Late last year we decided that we were hungry to see how big we can take this business. Today i’m officially announcing that we’re taking our blog design to the masses. We absolutely love the Australian market and will continue to work with Aussie bloggers as much as we can, but from tomorrow onwards, we will be working with bloggers around the world as well. It’s very exciting for us. For our customers and fans, nothing much changes. We’re still the same people with the same values, just operating on a bigger scale (hopefully!).

Our Twitter & Facebook links are staying the same, but in time, our website will move to a .com (stay tuned – it’s being designed at the moment). The one change that you will notice is that we’re adding an S to our business name.

Was: The Blog Designer

Now: The Blog Designers

Cal and I really look forward to growing our business in 2012 and hope that you’re all along for the ride.

Cheers,
Mike

One of the things that we love about this business is the variety. One day we’re working with a multi-million dollar brand and the next a mummy blogger. Occasionally we’re lucky enough to be involved in projects that make a real difference to people on a large scale.

Earlier this year we were lucky enough to have the chance to work with YABI, a youth ADHD & Bipolar initiative that is doing great things to raise awareness and provide a supportive community to ADHD & Bipolar sufferers.

Working with YABI highlighted to us just how far WordPress has come in recent years. We were introduced to Michael and Jordy, who had an existing site for YABI at the time. The problem was that they were limited in what they could do with it. They felt that it looked OK (but not great) but if they ever wanted to add any features or make many changes, they would have to contact their developer.

In redesigning their site in WordPress, we were able to give them a brand new site that integrated with their social media activities, was information rich and allowed them to easily update their supporters with news, research findings, sponsor acquisitions and event details.

YABI is currently self-funded and looking for community-minded corporate partners for event and social projects sponsorship.

From Jan-March next year YABI will be coordinating 3 beach volleyball teams to play every Tuesday Night in St.Kilda. Using sport as a vehicle, the project focuses on social inclusion and community strengthening for sufferers. Uniform and end of summer ‘wrap party’ partners are required for the project. For more information or partnership details please contact Jordy Heis (jordanheis@gmail.com) – He would love to hear from you!

It got me thinking about what this means for our clients. I won’t waffle on because I think that if you’re reading us or using us to redesign your blog, you probably already know the power of blogging, but the article means this:

If you’re a blogger – you have a powerful tool at your hands. What you do and say is influential and by being persistent and interesting you can create something that means a lot to not only your readers, but advertisers that are willing to spend to gain access to your influence.

If you’re a brand – bloggers are just as influential as ever. If you ask me, the value that you can get out of advertising on a niche blog is an absolute bargain. I tip blog advertising expenditure to rise dramatically in the coming years.

It might have gone under the radar for many of us, but Google +1 is a big deal. People in the SEO game have long discussed the implications of social media in influencing search rankings. While the jury is still out on whether those Facebook likes influence SEO, everyone is pretty certain that the Google +1 button is going to effect search results in a big way.

The sooner that you can get the Google +1 on your WordPress site the bigger advantage you will have as it becomes more influential.

How to add the Google +1 button to WordPress

Thankfully adding the Google +1 button to WordPress is very easy thanks to the WordPress Google +1 button plugin. Just download, install the plugin and go to the plugins settings to choose what page you would like it on. The plugin will do the rest.

We’ve installed the Google +1 button to our WordPress site

Try the button below to see how it works or to recommend this to others.

Maybe it’s just the AFL Dream Team obsession in me but I think that DT Talk is one of the most successful blogs in Australia. DT Talk is a blog dedicated to AFL Dream Team, an online game where you select a team and compete against friends and strangers during the AFL season on your selected teams performance.

Let me put their success into perspective. How many comments has your most recent post had? DT Talk published a post yesterday that at the time of writing less than 24 hours later, has 283 comments. DT Talk don’t publish to a tech-savvy, blog-loving crowd. They write for ordinary footy fans yet their reader interaction is huge.

The purpose of this case-study isn’t to make you feel bad. It’s to explore what they have done to bring such wild popularity.

How DT Talk have become so successful:

1. They’ve developed their own effective posting schedule – Their readers know what to expect each week with a different series of posts being released each day. Monday is ‘tbettas bullets’, Tuesday is trade talk tuesday’, and so on. This creates a schedule that readers can rely on and look to each week.
2. They write with personality -  Each of their authors manages to keep posts upbeat, free flowing and above all, funny.
3. They position themselves as experts in their field and release content to match - Don’t laugh. Dream Team is a serious game for me and thousands of other Australians. They have created a number of eBooks, weekly statistics and a league for Dream Team stars to compliment their regular posts.
4. They mix up their content with a weekly live video show - People are all different and like to consume content in different ways. The boys at DT Talk use UStream to publish a live weekly show on you guessed it, AFL Dream Team.
5. They promote their content on social media – DT Talk have close to 5,000 fans on Facebook and over 1,700 followers on Twitter. Each and every post is promoted on these social networks where they also interact with their readers.
6. They recognised a satisfied a need – DT Talk jumped into blogging 5 years ago when AFL Dream Team was in it’s infancy. It just goes to show how writing about something that may interest only a few thousand people can grow into something that interests over 280,000 people.

You can visit the DT Talk Website, Facebook or Twitter page to explore more.

What do you think? Are there any lessons that I have missed? Leave a comment below.

I’m sad to say that this week we see Andy leave to follow his own dreams. Next month marks the launch of his new mowing and garden maintenance business in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Not being able to work on his tan during work hours clearly got to him, but i’m happy to say that it won’t be the last that we hear from him.

Andy can be found on Twitter at @MachGardening or on his website. I’m very grateful for his help and the huge part that he has had to play in the enormous growth that we’ve experienced this year. Good luck mate. I’m sure you’ll do well!

Michael Halligan
Founder & Chief Designer

1. Log into Facebook and search for ‘RSS Graffiti’. Once on the app page, navigate to the left sidebar and click ‘Add to my page’ before selecting the Facebook page that you would like to add the feed too.
2. Click on the accounts menu and select ‘Use Facebook as Page’. Once in the page that you wish to use, click on the ‘Edit Page’ button in the top right.
3. Click on ‘Apps’ and then the ‘Go to Application’ link under the RSS Graffiti heading.
4. Authorise the app to post updates to your wall (It will only post your blog updates). You should have to authorise three actions.
5. Enter your blog address before clicking on the ‘Schedule’ tab to select how often you would like the app to check for new posts.

There you have it! Your Facebook page now automatically posts links to your new blog posts.

Mobile traffic completely exploded in 2011 thanks to strong sales of iPad, iPhone and Android devices. By 2015 it is estimated that mobile web traffic will be 26 times what it is now so ignore it at your own peril. The question that many of us will be faced with in the coming years is whether or not to have your blog or WordPress website designed for mobile devices.

Thankfully Google Analytics provides a little-known feature to measure how much traffic you are receiving. Using this information you can decide whether or not the level of traffic warrants the time and money spent on a mobile WordPress theme.

You can check Google Analytics to see how many visitors read your blog using their Phone or iPad by clicking on the button to the right of the text ‘Advanced Segments’. Unclick your previously selected segments and click ‘Mobile Traffic’ before clicking apply to reveal the important stats.

I’d be interested to hear what percentage of your traffic is mobile. To do so, just leave a comment below.

Before I tell you our suggestion for a WordPress host, I should tell you that we have absolutely zero affiliation with this company. We pay the same fee’s as everyone else and receive no commission for our suggestions.

Our experience in dealing with dozens of Australian WordPress hosting companies has given us countless headaches. WordPress can often be a problem to install purely for the fact that the host isn’t set up to deal with it. Common problems include permissions issues and MySQL database incompatibilities (sorry if we’re getting a bit geeky).

We recommend ZipHosting as our preferred WordPress host to deal with. Their pricing is very reasonable (although you need the business plan to run WordPress which I think is about $10 per month) and they are extremely compatible with WordPress. We’re yet to have a single problem with them, either for our own websites or for our clients.

If you are looking for WordPress hosting,  I can certainly recommend Zip Hosting.

One of the first questions that new clients usually ask us when we begin working on a blog design is whether or not their new blog should display a full post or an excerpt.

We’re big fans of only displaying an excerpt and I’ll list the reasons why:

• It’s more organised.
• It gives new readers an immediate look at the type and variety of topics that you talk about.
• Readers are much more likely to comment and interact with you if they have a comment form below the post. Comment forms are only used on the post pages.

Excerpts are very easy to set up and require no maintenance. Your teaser can be set up to whatever length you prefer and can be automatically taken from the start of your post or you can create your own description of the post.