eXtra For Every Publisher

I have a simple tip for everyone today on how to make your WordPress blog look more professional. This tip is especially important to newer bloggers who sometimes forget to add categories to their posts.

I hate seeing that any blog has posts under the Uncategorized category. This is the default category that WordPress created for everything that is not otherwise categorized to be stuffed into. It just looks bad to leave things this way, but there is a very simple solution to this problem: get rid of uncategorized.

You can’t just delete the category though, as it is the default category and thus, doesn’t have a delete option in the WordPress administration.

You can however, edit the category.

After clicking on edit, next to uncategorized, you will be brought to a screen similar to the one below.

You can then change the category name and the category slug to something else. I usually select something like News, General News, or Site News. I find these all sound much better than the default uncategorized and to readers, it will look as though you gave your post a category, even if you forgot.

Note: This will change the permalinks of any post that was previously under uncategorized to now using whatever post slug you entered in the edit screen.

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I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone that has subscribed to eXtra for Every Publisher’s RSS feed. This site went live July 16th, 2007, and in a little over two months, I now have over one hundred people wanting to read what I write and that to me is really amazing. It shows just how powerful the community is and that there is room in any niche if you have experience, a message, and passion.

I hope that everyone that reads this site, via RSS or by stopping by, is enjoying the content I am producing. I will be working on some tips on how I got to where I am today, as well as some more details on monetizing your blogs, avoiding the echo chamber and continuing to work on ways to promote other great bloggers in this and other niches.

If you haven’t subscribed to the RSS feed yet, please consider doing so by clicking the RSS image in this post, or in the sidebar of this site on each and every page and post.

If you would rather receive my posts via e-mail, please enter your e-mail address in the form in the sidebar, and click subscribe. This service is powered by Feedburner.

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I have had a few people ask me about blogging, and how far they could go if they chose to make it their career. I have talked about the things I have been able to buy thanks to blogging full time for the last two years, and I wanted to take a second to give a little more insight into one of those things: my house. I want to quickly prove to people that blogging professionally can get you to the things you want in life, and it isn’t just a bunch of people writing diaries online. Blogging is a career that can pay the bills.

Our house isn’t a shack, and it isn’t a mansion. It is pretty average of a small three bedroom house around where I live in St. Thomas, Ontario Canada. It is a two story house with over 1200 square feet of living space, not including the unfinished basement. We just recently had our lawn put in. I really enjoyed watching them unroll it all. It was built brand new for us in a newer subdivision and so we got to pick pretty much everything from the color of the shingles on the roof to the type of toilet we wanted.

I am not the first blogger that has been able to afford a house thanks to blogging professionally, as Darren Rowse has bought, sold and bought another house in the past couple of years.

Working hard at producing amazing content can help you fulfill your dreams, especially if they include working from home, traveling, paying some bills, or even buying a house. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You can earn more from blogging than just paying for your monthly coffee bill.

What do you want blogging to buy you? Comment below, or even better, write out a list and put it in a spot where you will see it every day.

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A friend of mine, Ahmed Bilal, posted about dealing with blogger burn out on Performancing, and while he gives some great tips on battling the problem, he doesn’t explain why it happens.

My mother-in-law, doesn’t understand what I do for a living. She and her husband work on a farm. They assume that I am lazy, and that I basically read an online version of a newspaper, and play games all day. Don’t I wish!

Blogger burn out is probably as prevalent as any other technology or writing burn outs, but as blogging continues to switch into full time income worthy jobs, the pressure to perform also increases. If you are working in a network, they have certain expectations about the content you will produce, as they want to see a return on their investment. If you are working for yourself, then you have even higher expectations as you work on building up your online empire.

This can lead you into a very skewed lifestyle with all your time, focus, and energy being directed at managing your blog or blogs. And after a while your mind and body will get tired of doing this without break, and especially if you don’t find the time to enjoy your life.

I want to repeat, that bloggers don’t get burnt out more often than any other type of job, but that it is a growing concern as the number of bloggers continues to grow.

Here are one of the five tips that Ahmed posted:

Vary Your Routine: I don’t have a single day that goes like the last one, and while it DOES have a negative impact on my income it’s also wonderful for keeping me sane. You can have somewhat the same times for waking up, sleeping and perhaps 2-3 hours of your most important work. But beyond that, keep things flexible.

Check out the rest on Performacing.

My biggest tip to deal with blogger burn out is to just disconnect. Talk to your boss, or even yourself, and just take a day, usually works best on a Monday or a Friday, and just take an extended weekend. On this extra day that you’ve taken, make sure to disconnect. Do not check your e-mail, do not check your blog stats, do not blog. Take a day for yourself, get outside, and read a book. Do something you enjoy that isn’t blog related. When you come back to blogging after a complete day, or weekend of being disconnected, most of the time you will feel refreshed and ready to tackle the next challenge.

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While on the most recent episode of the BloggerTalk.tv podcast with Jeff of Jeffro2pt0, he mentioned a site called the Reader Appreciation Project, and the great posts on the site made me think about my own systems for appreciating readers, and I came to a simple conclusion for Xfep.com.

Once a month, I am going to pick two people that have commented on this blog, and feature their site. Not only am I going to link to them, and talk about why I chose them, but I am also going to follow their link and talk about their site. It could be another blog like this one. It could be totally unrelated, but I believe that someone that takes the time to comment on a blog deserves some sort of pat on the back, and I hope by featuring not only the URL of the people that comment, but going beyond that to the site they have, I can foster a community here, and hopefully, introduce you all to some amazing products, services and blogs.

I will be doing my first Commenter Appreciation post tomorrow. So if you haven’t commented on Xfep.com before. Now would be a good time, as it could mean getting your site critiqued or featured.

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