Author Sherri Sand regularly includes scripture references in her devotional blog posts. She asked me whether there is a WordPress plugin that will automatically search her posts for scripture references and display the text of the Bible verses in a pop-up box.
Sure enough, there is! It’s called ESV CrossRef (or just CrossRef, once it’s installed on your site).
Read on to learn how it works and how it looks.
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Have you ever received an email with a super-long link in it—a link so long it was unclickable? I certainly have.
Enter the amazing URL shrinker, a handy tool that shortens lengthy URLs (web addresses) to 25 or so characters.
In this article, we look at the pros and cons of URL shorteners, and review five excellent services:
Thinking about blogging this year?
Websites that include a blog integrated into the site (NOT hosted separately on Blogspot or some other blog hosting service) typically have 434% more indexed pages.
Blog posts are doorways to your business. Publish a blog post once a week this year, and give your customers 52 doors to open.
This article and accompanying infographic explains how to use the “doorway” method to help new customers discover you.
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“I can’t think of anything to write about.”
When I taught high school English, my students frequently moaned about the lack of interesting things to write about.
My standard response: I’d roll my eyes and challenge them to keep their eyes and ears open and to ask questions about everything they see and hear.
When I was driving near my home, I spotted the perfect story starter. I’ve never had to pull to the side of the road to make way for a seaplane. In fact, I’ve never seen a seaplane being towed down the highway!
This scene has the makings for a good mystery/suspense story or an intriguing blog post.
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The New York Times has updated its Manual of Style and Usage.
Here are several changes they’ve made to online-related terms:
World Wide Web is now known as the web with a lowercase “w.” (Have you noticed that very few advertisements include “www” in front of a web address? Most of us know that the “www” is a given; when referring people to our websites, we just say, “Go to BloggingBistro.com.”
website is lowercase, one word.
Internet, however, is capitalized.
Email no longer uses a hyphen.
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When authors ask me to help them with their online marketing, they usually open with:
“My agent told me I need a Facebook ‘fan’ page, so I had my son create one for me. But I haven’t posted anything to it. I don’t even know how to use it. Help!”
Most writers struggle to balance the demands of writing and marketing our writing. Unsure about how to woo readers, we use the ‘spray and pray’ marketing method: we create a blog and multiple social media accounts, spray out random updates and pray someone pays attention.
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Finding time to “do” social networking — and managing that time effectively — is the single biggest bugaboo most of us face.
In this article, I’ll show you an easy method to track the time you spend doing regular daily tasks. And you’ll get tips for social media time management.
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By Matt Boyd
Guest Contributor
I’m not your typical writer. I’ve never been classically trained in language arts so needless to say, writing has not always been (and still isn’t) second nature to me. There’s a constant balance of writing well and creating content people will enjoy. Finding that balance is often difficult.
Recently, I’ve immersed myself in a whirlwind of blog articles with the sole purpose of studying successful writing styles. It’s always interesting to see which posts are successful by reading how users respond in the comments. Over my time as a studier of blog articles, I’ve learned some simple tips that have helped me create content people respond to and enjoy.
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By Dennis Brooke
Guest Contributor
I was shocked to read about an archeological expedition that made an amazing discovery in a cave near the Sea of Galilee. They claimed to have uncovered evidence that Jesus had used charts written on large sheets of papyrus with elaborately colored pie charts. On these first-century graphics his disciples illustrated such concepts such as the relative importance of God’s love versus obeying the law.
Of course, I’m kidding. Jesus knew that the way to reach the hearts of those he created in his image was through stories. Even if his apostles had hauled around papyrus flip charts with bullet points and graphics they didn’t survive—but the teachings of Christ have lived on through memorable stories.
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One of the best ways to build a loyal readership for your blog is to encourage visitors to subscribe via e-mail or RSS feed.
Many bloggers use Feedburner (owned by Google) to manage their blog’s feed. By default, people who subscribe to Feedburner blog updates via e-mail will receive a generic e-mail whose Subject line reads something like: Blogging Bistro – Latest Updates.
But did you know you can customize the Subject Line so it displays the title of your latest blog post? This illustrated tutorial explains how to do it, in 6 simple steps.
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