It's time to DUMP those New Yearâ€s Resolutions!

As the current year is nearing its end, many people are thinking about making New Yearâ€s resolutions.

Not me… or at least not anymore.

Iâ€ve blogged about New Yearâ€s resolutions numerous times over the years, but like 80+% of New Yearâ€s resolutions ever made, the majority of my personal resolutions have usually gone by the wayside (read ‘failedâ€) by February.

New Yearâ€s Resolutions fail for many different reasons, including:

• Failure to be specific about goals:
• Inadequate time or resources to invest;
• Feeling overwhelmed by the task;
• Not really caring enough about achieving the goal, and;
• Not knowing how to achieve the goal.

In my opinion, the last reason on the list above seems to be the most prevalent for failure to accomplish a goal.

For example, if, having never drawn a stick figure, I decided that this was the year I was going to fulfill my long-held desire to ‘paint a landscapeâ€, there are many things Iâ€ll have to learn before I apply paint to paper… or would that be canvas?

Can you see the problem?

So, now, instead of making resolutions, I choose what I want to learn about in any given year, i.e. ‘learn how to paint a landscapeâ€.

Learning how to do something feels much more inviting than compelling oneself simply ‘To Doâ€.

In order to begin the learning process, Iâ€ve found that instead of Googling ‘learn about _____†or ‘learn how to ______â€, then spending time to search through a haphazard array of results; going straight to a source for educational courses usually delivers what I need and want in a timely – therefore, more cost-effective – manner.

One of those ‘sources for courses†is Udemy, an online learning platform aimed at professional adults, taught mainly by professionals in their field. Udemy made a special effort to attract corporate trainers seeking to create coursework for employees of their company.

Back in 2010, Mashable noted that “Udemy offers an experience that rivals the real classroom and should prove to be a useful utility for teachers and students of all subject matters.”

As of 2018, there are more than 100,000 courses on the website, in the following major categories:

• Business
• Design
• Development
• Health & Fitness
• IT @ Software
• Lifestyle
• Marketing
• Music
• Office Productivity
• Personal Development
• Photography
• Teaching & Academics

Each major category has its list of sub-categories. For example, under the Lifestyle category, youâ€ll find:

• Arts & Crafts
• Beauty & Makeup
• Food & Beverage
• Gaming
• Gardening
• Pet Care & Training
• Travel

Of course, you donâ€t need to drill down through all the categories and sub-categories to find a course on Udemy.

I searched for ‘how to paint a landscape†and although there were 1465 results to that search, once I selected my preferred filters, (Beginner, English, 4.5+ rating, 3-6 hours in length) I ended up with only 43 courses from which to choose.

The ‘Developing an Eye for Landscape Composition†course spoke to me as it has had 5,160 students with an instructor rating of 4.7, and 1,192 reviews. The fact that almost a quarter of the students bothered to write a review and then rated the instructor that highly tells me that itâ€s a great course.

Moreover, the course (at the time of purchase) cost only $14.99 and includes:

• 4 hours on-demand video
• 31 downloadable resources
• Full lifetime access
• Access on mobile and TV

Because weâ€re on the road with very limited Internet bandwidth until we get home in March when I can stream video again, having full lifetime access is a real bonus!

In the meantime, Iâ€ll be taking photographs of landscapes that I might want to paint!

Anyway, I hope you too will dump the New Yearâ€s Resolutions in favor of kindly and gently inviting yourself to learn something new. Something that you can look forward to doing, get excited about and most of all, ENJOY doing!

Happy New Year!

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post Dump the New Year’s Resolutions! appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

If you have a blogger friend, spouse, or relative and don't know what to get them for Christmas, check out the following list of Christmas gift ideas for bloggers.

As a full-time blogger writer myself, I can assure you that any of these gifts will be most appreciated!

The list includes Christmas gifts for bloggers who are just starting out and gifts for bloggers who have everything. Gift prices range from free to $1000+ for a conference pass.

• Ergonomic Keyboard and Mouse

  I gave up on flat keyboards ages ago when too much time at the computer resulted in carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injury for which I narrowly avoided surgery. Switching to an ergonomic keyboard and taking glucosamine with chondroitin has done the trick, i.e. no more wrist or forearm pain – ever. Taking more vacations has probably helped a lot too. The unique wave design guides your hands into the best position and conforms naturally to your fingers. Easy comfortable whisper-quiet typing without a learning curve. A large cushioned palm rest helps position your hands properly on the keyboard and offers a comfortable place to rest them when not typing.
  Right-handed comfort mouse with generous contoured design soft rubber grips and an advanced scroll wheel for hyper-fast or click-to-click scrolling.

• Beer of the Month Club Subscription

  Amazing Clubs, has 17 different monthly gift clubs, including beer, wine, BBQ sauce, cake, candle, cheesecake and more. To learn more about them visit my post about the Amazing Clubs.

• 2TB Flash Drive

  I have a number of flash drives and particularly like this 2TB model and it doesn't have caps and other bits and pieces that I'm likely to lose.

• Go Pro

  If your favorite blogger is someone who shares their adventures via online video, consider getting them a GoPro action camera. NOTE to Ed: THIS is what I want!

• Portable Charger

  This is a portable battery charger, iPad charger, travel charger, USB battery pack, charging station, power bank, and portable battery. It works with Apple iPhone 6 Plus, 6, 5S, 5C, 5, 4S, iPad, Air, Mini, Samsung Galaxy S5, S4, S3, S21, Note, Nexus, LG, and HTC.

• Data Charger Cable Cords

  The standard cords that come with an iPhone or iPad are generally too short. Give your favorite blogger the gift of extra range with these 3 metre (10 foot) long cable cords.

• Ergonomic Chair

  Another piece of essential ergonomic equipment that makes sitting for long periods less harmful to your health. I bought my saddle seat office chair following a car accident in late August â€07 … and have used it ever since.

• Blogger Training

  Check out Udemy's new customer offers! Their top courses from $14.99 when you first. Visit Udemy for a huge variety of online courses about blogging, writing, entrepreneurship, home business management and much more.

• Web Hosting

  This is for the blogger who hasn't started blogging yet!

  Most web hosting companies are currently running seasonal specials, i.e. WPEngine is offering 4 months of free hosting and BlueHost is offering up to 75% off its hosting prices, starting at $2.95.

• Autoresponder Service Subscription

  Many new bloggers who haven't received proper blogging instruction think they don't need this essential service. Sadly, neglecting to include this tool in their marketing arsenal will stunt their business growth. An autoresponder serves to collect names, email addresses and other information from subscribers and potential clients — folks that can be contacted on a regular basis. I've used Aweber for years. Learn more about autoresponder services.

• Conference Pass

  My personal favorite in the conference world is Affiliate Summit. Although not specifically designed for bloggers, it IS dedicated to those who make money online from their blogs through commission sales. GOOD information for ANYONE who operates a blog.

• Gift Cards

  For the blogger who has absolutely everything and/or if you want to save time shopping – consider sending an Amazon.com Snowflake Gift Card Tin – $50

Wishing you and yours a very happy Holiday Season!!

Did you find this post about Christmas gifts for bloggers informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post Christmas Gifts for Bloggers 2022 appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving Day in the United States and Cyber Monday falls on the Monday after that. Cyber Monday is a marketing invention that was first observed in 2005 by online retailer shop.org. Seen as an online version of Black Friday, Cyber Monday was created to allow customers to shop online from the comfort of their offices and homes. Most online retailers offer great deals and deep discounts to customers on these days.

Here are 7 tips to help you make the most of your affiliate sales this coming Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

1. Visit Your Affiliate Networks

Login to each of your affiliate networks to see what deals your merchants are offering for Cyber Monday. Many affiliate networks post links to holiday offerings on their homepage which makes finding promotional materials easy to find. Or you can search for Cyber Monday deals easily. For example, on CJ.com, you can log in to your account, go to Get Links > By Relationship, and search for “Cyber Monday” to get a full list of relevant text and banner links from all your merchants… uh, those who have bothered to label their promos “Cyber Monday”.

Here is a graphic example of how CJ Affiliate by Conversant (CJ.com) allows affiliates to search specifically for Cyber Monday links and banners.

2. Check Your Affiliate Emails

If you're set up to receive emails from your merchants, your Inbox is likely to be full to overflowing with deals and offers at this time of year. Pay attention to them! It's sometimes easier to pull a promo coded with your affiliate link from an email than to go searching for it on an affiliate network. Here's an example of an email I received from Udemy with links and banners coded with my affiliate ID to Cyber Deals:

A merchant can't make it any easier for an affiliate to promote their product! Just copy and paste the coded links into your WordPress blog.

Make sure you read those emails carefully. Many merchants place restrictions on when Cyber Monday offers can be advertised, i.e. not before a certain date.

3. Make Your Site Festive

Show that you are celebrating the Christmas season by using festive graphics in your blog posts. Better yet, change your logo to include a sprig of holly or a Santa hat. Or, go all out and do what Google does…
I purchase graphics through iStock. To have a really cool logo created, I recommend services such as Freelancer and 99Designs.

4. Add New Cyber Monday Promotions to Your Blog Daily

If you are used to blogging only once a week, this is the time to start blogging daily if you can. The more frequently you post, the more often your site gets noticed by Google which in turn means more traffic for you!

5. Follow up with Blog Broadcasts

Notify your email subscribers of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals posted to your blog using a service like Aweber's Blog Broadcast. You only have to set this up once, and then every time you post to your blog, the article automatically goes out to your email subscribers.

6. Promote Your Posts on Social Media

Don't forget to post links back to your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn where applicable.

7. Set up Google Alerts

Set up search queries in Google Alerts to stay aware of deals about which your merchants (and affiliate competitors) are blogging. Google Alerts is a content change detection service that will automatically notify you when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches the search terms you input into the service. You'll get the results delivered by email.

Best of success on this Cyber Monday everyone!! Get out there and earn some BIG commissions!

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post 7 Ways to Increase Your Cyber Monday Affiliate Commissions appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

I think particularly of bloggers in the fashion and beauty industries who upload videos to YouTube, loaded with affiliate links in the video descriptions, and then post links to those videos from their other social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

That's all well and good until one of those social media marketing accounts gets suspended, for reasons you might never have imagined.

For example, in 2011, one of my videos on YouTube had over a quarter-million views.

Monetized with Adsense and directing viewers back to my affiliate marketing blog, that video was a great source of income for me until someone marked it as ‘spam' and YouTube reviewers simply took his word for it, without bothering to even look at it or compare it with other similar videos on the site. According to YouTube's own rules, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the video, but it was taken down anyway and my income dropped.

I did eventually replace the “How Affiliate Marketing Works” video, and you'll notice how few visitors it has had in the last 10 years because it was marked as ‘age-restricted'.

By the way, the ‘someone' who marked the video as spam, was a Facebook ‘friend' and affiliate marketing influencer who took issue with a comment I made requesting that he be civil and courteous with friends on MY Facebook timeline after he was anything but courteous or civil. Based on what I've learned about him since he is/was a proven bully and he was probably jealous of my success.

Lesson learned – don't say anything, simply delete the assholes on your Facebook account. They won't notice and therefore (hopefully) won't take revenge.

Worse than having a video removed from YouTube, I actually lost my Twitter account that had 15.5K followers.

How did I lose that Twitter account?

For the simple reason that I no longer have access to the phone number that was linked to the account. It was a U.S. telephone number that I used when we spent our winters in Arizona and unfortunately, I didn't change the number back to my Canadian number on the Twitter account before we returned to Canada in the spring of 2019. The phone contract ran out while we've been stuck at home in Canada due to COVID, and despite dozens of efforts to get that account back, Twitter offers NO way to contact them by phone or any other reasonable way to fix the problem I have with that account.

So, you don't even have to incite an insurrection to lose your social media marketing accounts and the income that you make from them.

You only need to have a social media account that someone doesn't like, or one where you have no possible way of contacting those who run the social media platform.

Bottom line: You still need a website to market your goods. You can link back to that website from your social media accounts, but do NOT rely exclusively on social media to monetize your business. It's only a matter of one bully, bad reviewer, or other asshole and your social media account will be useless.

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post The Danger of Relying Exclusively on Social Media Marketing appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

So many of you who have contacted me, have lost your jobs or are on an indeterminate layoff due to the pandemic and are looking for ways to make money online quickly and thinking that affiliate marketing is the way to do that.

I SO feel for you and sincerely want you to find a way to augment and improve your income to lessen the effects this pandemic has had on your livelihoods.

I KNOW that the unemployment $600 a week Coronavirus ‘booster shot' will hardly take care of your family, especially if you get the virus and don't have health insurance. Covid-19 treatment costs are absolutely crushing.

Sadly, even that money is coming to an end soon as Republicans have opposed extending the policy, who argue that the benefit, which leaves many people making more than they did while working, deters employees from going back to work.

Of course, returning to work is an impossible prospect for many Americans who do not receive hazard pay or guaranteed sick leave during the pandemic.

So, having said all that, my first caution to you is… PLEASE don't rush to buy (waste your money on) an affiliate marketing educational product or any other product that internet marketers are pushing that promises you'll make money online quickly.

Right now, Internet marketing ‘sharks' are preying upon the needy in spades.

For example, some will try to sell you a $60 PLR package through the Warrior Forum that you can either use to beef up the content on your website or that you can sell to others. The merchant will sell 500 of those packages and make $30,000 from that launch, yet none of their buyers will ever earn a penny from that purchase because that PLR content will never reach Page 100 on Google, let alone Page 1 on Google.

Seriously, making a living from an Internet business has NEVER been quick or easy, and I've never, in my 20+ years doing business online and teaching affiliate marketing ever suggested that was the case.

When I started my Internet marketing business, I was working a full-time job as an air traffic controller and working another 100 hours per week on my business. I studied and worked and worked and worked some more.

By doing exactly that, I became successful, making ~$500,000US per year, which is why I've been in retirement for the last 5 years (not to mention that I've had to deal with 2 cancers in the last year AND dealing with another ‘pre-cancer' right now as I write this).

So, DO NOT BUY into the ‘get rich quick' B.S. marketers are trying to sell you now.

Learn something about affiliate marketing and KNOW that it will take time.

If you want to start an affiliate marketing business, research those who have been successful, i.e. food, mommy, lifestyle, and other bloggers. THEY work hard and deserve every dollar they earn.

Find your niche and work it for all its worth.

Meanwhile, if you're in the U.S. on November 3rd vote out the nefarious elements in your society, that kill public education (in an effort to make people stupid) and those who don't advocate for universal healthcare. NO ONE should have to pay for ANY services related to COVID-19, unless they've been terribly stupid and refused to socially distance and refuse to wear a mask in public, i.e. they WANTED to get the disease and pass it on to their friends and family and cause tens of thousands of additional deaths and keep the U.S. economy shut down for months and months longer than need be.

Just sayin'.

Cheers,

The post Starting an Affiliate Marketing Business during COVID-19 appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

StudioPress reported that their Top 10 Best-Selling Themes for January 2019 were as follows:

1. Foodie Pro Theme
2. Essence Pro Theme
3. AgentPress Pro Theme
4. Author Pro Theme
5. Magazine Pro Theme
6. Mai Lifestyle Pro Theme
7. Refined Pro Theme
8. Wellness Pro Theme
9. Business Pro Theme
10. Corporate Pro Theme

Most of the theme names should give you a good idea as to the niche they serve, but if you aren't familiar with StudioPress themes, AgentPress is a real estate theme, while Essence Pro is a theme for sites in the health, wellness, and lifestyle niches.

So, what did we learn about profitable niches?

Well, it seems that the following niche markets continue to dominate:

• Food
• Lifestyle
• Real estate
• Wellness
• Health
• Business

And that makes sense, right?

Everyone eats, should be concerned about their health and wellness, and hopes to enjoy a wonderful lifestyle. As for real estate theme sales, my guess is that more real estate agents now understand their need for a personal and professional website.

By the way, this blog runs on the Genesis Framework and the eleven40 StudioPress theme. I'm kinda miffed that my theme apparently didn't make the cut!!

You might also be interested in the following posts:

• Where to Find Professional WordPress Themes
• Why I Switched Back to StudioPress Genesis
• Genesis: How to Create Custom Sidebars for Categories, Posts and Pages

Did you find this post about clues to finding a profitable niche informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post Profitable Niches as Revealed by WordPress Theme Sales appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

Youâ€re interested in affiliate marketing as a way of making money online and I know thatâ€s a great choice for SO many reasons. I started affiliate marketing in 1997 and my online business as an affiliate marketer has provided me with a lifestyle that I would never have even dreamed possible had I continued working at my day job.

So, letâ€s get you started…

NOTE: Most of the links on this page will take you to other pages on this site. You can either hit the ‘Back†button at the top left-hand corner of your browser window or the “Affiliate Marketing for Beginners” link at the top of every page to return to this article.

If you havenâ€t already decided to become an affiliate marketer, you might have the following questions about affiliate marketing.

1. What is affiliate marketing?
2. How does affiliate marketing work?
3. How much does it cost to start up as an affiliate marketer?
4. Can I Really Make Money as an Affiliate Marketer?
5. How much can I earn as an affiliate marketer?
6. How long does it take to make money as an affiliate marketer?
7. and my favorite… Affiliate Marketing Advantages: 17 Reasons to Become an Affiliate Marketer

Now that you know what affiliate marketing is and what its advantages are, let's look at how you can start an affiliate marketing business.

Starting an affiliate marketing business involves the following 8 basic steps:

1. 1. Choose your niche.

      A niche is a topic. The topic you choose should be one that you are both passionate about and knowledgeable about. You can, however, choose a topic about which you are not knowledgeable IF you have a passion to learn about that topic. You may already know exactly what you want to blog about and that's great. But if you aren't so sure about your topic or if it is viable (can make money) then you'll have to do some niche market research.

   2. Register your domain name.

      After choosing a potentially profitable niche market, you need to buy and register a domain name. Sorry, but free hosting sites like WordPress.com is unacceptable to reputable merchants. Far too many affiliates with free hosting sites have had their sites shut down without prior notice. As a serious affiliate marketer, you absolutely need to have your own domain name and website.

   3. Create your website/blog.

      If you registered your domain with GoDaddy, then you'll need to pick a hosting service on which to create your website. I heartily recommend that you use WordPress as a platform for your website, and WordPress specifically recommends certain hosting services. Each of these hosting services makes it easy to install a WordPress blog. A WordPress blog has been the best and easiest way to create a website for the better part of two decades now. WordPress is a free platform that just keeps getting better and better.

      Here are a few articles about WordPress that you will find useful when building your site / blog .

      • Recommended WordPress Blog Hosting Services
      • How to Start a Blog
      • How to Optimize Your WordPress Blog
      • 12 WordPress Security Tips

   4. Create content for your site

      I suggest that you create at least 10 articles on your website before you attempt to join any affiliate programs or advertising networks such as Google Adsense. Good merchants will check your website to make sure that it looks good and has great content before they accept you into their programs.

      To learn more about creating content for your blog, please read these articles:

      • 21 Types of Blog Posts
      • 3 Simple Ways to Come Up with Blog Post Ideas
      • Affiliate Marketers: How To Cut Your Article and Blog Post Writing Time in Half

   5. Start building a subscriber list.

      The biggest mistake that many new affiliate marketers make is thinking that they do not need a list of subscribers. Let me say that it is absolutely imperative that you have a list to grow your business.

      • What is an Autoresponder?
      • Build a List – Build Your Business
      • Tried and True Email Marketing Formula
      • The Best Day of the Week to Send Email

   6. Choose affiliate marketing programs

      I suggest that every affiliate marketer start monetizing their site with Google Adsense and ‘easy to enter' affiliate networks such as Clickbank until they have traffic to warrant joining larger affiliate networks such as CJ Affiliate and Shareasale.

   7. Put affiliate links on your blog

      In your initial articles, you've written about products that you like and want to promote to earn commissions. Once you've joined affiliate networks you can get links from them to promote those products. Go back through your articles and add your affiliate links.

   8. Promote your site

      Google is your friend. When you structure your site appropriately you will show up in Google's search results.

      To enhance the process of getting recognized by Google, you should do some basic social media marketing, such as creating both a Facebook profile and Page, as well as a Twitter account. Note: The previous links go to my personal accounts to demonstrate how I promote my sites.

   Did you find this post about affiliate marketing for beginners informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

   Cheers,
   

The post Affiliate Marketing for Beginners appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

In simple terms, affiliate marketing is the promotion of products and/or services to earn commissions through an affiliate program.

An affiliate program is a program that facilitates the relationship between online merchants and their affiliates — allowing the affiliate to promote that company's products or services for a commission.

Affiliate programs may also be referred to as:

• Associate Programs
• Referral Programs
• Bounty Programs
• Partner Programs
• Revenue Sharing Programs

The merchant provides the affiliate with a link to their site or a specific product that credits the affiliate with the sale or lead when one is successfully concluded.

To help you learn more, I've prepared some videos for you:

• How Affiliate Marketing Works
• Affiliate Marketing Simplified

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post What is Affiliate Marketing? appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

WordPress plugins enhance the capabilities of your WordPress blog. There are literally tens of thousands of WordPress plugins from which to choose, but I'll make this easy on you.

Below is a list of my most frequently used WordPress plugins, along with descriptions of how I use them. Each of these plugins can be accessed through your WordPress Administration Panel by clicking Plugins > Add New and then entering its name in the resulting search bar at the top right-hand corner of the page.

• Ad Inserter
  Ad management system by Igor Funa allows advertising (such as Google AdSense ads, DoubleClick, Amazon Native Shopping Ads, Media.net ads and rotating banners) to be inserted just about anywhere on your blog, either automatically or manually.
• Akismet
  Included with your WordPress installation, Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog's “Comments” admin screen. As you can see in the screenshot below, Akismet has protected this blog from 377,052 spam comments. I use Akismet on all my blogs.

  You will need an API key for Akismet. Just follow the instructions when you activate the plugin.

  

• Broken Link Checker
  Exactly as the name suggests. LOVE this plugin. Placed on all my blogs — works especially well when I actually use it.

  There is, however, a HUGE caveat to using this plugin. When I started using it (years ago) the Broken Link Checker was sending so many 'empty clicks' to CJ merchants that they sent me a warning letter to suspend its use. I almost lost my CJ account – the account WAS in fact suspended for a while! Now I use it sparingly and deactivate the plugin when not in use.

• Classic Editor
  With the introduction of WordPress 5.0, the new Gutenberg block editor came into being. Because I was too busy blogging to learn a new way of working with WordPress, I installed this plugin which enables the WordPress classic editor and the old-style Edit Post screen with TinyMCE, Meta Boxes, etc. Supports the older plugins that extend this screen.

  Relieved a LOT of frustration!!

• Deactivate Visual Editor
  For use with Exex-PHP to ensure that you don't break php code placed in posts and pages. That happens if you use the Visual Editor to make changes to, and save a blog post that contains php. I almost never use the visual editor, preferring to use the ‘Preview Changes' button to see how the post looks.

• Exec pHp
  Exec pHp is used to execute PHP code in posts, pages and text widgets. See also ‘Deactive Visual Editor‘ plugin.
• External Links
  Marks outbound links as such, with various effects that are configurable under Settings / External Links. I've set the plugin to open all outbound links in a new window. Gee, now I can use Search and Replace to get rid of all that target=new coding!!
• Faq Tastic
  Plugin that can generate multiple FAQs. I use Faq Tastic on my FAQ page. Granted, it would be just as easy to create a list of questions that link to answers on a page named FAQ.
• GDPR Cookie Consent
  A simple way to show that your website complies with the EU Cookie Law / GDPR. I wrote an article about this plugin at “Is Your Blog GDPR Compliant?”
• Genesis Plugins
  Because I use Genesis by StudioPress as the theme framework on each of my blogs, I've added Genesis-specific plugins to enhance the functionality of my themes. Those plugins are Genesis Simple Hooks, Genesis Simple Edits and Genesis Simple Sidebars.
• Grammarly
  Although not technically a ‘plugin', when installed on your computer Grammarly works within your WordPress blog to help you fix grammar and spelling mistakes. I've been using Grammarly for years and it's saved me from some very embarrassing moments!!
• Indeed Social Share & Locker PRO
  Social Share & Locker Pro is one of the best Social sharing plugins for WordPress that I've found.
• Pinterest Pin It Button On Image Hover And After Post & Page Content
  Pinterest pin it button shows up when a visitor hovers their cursor over an image on your site. Makes it super simple for your visitors to pin your blog posts, pages, and images into Pinterest account boards. Go ahead, try it with the image at the top of this article.
• Pretty Links Pro
  Pretty Links is a WordPress plugin that lets you shrink, cloak, track, organize, share and test all of your links on your own domain and server. To learn more about the importance of link cloaking for affiliate marketers, please read “10 Good Reasons to Cloak Affiliate Links“. There is a free ‘lite' version and a more robust paid version of Pretty Links Pro. I use the latter.
• Search and Replace
  LOVE this plugin! As name implies, Search and Replace allows you to search and replace anything in your ID, post-content, GUID, titel, excerpt, meta-data, comments, comment-author, comment-e-mail, comment-url, tags/categories and categories-description. Excellent for changing links throughout your blog, if you haven't created a single redirect page. Learn more about the Search and Replace plugin.
• Search Exclude
  Hide any page or post from the WordPress search results on your blog by checking off the checkbox from within a page or post.
• Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
  Allows commenters to sign up for e-mail notifications. Includes a subscription manager that those who comment on your blog posts can use to unsubscribe to certain posts or suspend all notifications.
• TablePress
  Embed beautiful and feature-rich tables into your posts and pages, without having to write code.
• UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore
  You can take backups locally, or backup to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, (S)FTP, WebDAV & email, on automatic schedules.
• W3 Total Cache
  W3 Total Cache improves the SEO and user experience of your blog by increasing website performance, reducing load times via features such as content delivery network (CDN) integration.
• WP No Category Base
  Completely removes the mandatory ‘Category Base' from your category permalinks.
• WP Forms
  Manages multiple, customizable contact forms. Super simple installation. I was so impressed with the plugin that I wrote an article about WPForms.
• WP-Polls
  Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog.
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
  Displays a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.
• Yoast SEO
  This plugin is written from the ground up by Joost de Valk and his team at Yoast to improve your site's SEO on all needed aspects. While this WordPress SEO plugin goes the extra mile to take care of all the technical optimization, more on that below, it first and foremost helps you write better content. WordPress SEO forces you to choose a focus keyword when you're writing articles and then makes sure you use that focus keyword everywhere.

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

The post WordPress Plugins and How I Use Them (2019) appeared first on RosalindGardner.com.

GDPR, which stands for General Data Protection Regulation, is a law covering data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA) and also the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas.

Although the GDPR regulation was implemented on May 25th, 2018, Iâ€ve seen many blogs that are NOT GDPR compliant.

My guess is that bloggers outside the EU simply assume that they donâ€t need to be GDPR compliant.

Those bloggers would be wrong.

GDPR compliance is required of any blog that has visitors from European Union countries.

Here are just some of the ways in which you may be collecting user data that you might not have considered.

• Visitors are allowed to subscribe to your WordPress blog.
• Site visitors are allowed to post comments on your WordPress blog.
• You collect names and email addresses through Aweber or other autoresponder service.
• Your blog has a forum or bulletin board.
• Google Analytics has been installed to track traffic and audience behavior.
• Any type of social media embed, i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

At the very least, you should be building an email list and tracking visitors to your blog with Google Analytics!

What happens if your site in not GDPR compliant?

Violators of the GDPR may be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of their annual revenue, whichever is greater.

OK, while itâ€s unlikely that youâ€ll be fined €20 million (about $22.66 million US) tomorrow, wouldnâ€t it put your mind at ease to simply comply and avoid risking a fine?

Moreover, if you comply with GDPR and that compliance to protect visitor data is obvious from the moment a visitor arrives on your website, youâ€ve established an element of trust right from the outset!

How to make your blog GDPR compliant

To be GDPR compliant, your blog must clearly disclose any data collection and the reasons for that data collection. It must also state how long the data will be retained and if it is shared with third parties outside the EEA.

That might sound difficult to figure out and do, but itâ€s actually very simple.

First, youâ€ll need a Privacy Policy page. If you havenâ€t already created one, WordPress can help you set one up. Just go to Settings > Privacy in your WordPress Administration panel, and at the bottom of the page, youâ€ll see the following paragraph:

Need help putting together your new Privacy Policy page? Check out our guide for recommendations on what content to include, along with policies suggested by your plugins and theme.

‘Check out our guide†will be linked to suggested text for your privacy policy.

Next, youâ€ll want to install and a ‘cookie consent†plugin. That plugin makes it easy for your visitors to see and accept your blogâ€s tracking cookies and other terms of use. I installed the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin from my WordPress Administration panel.

To customize the look and links, I went through all the tabs and links in the plugin, changing the message that would show up in the cookie bar, chose the colors I wanted and then linked to my Privacy Policy under “Customize Buttons” and the “Read More Link”.

After doing that, all I did was check the site to make sure the plugin was working properly – which it was!

NOTE: Simply installing the plugin won't necessarily make your blog GDPR compliant but it's a good step in the right direction. For more information about GDPR compliance, check out the following resources:

• GDPR Compliance Tools in WordPress
• General Data Protection Regulation
• Cookie Law Info

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

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