordPress controls around 59% of the market share?

However, WordPress management isn’t as simple as it seems. All sites will need a web hosting service to have complete control over the sites. That’s why it is important to invest in a decent hosting.

If you are not that confident of which Web Host to pick I would recommend using BlueHost for the site. In fact, Blue Host is one of the preferred platforms for Word Press Hosting.

Click Here To Start Your Blog On Bluehost

If you have read about BlueHost you might have only read about its plans and pricing. In addition to plans and pricing, there are a numbof secretret things most bloggers won’t tell you.

Here is the list.

1. Excellent Security Features

2. Multiple Hosting Choices

3. FREE Domain (1 Year Validity)

4. Money Back Guarantee

5. Paid Site Transfer

6. $200 in Marketing Offers

7. Difference between Bluehost.com and Bluehost.in

#1. Excellent security features

The number #1 thing I give importance to is web hosting security. A decent hosting plays a crucial role in website speed and security. If the site is hosted on an unreliable hosting service the site may have numerous problems. For example, there may be downtime issues or the site may be easily hacked. All necessary security features like Site Lock, SSL Certificated, Site Back Up are available with  Bluehost

What does Site Lock do? What are the main features?

Some of the main features of Site Lock are

• Basic Spam Monitoring

• Basic Business Verification

• Site Verification Certificate

• Blacklist Monitoring

• Basic Malware Monitoring

In addition to that  Site Lock performs a series of vulnerability scans like XSS Scripting, SQL Injection, App Scanning.

#2. Multiple Hosting Choices

Bluehost offers

• Shared Hosting

• WordPress Hosting

• VPS Hosting

• Dedicated Hosting

• Out of all the hosting choices, Shared Hosting is the most common and popular form of hosting provided by Blue Host

To more about Shared Hosting Packages

#3. FREE Domain (1 Year Validity)

If a customer registers with Bluehost, he or she will receive a FREE Domain Name for 1 Year. The ownership of the domain name exists until the end of registration period until you plan to extend it.

Normally, when you register,  Bluehost will ask you to select a domain name. If you haven’t thought of the new domain name you can still register with an existing domain name. Later when you enter into Bluehost Control Panel you can add the domain name for FREE. Normally when you buy a paid domain name for 1 year it cost around @$15.99 dollars.

#4. Money Back Guarantee 

Most site owners don’t know that Bluehost offers a money back guarantee. If the customer is not satisfied with Bluehost he/she can apply for money back guarantee during the first 30 days of purchase. However, this money back guarantee is not applied to any add-ons like the domain name. For example, if you apply for a refund within the first 30 days and your plan includes a FREE domain then Blue host will deduct $15.99 from the refund.

Blue Host doesn’t offer any money back after 30 days of purchase.

#5. Paid Site Transfer 

If you are using other hosting services like Site Ground or Host Gator but you want to transfer your domain you can do that. You can either do that by yourself or with the help of your developers. You can also take help from Blue Host to do the transfer.

You can migrate up to 5 websites and 20 email accounts (for only $149.99). This is a great service in the sense that you do not need to hire developers.

#6. $200 marketing offers 

Many bloggers will not tell you about the amazing marketing offers that Bluehost offers.  In fact, Bluehost offers around $200 worth of marketing credits.

Here are the Bluehost marketing offers you get:

• $125 in Google Ad words credits (once you spend the $25, you will get $100 Ad Words credits so it’s $125)

• $25 in Yahoo credits

• $25 Bing credits

This makes this hosting even more lucrative. If you are a business owner getting this credit will help you propel your business to new heights.

#7. Difference Between Bluehost.com & Bluehost.in

If your audience is from the US please use Bluehost.com. However, if your audience is from India, do use Bluehost.in You can also choose your server location in Bluehost.in. For example, you can choose whether you want the server to be located in the US or in India. Also, Bluehost.com is more expensive than Bluehost.in. However, it is recommended to use Bluehost.com for a global audience.

These features make Bluehost more lucrative.

Disclosure: Please note that links are links of our affiliate company Bluehost.com. We are a professional review site who receives commissions for products purchased through the links. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best.

The post 7 Things Most Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Bluehost appeared first on Technical Fundas.

While most firms run blogs on different platforms, not all of them are meeting respective business goals. The content structure, type, and strategy used on a blog matters a lot. Increasing traffic is the first step to increasing sales; but if the traffic does not translate to sales, there must be a problem with your content and relevance to your audience. If people are visiting the blog and not staying long enough, they cannot translate to buyers.

Here are some of the reasons why visitors bounce from your blog.

Boring content

It is easy to check on quality and interesting element of your blog by reading your articles. Randomly pick 3 or 4 articles from your blog and check whether the title is attractive. Imagine yourself as a visitor; if you were browsing randomly or scrolling your Facebook news feed and came across any of the articles, will you read it to the end? If you don’t find them interesting then don’t expect anyone to stick around your blog reading any of the articles. Article titles and content from introduction to finish should be luring; ideas should coincide to keep readers glued to the screen. It is only after a visitor gains interest on a site when products will sell; no one will bother checking on your services if the first article they come across is not exciting. If readers do not find value, appropriateness, and interest in the articles, they will pull off.

Not Mobile Friendly

Previously, computers were the only access to websites and blogs. Advancement in technology has revolutionized the e-commerce industry; most of online reading and access to sites is on phones and tablets. People are busy and the only time for shopping on your services or products and reading articles is while they are in public transport or relaxing in bed. It is rare to find someone at a desk at home browsing unless it is extremely necessary; there is no time. Therefore, unresponsive sites do not get much attention. If a visitor finds it difficult to navigate on your blog, he/she will not waste any minute pinching and expanding content for easy view. This is a universal character with site visitors; it is irrespective of your niche that defines target audience. A higher percentage of the population uses tablets and smartphones to access blogs.

Writing for yourself

This is a common mistake with business start-ups that increases bounce rate. Strategy matters in business; you might be offering exactly same products with a competitor, the difference comes with marketing strategies. Writing for blogs should be for the audience and not for yourself; while it is important to talk about your expertise and quality of products; it does not have much impact. Consumers need to know why they should purchase your product and not from another company. Clearly explain how individuals will benefit from using your products or subscribing to your services. No one will spend money where they are not convinced of benefits; this should be the basis of content creation. While writing be sure of business and target audience. This ensures the content is relevant. Interesting articles on technology and culture of your organization is good but does not translate to sales.

Slow site

Visitors barely have time to wait; if your site is taking long to load an article, you might be losing potential buyers every minute. Blog performance is crucial; some will interpret slow loading as expensive if they are using cellular data and some will interpret it as unprofessional. Visitors can only be patient with your blog after they are convinced of your products and services. It doesn’t matter how well your articles are written and blog optimized with SEO techniques; if it takes long to load, potential buyers may never get to the awesome content. A business blog should load on a click, 5 seconds is too long. Typically, people have options when researching online; if your site fails to load, the attention shift to another blog and you will have lost potential buyers.

Failing to deliver as per catchy title

Catchy titles are effective in drawing potential customers. However, the catchy titles should match with content. If you fail to deliver in the subsequent paragraphs, visitors will bounce off. Some visitors perceive it as dishonesty, you will lose them on this basis and probably permanently. There is no question about catchy titles but the content should match.

Investing in a business blog and failing to realize results is frustrating; check on the five reasons and you might be on your way to achieve business goals.

Read How To Avoid GDPR Geo-Blocking 

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