In the first of many network spotlight posts, we’re going to take an in depth look at the WP Guerrilla website, which has been re-birthed as a WordPress design inspiration gallery.

The beginning

When the WP Guerrilla website first launched, it’s goal was to compliment another one of the blogs in our network, Guerrilla Freelancing. It’s main purpose was to be a website for tips & tricks for WordPress users. However, after realigning strategies and focusing on other projects, it remained on the back burner for over a year.

Fast forward to last night

Yesterday I spent some time thinking about various ideas I had and what I could do to move my network forward and I’ve had the idea of turning the WP Guerrilla website into a WordPress gallery for some time now.

So I sat down, grabbed a copy of the WordPress theme framework I use and I got to work. Within a couple of hours I had a fully complete WordPress theme ready to go live!

The goals of the WP Guerrilla website

The main goal I have with this website is to turn it into the premier source of inspiration for WordPress designers, developers & enthusiasts. WordPress gallery websites have come and gone but nothing has really stood out as the go-to place for WordPress inspiration, so WP Guerrilla will be changing that.

Want to be featured?

If you want your WordPress powered website featured in the WP Guerrilla showcase, head on over and submit your design. It’s a simple process and will help gain exposure for your website, so what are you waiting for?

Don’t have a kick ass WordPress design yet? Don’t worry because I can help you with that! Get in touch and I’ll make sure you’re set up with a killer design that is showcased in the WP Guerrilla gallery as well as other CSS galleries across the web.

One of the many great things about WordPress is that it allows you to install all sorts of plugins that do all sorts of awesome stuff. So today I am going over 15 of the must have plugins for every WordPress blogger out there. I recommend these to each of my clients and recommend them to you now as well.

The plugins below span various areas of your site, from search engine optimization to backing up your database, making your WordPress powered website faster loading, interacting with your readers & more. If you run a WordPress powered blog and don’t have all of these plugins installed, you need to.

1. WordPress SEO – Built by the popular Joost de Valk (aka Yoast), this is a plugin that every blogger should have. If you’re wanting to rank well in search engines, this is a must install plugin.
2. WP DB Backup – Writing for your blog takes time and effort, so why wouldn’t you have something setup to give you backups in case your blog ever crashes or is hacked? You don’t want to lose your content, so make sure this is a plugin you’ve got installed from day one.
3. Akismet – Spam. We all hate it and fortunately for WordPress bloggers, there’s a plugin that does something about it. Akismet is another must have plugin for every blogger. Trust me, you don’t want to spend an hour a day deleting spam comments; let Akismet do it for you.
4. Contact Form 7 – Setting up forms on your site has never been easier when you’ve got Contact Form 7 setup. You can deploy as many forms as you want and it’s options allow you to create the most simple form in the world or the most complex; whatever you want to do, it can handle it for you.
5. WP Super Cache – One downside to WordPress blogs that have a lot of content and ‘stuff’ around the sidebars is that it can become a resource hog for your hosting, so by installing WP Super Cache, you’re able to turn your dynamic page into a static html page, making the load times faster and less stressful on your hosting and bandwidth.
6. Google XML Sitemaps – Getting your blog into the search engines just got easier because with the Google XML sitemap generator, it automatically (you guessed it) sets up a sitemap file for you that the spiders love.
7. Search Meter – If you’ve got a search form on your site, this is a plugin that you MUST have. What it does is simple, but it’s so effective. Every time someone searches anything on your blog, you’re able to see what they’re searching for in your WordPress admin panel. It’s great to know what your users want so you can give them more of it.
8. Subscribe to Comments – When someone leaves a comment on your blog, are they coming back to check and see if anyone replied? Odds are that they aren’t, so by installing this plugin you give the user an option to receive email updates to comment replies. Keep them coming back & keep them connected.
9. Google Analytics – Yes, Yoast is making the list for the second time. It’s for a good reason though because this plugin is ridiculously awesome and gives you so many tracking options for Google Analytics that you wouldn’t get by simply just copy and pasting the tracking code into your theme.
10. Tweet Old Posts – Keeping up with all of your social media profiles can be hard. It can also be equally hard to know your new readers & followers on Twitter might be missing your older awesome content. This plugin fixes all of that. Set the time on how often you want it to tweet old posts and how old the posts have to be, sit back and watch as your older posts get traffic from Twitter. Simple, yet effective.
11. WPTouch – With the amount of people browsing the web with phones, it’s a good idea to make sure your blog is showing properly. Don’t have money to hire a blog designer to make your blog mobile friendly? That’s o.k. because WP Touch does it for you.
12. Popularity Contest – When someone comes to your blog, you want to show off your best work & with the help of Alex King’s popularity contest plugin, you can. It’s easy to use and can be deployed on your blog in seconds.
13. Series – A plugin that lets you easily interlink posts in, you guessed it, a series. Another simple, yet effective plugin for your WordPress blog that you should always have on file, especially if you like to write posts in a series a lot.
14. OptionTree – Gone are the days where the commercial WordPress theme companies are the only ones providing you with your very own theme options panel. OptionTree is free and does everything that an option panel is supposed to.
15. Broken Link Checker – Last but not least, Broken Link Checker does exactly what it’s name says; it checks for broken links. This is great to have so you’re making sure that links in your posts or pages aren’t linking to dead ends, which Google frowns upon.

So there you have it, 15 must use WordPress plugins for every blogger. I hope you enjoyed the list and found something new in it. Any questions you have about the above plugins or if you have alternative plugins you think should have been included in the list, feel free to drop a comment and let me know.

Besides being an awesome blog designer, I also build my own blogs from time to time and do a little blog flipping on the side. Well, over the past couple weeks I’ve built up a new blog and sold it for a staggering amount of money. Enough so that I won’t ever have to flip another blog again in my entire life and will be just fine.

So how’d I do it? There wasn’t much of a process since it only took two weeks to accomplish, but there was some things worth noting that I think made it sell as fast as it did and for as much as it did.

note: I am unable to show the link to the blog because the new owner asked it to not be flaunted what she paid for it and how old of a blog it actually is – she’s got some big plans for it and doesn’t want to tarnish it at all.

I wasn’t making any money with it

I haven’t even had the chance to put ads on the blog yet because I was working on getting the content ready. One thing I did was position the blog as a great resource to buy because it has 300 unique articles written and ready to go live (completely hands free for the new owner).

I think that this was a better selling point to talk about with her rather than “oh, well I haven’t added in any advertisements yet”, I completely switched the topic and showed her how much quality comes with 300 pre-written articles ready to go live. She bought it hook, line & sinker.

It had virtually zero traffic

Besides it not having ads, it didn’t have any traffic. I did submit it to google and the various other search engines, social media websites & a couple of forums on knitting so there’s some links to it and it’s actually moving up in the ranks for a semi-competitive keyword or two which will bring her some traffic in without a doubt once the articles start flowing in.

Yes, I made sure that this was a selling point as well. That’s the one thing I learned when flipping blogs is that you’ve got to highlight where the blog shines, even if it’s not in the normal places people look when buying a blog.

It was a domain with hyphen’s and a .info extension

It wasn’t a catchy domain, I didn’t come up with a cool slogan and the design is just an edited version of the new WordPress default theme. However, none of that matters because the traffic is going to start coming in once the articles continue to flow in and the new owners starts to monetize the blog – we’ve been in discussions and she’s looking at doing some video tutorials and packaging it for beginners to sell for $197 which will easily generate her some good revenue with the target market she’s after.

None of that mattered to the right buyer

No money coming in, no traffic & a horrible domain name – none of it mattered. I positioned the blog in a way that it was irresistible to the person wanting it and it sold for the price I asked for. Oh, and if you’re looking for any other advice in this post, that would be it – closed mouths don’t get fed so make sure you ask for whatever you want. You’ll be as surprised with the results as I was.

The moral of the story?

I say all of this to show you that anything is possible with a blog, especially if you’re just starting out and feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you don’t know if there’s a positive light at the end of the tunnel. I’m here to tell you that this check I received is proof enough (for me anyways) that no matter how far along you are, if you’re an “A-List blogger” or not, you can do anything you put your mind to and you can get anything you aim for. Dreams do come true!

Edit: This was just an April Fools joke. I didn’t really sell a blog for $1,000,000. But, you can still take away some good points in this article

When blogging started, it was more of a way for people to journal their thoughts, but nowadays, everybody wants to make money blogging and strike it rich like Darren from ProBlogger or Leo from ZenHabits, etc. So if you’re interested in making money blogging, this article is going to be of great interest to you because I am going to lay out fifty ways you can make money online with your blog.

I’ve outlined various methods of making money online, from PPC to Affiliate Marketing, Product Creation & more. As a side note, a lot of these items listed (over 70% of them) I’ve personally used in my own blogs in order to make money blogging and I can guarantee that each of these methods of online money making can work for your blog too.

PPC Advertisements

Pay Per Click advertisements are one of the biggest forms of advertising on blogs because of their ease of use. Below you’ll see a few companies who offer PPC options. The general idea, for those who don’t know, when it comes to pay per click advertisements is that you’ll place ads on your website and each time someone clicks the specific ad, you’ll get paid X amount of cents/dollars.

• Google Adsense – Perhaps the most popular ways for bloggers to start making money with their blog is Google Adsense. With it’s ease of use and the countless WordPress plugins for you to drop ads right into your website, it’s a top choice amongst beginner bloggers and veterans alike.
• Chitika – Another great network and one that’s used by some of the bigger bloggers out there, Chitika is definitely a powerhouse in the CPC ad business.
• Clicksor – One of the great things about Clicksor is that they make payouts every 15 days instead of 30+ like Adsense and others in the industry. That, mixed with it’s up to 85% commission for clicks, you’re bound to make money with them.
• Bidvertiser – As one of the lesser known PPC networks, Bidvertiser has been around a long time and has always been a pretty good earner for me.
• Miva – Miva has competitive payouts and thousands of advertisers so you’re going to definitely have relevant ads showing up on your website. Plus, since a lot of bloggers are focusing on making money with Adsense alone, you’re going to be steps ahead of them and making more money from various sources by using Miva.

CRM Advertising Networks

If you have a blog that receives a good amount of traffic but you’re noticing that a lot of that traffic isn’t clicking the ads, this might be the route to go. CRM advertising pays you per 1,000 impressions. So, if you get paid $1.00 per 1,000 impressions and you have 100,000 page views monthly, you’ll make $100 from the one advertisement.

• Casale Media – One of the bigger players in the CRM Advertising industry, Casale Media allows you to easily set up ads and get paid as much as possible for your page views.
• Tribal Fusion – The next largest (if not the largest) CRM company, Tribal Fusion does an awesome job with it’s advertisers and publishers alike. It’s also one of the most widely used CRM networks in the blogging and magazine niches.
• Adpepper – A great company that does more than just CRM advertising, Adpepper also offers CPC and CPA campaigns, which allow you to make the max amount of money possible from your blog.
• Gorilla Nation – Once your blog reaches a certain level of traffic, Gorilla Nation might be the best step in your CRM advertising opportunities. They require you to have at least 100,000 unique visitors per month and have a huge network that allows you to get paid the most possible per 1,000 visitors.
• ValueClick Media – With top advertisers and a team behind you to make sure you’re making the most money possible from your blog traffic, ValueClick Media has positioned itself as a truly large CRM Advertising Network that’s worth checking out and testing with.

CPA Advertising Networks

The CPA advertising method works when you have someone click an ad on your blog and they either buy something from the website or complete some type of action (ie: CPA = Cost Per Action). This could be signing up for an email form, completing a survey, etc.

• Clickbooth – Positioning itself as the exclusive CPA network, Clickbooth is a definite leader in CPA advertising. I’ve used Clickbooth in the past and have had nothing but positive results.
• MaxBounty – Right when you open their site, MaxBounty wants to make sure you know that they have the highest paying CPA campaigns around, and rightfully so. They’re definitely one of the top players in the CPA advertising industry.
• Epic Direct Network – With clients like Netflix, Jenny Craig & other huge industry players, you’re bound to find related campaigns to promote on your blog and make some good money along the way.
• XY7 – By turning clicks into cash, XY7 has positioned itself as a large network that you should definitely be testing with on your blog.
• Neverblue Ads – eHarmoney, Vistaprint, Groupon, MindSpark & Bidz. These are just some of the various partners that Neverblue Ads has that you’ll be able to promote on your blog.
• ShareASale – In 2005, 06, 07 & 08, ShareASale was given the best affiliate network award at ABestWeb, which should instantly tell you that when you’re promoting CPA offers from ShareASale, you’re getting top notch quality ads as well as industry leading help in growing your blogging revenue.
• Copeac – A new kind of affiliate network. That’s what Copeac positions itself as, and rightfully so. They’ve got a large amount of advertisers, who pay very well for the actions your visitors take. If you’re looking to make money blogging, I’d check Copeac out now.
• CPABounty – With net15/weekly payments, CPABounty is a great way for you to make money with your blog if you’re looking to keep checks coming in on a regular basis.
• InstantDollarz – When I first seen InstantDollarz, I was instantly skeptical because of the Z in their name. But after a bit of checking them out I realized that it was their uniqueness that I enjoyed most … the Z was just the beginning of the unique experience.
• CPAThunder – As a faster, stronger, better network, CPAthunder is definitely a fairly large player in the CPA network industry & one I plan on personally putting more time into.

Direct Advertisements for Blogs

If you’re looking to allow advertising on your blogs and don’t want to run the hassle of looking through networks for companies to choose from and place the ads on your blog yourself, then direct ad sales will probably be your best solution. Below are various ways to do that – some manual, some automated, some where 100% of the sales go to you and some where less than 100% goes to you.

• Buy Sell Ads – One of the biggest direct ad marketplaces is BuySellAds. They’ve got over 2,000 advertisers ready to place ads on your website and are a staple in the blogging/design industries. I’ve used them previously on Guerrilla Freelancing and loved every minute of it.
• OIO Publisher – I remember when OIO Publisher stormed on the blogging scene and started making its rounds with people like John Chow, Ian Fernando, Jon Waraas and others. It’s a great ad platform for your blog, allows you to keep 100% of the profits and is even available as a WordPress plugin.
• AdRotate WordPress plugin – With the ability to set up different ad groups, track clicks, set expiration dates and keeping 100% of the profits, AdRotate might be a great choice for those wanting to set up ads without paying anything in the plugin purchase (like OIO Publisher) or giving up a percentage (like BuySellAds).
• WP125 – Another WordPress plugin, WP125 is a great way to sell ad space on your site in those nifty little 125×125 ad blocks that people like John Chow and Shoemoney made so popular a few years ago (now we see them everywhere).
• Direct Sales – This is a way you can sell ads, but is 100% dependent on you accepting payments, adding advertisements & removing them when they need to be removed. You get 100% of the profits but it is a bit more work. Set up an “advertise here” page with your information and the sizes you offer, and start selling ad space now.

Text Link Ads

Although Google has bitch slapped people for selling text link ads without being nofollow, the sale of text links (in my opinion) will never die because of it’s sheer simplicity. You can sell direct links to someones website with their anchor text or you can even sell text links for specific words throughout your blog.

• Text Link Ads – The biggest text link ad sales website, Text-Link-Ads was around and (in my opinion) caused Google to start bitch slapping websites who openly sold text links without a nofollow tag. You can still sell ads with a nofollow tag to avoid the Google pimp slap, & Text-Link-Ads would be my first choice if I were to do it.
• TNX.net – A marketplace with thousands of advertisers and a place where you make 87.5% of each sale, you’re definitely able to start making some serious money with TNX as soon as you sign up.
• Text Link Brokers – Another marketplace for selling text links on your blog is the Text Link Brokers website. They offer SEO services to their clients and in exchange, you get paid to have links to their clients websites on your blog.
• LinkWorth – Serving up over 190,000+ text link ads across it’s network currently, if you’re not able to make money blogging with the text link sales from LinkWorth, you might just be in the wrong business.
• DigitalPoint link sale forum – The forums on DigitalPoint always have people on it looking for links to buy and if you sign up and position yourself on the forum as someone looking to sell links (and you have some PR on your blog, etc), you’re going to sell out your text link ad space in no time.

Affiliate Marketing

Here’s something I personally want to try more of. Below are affiliate companies and bloggers/companies who offer an affiliate program. Affiliate Programs will pay you a certain percentage of a sale that is made when someone clicks an ad/link on your website and buys something from the landing page of the other website.

• ClickBank – I like to call ClickBank the CraigsList of Affiliate Marketing, because it doesn’t get any bigger than this. With products in a huge variety of niches, you’re going to find something to sell that will make you money on your blog.
• Commission Junction – Commission Junction is a website that has a ton of products you’re able to promote and you’ll definitely be able to make money blogging. With clients like Sony, Home Depot, Woot!, Trip Advisor and many more, there’s definitely names that will virtually sell themselves on your blog.
• Empyre Media – An emerging player in the Affiliate Marketing industry, Empyre Media has set itself up with some great advertisers and if you’re looking for extremely high payouts ($35 per sale, for example), then you’ve got to give them a try.
• WooThemes – As bloggers, you should know that people reading your blog might be interested in starting their own, so why not set yourself up as an affiliate with one of the leading theme companies out there and earn between $14-$40 per sale, plus a recurring revenue if the person signs up for a monthly plan.
• ZenHabits Affiliates – Leo is an awesome writer who’s built a solid reputation for himself online and has put out a few books in the zen/personal development niche that you should have no problem selling to your audience.
• HostGator – As a leader in the hosting industry, you’re going to have a hard time not selling your visitors on their services when you mention that for their $9.95 per month plan, they can get it for 1 penny for the first month if they use the coupon code “jury”.
• Yaro Starak’s Affiliate Center – When it comes to internet marketing, Yaro is a definite god amongst men and his programs basically sell themselves, so why not get a piece of the pie by becoming an affiliate and make more money online with your blog?
• MailChimp – A lot of people will recommend Aweber for newsletter management, but I personally like to refer MailChimp, not only because I use it at Guerrilla Freelancing, but because it allows people to have a free account for up to 2,000 subscribers .. ie: it basically sells itself.
• Namecheap – If you’re marketing yourself and your blog to other bloggers who might want to venture into building their own websites, the first thing they’re going to need (after hosting) is a domain name and I believe Namecheap is the best and does a great job of retaining customers (I’ve been a customer for 6+ years)
• Amazon – A complete giant in online sales, Amazon is a perfect way to set up some ads on your website and earn money from people who are buying products that they’d normally buy anyways. It’s a definite winner for making money online.

Sponsored Reviews

If you’ve got a blog where you talk a lot about different products (ie: a gaming blog, fashion blog, etc) then this might be a great way for you to not only talk about specific items of interest to your readers, but also make some money while doing it.

• ReviewMe – One of the first companies to burst on the scene when bloggers started giving out sponsored reviews, ReviewMe allows you to have people bid on having you review their blog and you decide if you want to or not. You’re paid between $20-$200 per review!
• Sponsored Reviews – Their main focus is to let bloggers earn cash and allow advertisers to gain the buzz they’re after. A win/win situation and one you should definitely consider, especially if the websites you’re reviewing fit well with your niche.
• PayPerPost – It does exactly what the name says it does; you get paid per post. You are able to review products that you decide on and are in complete control of the tone and style of your writing.
• Blogsvertise – With the word blog right in the title, you can pretty much guess that this is a company geared towards getting you products/services to review and making you money with your blog. A great network with a lot of websites to promote, you’re going to make money with them for sure.
• Smorty – Right off the bat, they mention that they’ve got the largest network of high quality blogs, so you know the advertisers are going to be interested. Just make sure your blog is listed and you’ve got yourself positioned to make money blogging about products and services their advertisers offer.

Private Forums

I’ve seen an influx of blogs lately make more money online by setting up private forums as an extension of their blog. It’s a pretty simple process actually, especially when you’ve got a large enough user base to do it.

• vBulletin – As an industry leader, vBulletin is an awesome way to build a private forum on top of your blog that allows your regular blog readers pay a monthly fee and interact with each other, ask you questions, etc. vBulletin is a paid script, so you might be interested in some of the others below if you aren’t able to put up the cash up front for it.
• bbPress – Forum software that interlaces itself perfectly with WordPress? This might just be the perfect solution for bloggers out there who use WordPress.
• Vanilla – An open source forum software that has made its way around the design community and is a breeze to setup & use. What more could you ask for?
• phpbb – Another open source forum software that has been around just about as long, if not longer, than vBulletin and is used by thousands upon thousands of websites.
• YABB – Yet Another Bulletin Board, the YABB software is 100% free and open source and could be a great addition to your website in order to set up private forums and earn some extra money while blogging.

Sell Your Own Products

Selling your own products on your blog is a great way to make money online and an awesome way to utilize your blog traffic for your own monetary rewards instead of allowing others to advertise. I’d recommend using eJunkie as a way to automate the download process of any digital goods. It costs $5 per month and will streamline your process so you don’t even have to be around (or awake) when people buy your stuff.

• eBooks/Guides – Over at Guerrilla Freelancing I recently sold my first guide and did fairly well with it. Enough so, I was able to remove all advertising from the site and am strictly making money from the site now by selling my own guides. If you’re a writer, this could be a perfect solution for you.
• WordPress Themes – If you’re a WordPress coder, why not build up some premium themes and try your hand at selling them to your blog readers instead of funneling your traffic to a place like WooThemes or StudioPress. This way, you keep all revenue to yourself and keep your visitors on your site.
• Design Resources – A great way for bloggers who run design related blogs to make some extra cash is to sell premium design resources like Photoshop brush sets, icons, website layouts, fonts, etc.
• Phone & Web Apps – For those of you out there who are good programmers (I see you reading this), you could take some time and develop apps for the phone like Pat over at Smart Passive Income does or you could also build web apps for invoicing, project management, etc.
• Premium Tutorials – No matter what niche you’re in (design, development, music, etc) there’s always room to build out nice, in depth tutorials on how to do certain things that your readers will find interesting and sell them at a premium price.

Sell Your Own Services

Just like selling your own products, when you use your blog to make money by selling your services, you’re going to be able to keep 100% of the money and also benefit your business at the same time. It’s definitely something I utilize a lot (as seen below in the notes) and I recommend you at least try it out.

• Web Design – If you’d like an example of someone who blogs but also creates custom blog designs, you’ve got to look no further than this exact article. I am a full time freelance WordPress designer and I am building this blog in order to gain attention and sales for my blog design services. You could also do this with a completely separate blog from your main portfolio site, either way works.
• Blog Writing – Using myself as an example again, I write blog content for my own blogs, yet utilize my ability to write compelling, share-worthy content to sell my own services of blog writing for other blogs.
• Consulting – How many times do you think I can use myself as an example in this section on how to make money blogging? I also offer consulting services on the Guerrilla Freelancing blog for freelancers who are looking to build their business and profits.
• Marketing – This could be in the form of offline guerrilla marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing or content marketing. No matter what way you choose, if you’re good at it, you can use your blog to showcase your knowledge of the subject and make money from your blog by marketing for other people.
• Mentoring – Brian Clark from Copyblogger is a great example of how you can turn your blogging into a mentoring program. With his Teaching Sells mentoring program, he’s able to make $97 per month and he currently has over 1,000 members (you do the math)

In case you were wondering

This post is 3,352 words that teach you how to make money blogging and each individual topic could be covered in much more depth than it has here. If you’d like to see me cover specific ways to make money online in a bit more depth than this, just drop a comment or get in touch and let me know.

First things first, if you’re reading this right now you’re already leaps and bounds ahead of other bloggers who are stuck in their rut and never making it out of the D list. So, congratulations for taking the first steps towards success. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me be the first to tell you that your bullshit blogging is still not going to cut it.

What is bullshit blogging? You know someone who’s doing it right now (or maybe you’re doing it yourself) – kicking tires and pretending to want it but they’re not doing anything to get the job done. It’s OK though because below are 15 reasons why you’ll never have an A-List blog – and if you’re able to pick up on it, they also double as 15 things you should be doing in order to build a solid, A-List blog.

#1. You don’t blog on a consistent basis

I didn’t say daily – not everyone has to blog daily in order to win, but you do need a consistent posting schedule for people to keep up with what you’re doing and pay attention. This could be a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, or a Monday through Friday schedule, with the weekends off.

Whatever post schedule you pick, stick to it as closely as possible. It’s how people will see that you’re serious about being a blogger, because if you’re not serious about it then you’re just bullshit blogging (see what I did there?).

#2. You’re not promoting your blog posts right

Once you write that killer blog content, what do you do? First, you tweet it and then you stumble it and then you send a link out to Facebook, right? What about after that? Do you just move onto the next post and watch the stats on your current post to see how many people check it out?

If you’re doing that, you’re doing it wrong. Just sending out an initial blitz of links isn’t going to work as well as planning things out a bit better. Find out what time of day your Twitter followers are on the most (test different times of day), then do the same for your Facebook page and other social media sites, newsletters, etc. Once you know the best time to send, that’s when you send the information out – not all at once.

#3. Who are you again?

If you’re starting from scratch and no one knows your name, you’ve got a slippery slope to climb. Sure, there are some that make it without anyone ever knowing their name or face, but 9 times out of 10, there’s some ground work needed in order to succeed and have an A-List blog.

Start by commenting on other blogs in your niche that run relevant topics that you can share insight on. By doing this, you’re getting your name and face in front of that blog owner as well as everyone who reads comments (and yes, people do read comments on posts they like).

You could also email a few of the mid-size players in your niche and see if there’s anything you can do for them (promote their articles, etc). Don’t ask for anything in return and they’re more likely to just help you out because you were kind enough to help them.

#4. You don’t know how to network properly

This goes hand in hand with the above reason because networking is a great way to add value to your name and your brand among your peers, which will allow you to grow your audience at a much faster rate than just writing killer content.

Make sure you’re on the social media websites that others are on, but also check out message boards that relate to your topic, their blogs/websites, etc. Not everything happens on Twitter, I promise

#5. You don’t believe enough in yourself

Confidence should be oozing out of your content and if it’s not, people will take notice. No one wants to take advice from someone who doesn’t even believe in themselves. If you don’t believe you’re fucking awesome, why should I?

If you’re not a naturally confident person in real life, that’s ok. Writing on the internet like this allows you to craft your voice and build yourself up as whoever you want to be. For instance, I have bad anxiety and am horrible in face-to-face conversations and phone conversations, yet I can write 1,000+ words with ease and am very confident in myself when I’m writing because it’s when I’m my most comfortable.

#6. You aren’t a good enough writer

Failing English class in the 8th grade doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. Neither does not having a high school diploma. I failed English class every time I took it (3 times!) and never did finish high school, yet I taught myself how to design and code websites, create logos and also write.

You can become a better writer by writing a lot and also reading blogs of those who are awesome writers. Start with Copyblogger, Problogger, Zen Habits, Smart Passive Income & ViperChill to see great writers in action. Oh, and if you’re reading my blog here or the Guerrilla Freelancing blog, you’re reading awesome writing – so +1 for that

#7. You’re only a part-time blogger

Listen, I know you’ve got it stuck in your head that you’re going to strike it rich while only work 4 hours a week, but the truth is, blogging and becoming an A-List blogger takes time. It takes a lot of time and dedication to grow your blog properly and become a powerhouse in your industry.

Blogging once a week or once a day is fine, as long as you’re adding value with every post and you’re also networking with other bloggers, interacting with your readers & putting in the groundwork to grow your blog past it’s initial stages.

#8. You don’t have a personal voice

Writing like other successful bloggers won’t make you successful. Standing out is what’s going to get you noticed. Look at how Naomi over at Ittybiz got noticed by throwing a nice “fuck” or “shit” into a post title and all over the content. She stood out because no one else in the marketing niche was really talking like that (side note: I cuss a lot in my offline conversations, so you’ll see these words throughout my articles here as well – they’re just words).

You need to find your inner voice, the person you are (or want to be) and write with that voice. You might not write like Brian from Copyblogger, but if you write in your own unique way, people will take notice of that.

#9. Your blog is too generalized

When you write a blog, are you covering EVERYTHING in the tech industry or just phones? What about the working from home industry – are you writing for everyone or just people who freelance?

Starting a blog about everything will more than likely lead you to nothing in terms of results. People want something laser focused and usually something that hasn’t really been done before. It’s why a website like Freelance Switch was such a big hit when it launched – it wasn’t done anywhere near that level before for freelancers and freelancers ate it up.

#10. You lack the patience to be big

The “set it and forget it” method doesn’t work with blogging and Chris Brogan already covered why being an overnight success doesn’t really mean overnight. If you don’t have the patience to grow your blog and walk strong through the tough times when traffic is scarce and it looks like no one is watching, you’ll never have an A-List blog.

If you look at a guy like Darren from ProBlogger who wrote every day on his blog for over 5 years straight, you’ll begin to see why these guys are the biggest and best in their industries.

#11. Are you spotting the right opportunities first?

If you’re blogging and not looking for new opportunities to do something first in your niche, you’re always going to be playing catch up to your competitors. Following in someone else’s footsteps might be flattering to that person, but to others it just makes you look like a follower and not a leader.

A-List bloggers take note of opportunities and jump on them to test them out and see if they work. By doing this, they’re seen as the innovators in their market and people tend to look at them for advice much more often than they do for the blog who’s writing about the same topic 2 weeks later.

#12. You don’t give a shit about your readers

When you’re writing content and you get a lot of people (the majority of your readers) commenting and letting you know that you’re wrong or that they don’t appreciate what you said or how you said it, do you just shrug it off as them being haters or do you actually sit down and analyze why they’re saying it and what you could be doing to better your blog?

Your readers are what’s going to drive your blog to A-List status by commenting, sharing links, buying products, clicking ads, etc. So, if you’re constantly pissing your readers off, how do you think you’re actually going to grow a blog to A-List status?

#13. You’re trying to be Envato too fast

What I mean is that if you’re trying to grow 10 blogs at once in a “network” type atmosphere, you’re likely spreading yourself too thin and not focusing on one blog to get to A-List status. Yes, Envato has TONS of blogs, but when they started blogging, they used Freelance Switch as a blog to springboard other blogs out to the public because of the attention Freelance Switch was getting.

Instead of trying to have 5 different blogs in similar niches, try pooling your efforts into one blog and make it successful. Then, once you’ve got the solid foundation built, you can start to venture out more and/or hire someone to work on your new projects for you.

#14. Plan in advance in case of emergency

If you’re writing on a consistent basis and then all of a sudden, you drop off the face of the earth for two weeks, people will notice it and start to wonder why. Instead of having this happen, write in bunches and schedule your posts for future dates or save them as drafts so that you can schedule them for times when you know you’re not going to be around as much as you’d like.

Chris Brogan talks a lot about writing in bunches when you’re in the mood and for good reason – as I write this post right now, I’ve got 2 other topics to write today for this blog so they’re ready to go on future days and I also have 2 articles to write for other blogs. Doing them in bunches allows me to utilize the ‘groove’ I can get in and avoid the blogging burnout.

#15. How well can you adjust and adapt?

Sometimes things will work great for you and other times, you’ll fall flat on your face. How many freelance blogs out there make tons of money from ad revenue? Freelance Switch and Freelance Folder come to mind. What if the ad revenue coming in doesn’t make enough sense to clog up your sidebar? You do what I did on Guerrilla Freelancing and adjust by trying something completely different – I removed all advertisements from the website and have been growing an email list instead.

If you see that after some time, things aren’t working in your favor like you’d like for them to, maybe it’s time to pack up and move onto something different, whether it be trying something new on your blog or letting your blog go altogether. Everybody fails, but not everybody learns from their failures. Make sure you’re not falling victim to that and you’re able to adjust and adapt accordingly.

Do you have an A-List blog?

If you run a blog and know that it deserves more attention than it currently gets, leave a comment below with a link to it and a little bit about your blog so that the other readers here can check it out (and so I can check it out as well).

I am willing to bet you $5.00 right now that you cannot go through this entire list and not pick out at least one item that you’ve personally fell victim to. Go ahead, look over the list and try to prove me wrong. I can guarantee it that we’ve all, at some point, made some of these mistakes in our own blog designs.

However, once you’re able to look these mistakes over and study why they aren’t right for your blog design, you’ll walk away with a better understanding of how to create yourself (or your clients) a better blog.

Below I’ve listed 25 mistakes you must avoid when creating a blog design (or having one created for you), with details on why they’re bad practices and what you can do to avoid falling victim to them. This post is over 2,400 words long so if you need to bookmark it and come back to it again and again, sort of like a check list, feel free.

#1. Never clutter your sidebar

The sidebar of a blog, more often than not, ends up being the bastard child to the content area and gets everything thrown into it without a thought. Social linking, categories, links and various other widgets & ads clutter up the sidebar very quick and it causes you to look unprofessional.

Yes, there may be a reason to have ads, links & widgets on the page, but structuring and styling them will help you maintain your professional look when people view your blog.

#2. Don’t use too many advertisements

If your ads outweigh your content, you’re doing something wrong. When you look at the big blogs who get millions of viewers a month, they have a bunch of ads on them but they also showcase a ton (and I mean, a ton) of content.

There’s a reason they don’t have more ads than content – it doesn’t work and it doesn’t put a professional appearance out to your visitors.

#3. Your content is not scannable

This post, for example, is a great way of showcasing content that is easy to scan. Each tip is sectioned off with it’s own header and is easy for you to scroll through the page, catch the tips and completely overlook the content I write if you wanted to (I hope you don’t).

The fact is, most people scan pages more than actually sit and read. The web is fast paced and if people can’t scan your content, you’ll be losing visitors by the bundle.

#4. There’s just too many social buttons

Yes, we get it – you want people to share your content. However, having 3 large share buttons on the left side of the page, along with the mini-share buttons under your post title and then even more share options at the end of your content is a bit too much.

It runs along the same lines as having too many ads on the page – too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing.

#5. Do not use an image-heavy website design

You want your page to load fast because people are busy and don’t want to wait 5-10 seconds for a website to load, which is why you need to make sure that your website design utilizes the cleanest code possible so it loads as fast as possible.

A talented designer should know how to utilize css3/html5/jquery in order to make your design pop without causing it to take 20 seconds to load.

#6. Make sure your blog is cross-browser compatible

IE6 may be dead, but that doesn’t mean your blog only needs to show up well on Firefox and have errors on Safari, Opera, Chrome and IE8-9.

Not all visitors use the same browser but all visitors should be able to see the same website, so make it a point to go through and check your blog out in various browsers to ensure that everything is functioning properly.

#7. How many popups do you use again?

I’ve seen a big craze in pop ups on blogs lately asking people to sign up for newsletters. While this is fine (and they’re nicely designed), there are also the people who run blogs and have 2-3 popups open up on the initial page load as well as a “wait – don’t leave yet” pop up when you go to close out the window.

News flash, people don’t like this and will never return if they have to deal with that stuff.

#8. Can visitors contact you easily?

One of my personal pet peeves is when I land on a website and want to contact the author but I cannot find a contact page. If I cannot see a contact button in the navigation, I look in the sidebars and on an about page, however finding information like this should not be that complicated.

There are tons of plugins now that allow you to add a contact form easily to your blog without needing any coding knowledge, so take a few minutes and set up a contact page.

#9. Your blogs colors give me a headache

With all of the color tools out there like Colour Lovers and various others, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to have a great color scheme on your blog.

Choosing the proper colors for your blog is important because the colors will invoke certain emotions in your visitors so you want to make sure you’re giving off the right vibes and not hurting their head with an awful color combination.

#10. Light text on a black background

While I love dark website designs, the problem with them is the fact that the light color text on the dark background is hard to read. It causes peoples eyes to strain and it doesn’t allow the visitor to read everything in peace, so you’re going to lose out on a potential reader because your content isn’t easy to read.

A good way to combat this is to make the website design itself dark but keep the content area of the site white, which allows the content to be easily readable while still keeping the style dark like you want.

#11. Using 100+ plugins and slowing your blog down

A lot of blog plugins add in extra stylesheets and jquery calls to your header/footer, which cause your website to load slower. Having too many plugins that aren’t really 100% necessary will cause your page to load too slow and have visitors leave before they get to soak up everything you have to offer.

If you must have a lot of plugins in use, make sure you’re using a plugin like the W3 Total Cache that creates a html version of your page so that it loads quicker and doesn’t have so many database calls.

#12. Flash… really?

The year is 2011, not 1990 so please, I beg of you, stop using flash when it’s not needed. A lot of the elements people use flash for (banners, headers, etc) can be easily achievable with jQuery. By removing flash from your website, you’ll have a faster, more up-to-date design that allows more people to view it and enjoy the content you’ve got.

#13. Completely ignoring the comment styles

One of the big components in a blog is the comments (unless you’re Seth Godin) and not taking the time to properly design the comments section will cause your blog design to look either outdated or low quality.

Most blogs now have a threaded comment feature and your blog should allow people to easily see original comments as well as comments that reply to the original one, styled a bit differently to easily differentiate the two.

#14. Is your blog mobile ready?

The web is going mobile and your website should as well. Can your readers easily see, read and use your blog on their mobile phones or pads? If you want your blog to grow properly over the next few years, you MUST have a mobile version of your design created.

Yes, these will cost a bit more because your designer will need to create different stylesheets and update codes for you, but in the long run it’s going to be work it because you will never lose another mobile viewer again due to a horrible layout on their phone.

#15. Can the visitor tell what your site is about in 5 seconds or less?

There’s no point in having an awesome design if the visitor leaves before they can even see what your site is about. Your blog design should not only look great but it should immediately show the viewer what your blog is about.

#16. There are no clear forms of navigation on your blog

When someone lands on your blog and wants to look through different pages, how easy is it for them to click around? Is there a navigation bar at the top or at the very least, on the top of the sidebar? If not, you may be driving your visitors away because they’ll put your blog in the same category as the splogs out there that don’t really care about it’s readers.

Make sure that when visitors land on your website, they’re able to check out the main links and categories of your site as well as related posts of the article they’re on – it’ll help keep them on the site longer and turn them into a regular reader.

#17. The fonts you want are unreadable at that size

I’ve had clients on various occasions request fonts to be used and they just weren’t readable at the size they wanted them in (league gothic at 13px?!?!). If you’re designing your blog (or having it designed) and would like people to actually stick around and read your content, make sure you’re using proper typography.

#18. Using target=”_blank” is not user friendly

If someone is reading your blog and decides to click a link, you shouldn’t have the link automatically open up a new browser window for them. Instead, let the user decide how they’re going to view the link (I personally have come accustomed to right clicking all links and opening in a new tab).

By having your links open up in a new tab automatically, it might cause the viewer to think they’ve opened up some type of spam and quickly close it – closing your site right along with it. Remember, people know how to use a back button

#19. You’re not showing author information

Another good way to allow your visitors to feel connected to your website is by showing the proper author information with each post. This works well if you’re running a multi-author blog so people can see who’s writing the articles they like most and it allows the visitor to follow their content on your blog.

Even if you’re a one person show, having the author information (at the very least, your name) with each post will burn it into your viewers minds and allow them to remember your blog as not only “that cool place with the awesome content” but “that cool place that _____ runs“.

#20. Designing with trends that aren’t useful in your niche

If you’ve been following the Dribbble trends in the last few months, the main trends that come to mind are the worn, retro styled logos and blog designs. However, if you’re running a blog in a niche that doesn’t really fit with that trend, it’ll take down your authority power in peoples eyes when they view your site.

Instead, make sure that your blog is designed to fit well within your niche, but still have that bit of an edge to stand out from your competition. Subtle changes and adjustments to a normal design in your niche can go a long way, especially with a blog designer who knows what they’re doing.

#21. Making 1-2 changes to a free theme isn’t a “custom design”

I know that everybody wants to be a “blog designer” but guess what? Just because you open up a WordPress theme, change a couple colors and pop a logo in, you’re not creating a custom blog design.

Sure, you may be able to update a commercial theme from Elegant Themes or Woo Themes, but at the end of the day, it’s a theme customization and not a 100% custom design built from the ground up specifically for you.

#22. Your design is plain and unmemorable

Thesis is an awesome framework of a theme, but by itself it’s pretty damn plain. If you’re going to use a theme framework for your blog or try to go the minimalist route, make sure you’ve got something custom that helps you stand out and is memorable to your visitors.

This kind of goes along with the last point, if you’re using a theme that everyone else has and it’s extremely plain and boring, how many people do you really think are going to want to keep coming back?

#23. Not keeping your information updated

A sure sign that a blog isn’t up to date and isn’t worth sticking around at is when you see that the last blog post was written months ago, their about page lists items of importance that happened 5+ years ago or their copyright information is outdated (2007?).

Make sure that if you’re going to keep up with your blog, you keep up with all of the content on the blog – the about page, contact information, social profiles, etc.

#24. You totally forgot the search form

People should be able to easily search your blog for information they’d like to read more about. If they can’t, they won’t stick around long. A search box can be small and take up a very little amount of space, so there’s no reason why it should be left out on your blog.

You can place it in the top right area of the header, the top of the sidebar or you can even stick the search box right in the navigation bar so it blends in with the site but is still in a visible place.

#25. If you’re writing lots of content, where is your print stylesheet?

You’ve got a retweet button, a facebook share icon and some other random social media share badges and buttons on your blog right? You’ve got the sharing part of your content down, but what about the people who still like to print out information and save it? Have you forgot about them?

A quick google search shows up a bunch of WordPress print plugins, so there’s really no more excuses as to why all of that amazing content you’ve got cannot be printed out properly.

Additional Resources

• 18 do’s and don’ts of usability on the web
• 20 do’s and don’ts of effective web design
• 5 things that can make (or break) a killer web design
• The good, the bad and the ugly of the web design industry

It’s finally here.

Welcome to the new GUERRILLA website. Today is a special day because after 2+ years of having the same portfolio design up, we are finally updating around here and showcasing some of the newest work we’ve completed for clients.

It’s been a fun few years and even though everyone liked the original playful header of our previous portfolio design, I felt that it was time to upgrade and showcase the professionalism you’ll be receiving by working with me.

Here are some of the things that are new

We’re finally on WordPress

The original layout was a single page portfolio design that was built with html and css. Today, we’re running on the wonderful WordPress CMS. It’s about time, right? I mean, we build WordPress powered websites for clients and for 2 years we’ve had a portfolio that wasn’t on WordPress. Seems like a logical next step to me.

Updated Portfolio

You can see that we’ve updated our portfolio with some new work that has recently been completed as well as removed some of the older work that we feel didn’t showcase our current skill level.

Free White Paper

This is something that I am really excited about. As an extra for every client we have, we’re giving a free white paper on how to make more money with your WordPress powered website. It’s a 10+ page white paper with nothing but practical advice that has actions in it to help clients grow their income with their newly designed website.

Case Studies are coming

Previously, we’ve never done a full blown case study for each client but as of today, we’ve got a place to actually put the case studies up so you can bet that they’re coming with new client work as it’s completed. Keep an eye on the blog for new case studies to be posted.

And a GIGANTIC Thank You!

I want to give a gigantic thank you to everyone who’s hired me for design related work over the past few years. It means the world to me that I was able to work with you and that you put the future of your website in my hands.

Here’s to a productive and creative 2011!