Revamping My Blog (20+ Changes To Blogging Success!)

So for the past 2 weeks I have been working day and night to revamp my blog. Getting up early in the mornings, working the entire day and going to bed late at nights (or some time the next morning) just to ensure that my blog feels new.

I think that my blog needed some sort of upgrade without changing the look and feel of it too much, because my blog has its own look (not a free theme) so keeping the same theme installed would be the best thing to do.

What did I change/revamp on my blog then?

Started My Mailing List... Again

So when I started blogging back in March 2010, I didn't start my mailing list right away. I didn't even remember when I actually started my mailing list.

But when I started I used MailChimp and after that I switched to Aweber.

Now that I am revamping my blog I am back to using MailChimp to build my mailing list.

I have made it very very easy for you to subscribe to my mailing list.

There is a form in the right sidebar.
A form is also located under the posts on the homepage at the bottom.
There is a check box when commenting as well, tick the check box while making your comment to subscribe.

Just in case you also want to subscribe now then I will place a form in this post so you can subscribe to my mailing list.

Adverts On My Blog

A great way to make money from your blog is to monetize it with ads. Whether it be Adsense, Info Links, Media.net, any ad network that you use or if you sell ads on your blog as well.

I think the ads on my blog, especially the ones from Google Adsense were a bit too out of place. The responsive version of my blog as well was littered with too many ads due to Google's AMP which places ads basically anywhere they want and this made my blog look spammy.

2 WordPress Plugin For Great Ad Placement

There are 2 plugins that I use on my blog to help place my advertisements in the right place.

Ad Inserter - Ad Manager & AdSense Ads - This plugin is the absolute best WordPress plugin for ad placement on any blog. I kid you not, this plugin will place ads anywhere on your blog.

1 - Your ad code goes here.
2 - Select on what pages does the ad appears.
3 - Select an insertion position where the ad should appear.
4 - This feature allows you to choose exact place on your blog where you want the ad to appear.
5 - Choose to show ad on Desktop, Tablet or Phone.

OIOpublisher - I use this plugin to sell ads on my blog which makes it very easy to monetize my blog as well.

I can easily set up ad zones, size, price and much more with a few clicks of the mouse and a few taps on the keyboard.

You can set your own price and you get to keep 100% of the profit. Accepting payments with this with this plugin is very easy as well. I only use Paypal, but you can set up other methods of payments such as Authorize.net, 2Checkoout. Payza or offline payment method.

Once you set up your ad zones and place them on your blog where it is visible for advertisers to see then everything else is basically automated from there.

You can also use this plugin to sell sponsored posts on your blog or products as well. So I highly recommend this plugin OIOpublisher if you want to monetize your blog as well.

YouTube Videos - Video Blogs

You will start noticing some of my blog posts will be video related with videos from my YouTube channel. So instead of a long article, at times you will see me using videos in a blog post.

Videos showing blog tutorials or me just showing my face and talking to you directly. This will help both you and I greatly in creating a friendly relationship.

Contact me page - Using HappyForms plugin to insert the form to send me an email.
Submit a guest post page - This page is also using HappyForms to make submitting your information to become a guest blogger on my blog much easier.
Advertise Here page - This page is using the OIOpublisher plugin to make it very easy for advertisers to buy ads on my blog.

Blog Speed - My Blog Is A Bit Faster

We all know how annoying it is going to any website and it takes one eternity to load.

If you have a slow blog then this is bad for generating leads, converting visitors into readers, readers into subscribers and the list goes on. This is also very bad when it comes to bounce rate because your viewers won't wait all day if your blog takes long to load.

Optimizing a blog for speed requires a good cache plugin. W3 Total Cache is one of the many plugins that you can use.

This is the best settings for w3 Total Cache so that you can get the most out of that plugin.

I also use WP-Optimize. It is a all-in-one plugin that cleans your database, compresses your images and caches your site. I mostly use it to compress images and clean my database.

So with those 2 plugins I was able to speed up my blog a bit more.

In addition I got rid of plugins that I no longer use. Deactivate and deleting plugins what you no longer use can help to speed up your blog.

Chat With Me Live - New Feature

So I recently discovered this new live chat widget called Drift.

I am pretty sure that you see a blue chat icon to the bottom right section of the screen (on PC) and at the bottom of mobile phones. You can use that new feature on my blog to chat with me live (well once I am away and have internet connection).

There is also the drift app on my phone that I use to get notified when you message me and I can use the app to correspond and communicate with you.

So please feel free to message me anytime you like and I will be sure to reply to you.

Other Small Changes That Were Made

Here are a list of things that were changed on the blog as well:

Article font color - The font color is now black. It was previously using #666 which is not fully black.
Article font size - I made the font size a bit bigger so it's easier to read.
Article heading - I made them bold. The previous heading wasn't bold and made it hard to notice the separation of main points in my articles.
New logo - I loved my previous logo, but I felt like a new one was needed.
Responsive logo fix - On mobile the logo was cutting off to the left side, that is now fixed with a simple CSS code to show the full logo.
Blog comment form - I moved the blog comment form above the comments to make it easier to find it instead of scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.
Comment order - I have organized the comment so that the latest comments now show at the top of the comment list for each post.
Social sharing - I have floating social media to the left of the blog and also at the bottom of each blog posts so that you can share articles easily.
Scroll to top - I installed a plugin which allows you to scroll back to the top of the each page easily with a single tap of the arrow pointing up.
External links - I installed a plugin to open all external links in a new window. This is to help lower my bounce rate and for audience retention.
Push notifications - You can now stay updated to my blog posts by using the push notifications feature which alerts you to only when a new post gets published.

What's Next For The Blog?

Well I am going to continue blogging as long as I can and provide the best tips to my ability to help my blog readers build up their blog while making money from it.

New tech category posts will be coming soon. So you will see more tech related posts on my blog. Not too much deep tech, but tech as in gadgets, apps and so on.

I am also thinking of hosting a cash contest or a guest blogging contest as well. Subscribe to my mailing list so that you will get notified about this.

In conclusion
My passion for blogging has always been there and I must say that my passion is now blazing hotter than before.