The DKSpeaks Podcast: Recent Episodes

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The other day I was searching for a specific recipe that I had bookmarked some time back. I was on my mobile phone and I had to quickly access the recipe blog.
I clicked on the link and waited for the page to open. The wait went on for a few seconds and the page was still loading. Out of desperation, I closed the site and quickly switched to my laptop.
I went to my bookmarks and clicked on the link again. The site started loading. After some preliminary stuff had loaded the site was still loading. I waited because I was not able to do anything. My browser was stuck, the page wouldn't scroll, nothing would click and nothing would move.
Guess what would have been my reaction – Frustration.
And out of frustration I closed the site and searched for other places where I could get hold of that recipe. I even deleted the bookmark because keeping that there was of no use.
Now, this is a situation where I knew about the blog and I was willing to give it a few minutes. Imagine if you are browsing to find something and you stumble upon such a site.
You are seeing the site for the first time.
What will be your reaction?
This is not an uncommon scenario. There are thousands of blogs and websites out there which take ages to load. Wise men say that a user will wait only for about 10 seconds before browsing off.
And if your site takes more than 10 seconds to load, the result is obvious – a lost reader.
So, what do you do about it?
Let us look at 9 Simple ways to speed up your blog's page load times.
How to Speed up Your Page Load Times
Improving your page load time, is not as difficult as it sounds. There are a few simple tweaks that you can do which can speed up your blog load times considerably.
So you need to first assess your site load speed, which you can do by going to tools.pingdom.com to understand the amount of tweaking you will do.
Check out the below image to see a snapshot for my blog.

Now that you have assessed your site load speed, let us look at some simple tips to improve your site load speeds.
Selecting a Reliable Hosting Provider
Start with your hosting provider and your hosting plan. If you are using a shared host and they run a lot of websites on the same server, then there is no way your site is going to load fast.
Cheap hosting providers often do this and that is one of the primary reasons for a poor loading website.
Ensure that you are hosting your blog with a reliable hosting provider. Bluehost, Hostgator and iPage are some of the best hosting providers as per our experience.
They are reliable and they all provide you with a free CDN which helps in improving the page load times.
Use an Image Compression Plugin
If your blog is an image focussed one, then there is a high possibility that your high quality images are impacting your overall page load times.
Niche blogs in food blogging, fashion blogging etc. where there are a lot of images uploaded to a post, can face this problem.
There are 2 ways to get over it. Firstly, compress the images even before your upload them to your server. You can use a free service like Optimizilla.com to compress the images.
Secondly use an image compression plugin that can help compress all the images that you upload without impacting the overall image quality.

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Are You spending a lot of time writing Clickbait Headlines like Buzzfeed?
Then you might just be doing the worst thing you could ever do for your blog..
A Clickable headline is what every blogger wants to write because his ultimate objective is to get readers to click on that link and come over to his blog to read his blog post.
There are 2 noteworthy points in the above statement. First, readers clicking on the link because of your headline. Second, they come over to your blog and read your post.
Does a Clickbait headline satisfy both these points?
It will not, because it is meant to take care of only the first part. The second part is to be taken care of by your content. You need to ensure that your content ties really well into the headline that the reader clicked on.
And it is here that the problem lies.
I remember how the headlines formula changed after sites like Buzzfeed and Viralnova emerged on the blogging horizon. All of a sudden it was all about traffic from social media and, Buzzfeed like posts were all over your social media feeds, especially Facebook feeds.
The inquisitiveness that the headline created made people click on those and a multi-million dollar business named Buzzfeed was born.
But this trend did a lot of harm than good to blogging and content marketing in general.
There are so many instances where you would have clicked over a headline to be taken to a post that sucked from the beginning till the end.
Why You Shouldn't Focus too much on Clickbait Headlines
Something that a site like Buzzfeed destroyed was genuine content generation and the use of genuine headlines – headlines that conveyed the essence of a post.
While a lot of bloggers adopt this style of writing headlines, this might just not be the right thing to do.
Let us see why it is not the right thing to do and why writing Clickbait headlines could prove disastrous for your blog.
The Unnecessary Hype
The Buzzfeed like headlines generate inquisitiveness by creating an unnecessary hype.
I still remember one of those headlines that I saw in my Facebook news feed, that read – "8 Horrible places in the World that You would never want to visit – the 6th is the most Frightening".
While the headline in itself was interesting, the last few words generated an inquisitiveness to find out what that 6th place was and hence I clicked over to go to the post.
And what did I find..
Absolutely nothing different from the rest of the 7 places that were quoted there. All of them were equally frightening and the 6th one was no different from the rest. Though the post was interesting, I felt I was cheated by the headline.
In spite of an experience like this, I still clicked on many more such headlines that I saw in my Facebook newsfeed and most of them turned out to be just the same – an unnecessary hype.
Something that you need to keep in mind is that such headlines generate a lot of hype and it is almost always, very difficult to live upto that hype that you have created which eventually means you are going to upset your readers, if your content doesn't live up to the expectations generated by the hyped headline.
Clickbait Headlines are a Fading Trend
This trend of writing clickable headlines is soon fading. After all of the fake links that people click over to see content that is nothing more than just crap, it was just a matter of time that people realized that these headlines were nothing more than hoax.
More than the way Buzzfeed dealt with it, it was the way other websites copied this strategy over.
Their objective was only to get people to click through and they never really cared about the quality of the content that they were creating. As a consequence, the internet was full of crap articles with only a click worthy headline.
These days,

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If you are struggling with low engagement in your Instagram posts then these Instagram Hashtags Best Practices can help you improve the engagement.
One of the lifelines of Instagram is Hashtags. That is the pivot around which content marketing on Instagram works.
Hashtags for Instagram is what Keywords are for SEO. Just as keywords get your content found on search engines, Hashtags get your content found on Instagram.
The fact that, not a lot of marketers are using hashtags on Instagram proves that the awareness of the importance of hashtags amongst marketers who are wanting their piece of the Instagram pie, is very low.
On surveying some of these marketers and asking them as to why they are not using hashtags, their response was something common – that they were not aware of researching and finding the best hashtags for their content and that they did not feel that the commonly used hashtags were doing any good.
You should be able to understand the importance of hashtag from a simple example; the use of a hashtag "#followforfollow" or, its variants can get you a lot of followers on Instagram. It means that people are using hashtags to search for content on Instagram.
Researching and finding the best keywords for your content requires a planned approach and it is the same for Hashtags as well.
And in this episode of the dkspeaks podcast, we will be discussing about Instagram hashtags best practices.
Instagram Hashtags Best Practices
First things first.
If you want to make the most of using Hashtags, it is important that you maintain a list of hashtags for your content, that you will be using in each of your posts on Instagram.
So it is important to be prepared. And preparation primarily means researching hashtags, identifying the best ones that can help your content be found and keeping this handy in a notepad so that you can just copy and paste it into your Instagram posts.
Researching and finding Hashtags is not as difficult as it is for Keywords. A simple 4 step method can help you do it and these 4 are more or, less the only ways of finding hashtags as of now.
How to find the Best Instagram Hashtags
Let us look at these 4 steps to finding hashtags for Instagram.
Branding Hashtags
Firstly decide on a branding hashtag that you would like to use. Branding hashtags help create a brand around your business and also helps your business stand out from the crowd. Let us check out some example of how big brands are using branding hashtags.
Nike uses their branding hashtags #justdoit in almost all their posts. You can see this while browsing their posts on Instagram.

Kitkat is another brand that uses a branding hashtag very nicely. They use a branding hashtag #HaveaBreak in all their posts.

Branding hashtags are very powerful in establishing yourself as a brand and in starting a campaign around your brand. For marketers who are starting out, a branding hashtag might not be of a lot of relevance right away. But in due course when you build a following on Instagram, you will realize the importance of a branding hashtag.
A branding hashtag necessarily need not be a single hashtag. It can be multiple hashtags as well. Spend time to brainstorm and decide on what your branding hashtag will be.
A Friendly Google Search
The next method is as simple as heading over to google and doing a quick search to find relevant hashtags.
Here are some of the results when I searched for "best hashtags in blogging". You will see hundreds of resources including blog posts which will hand over a list of the best hashtags in the blogging niche.

You could use this search term in any niche and get a list of readymade hashtags. You might have to spend some time picking the best ones out of it, after doing some careful research of which ones are doing well on I...

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Instagram marketing is huge and the fact that a lot of big brands are making a lot of money from Instagram, stamps its authority and makes it all the more important for internet marketers to check out the social media platform.
Considering that Instagram is a simple platform where you are to share images and that too using your mobile phone, it should be a cake walk for an average marketer.
But then, why is it that a lot of marketers are failing in their Instagram Marketing strategy?
It is because of some very common Instagram mistakes that most internet marketers make.
And in this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast we will be discussing these common Instagram mistakes and how to avoid them so that you get better results out of your strategy.
11 Common Instagram mistakes to avoid
If you have been an Instagrammer and you are not getting the kind of results that you were expecting, then you would surely making one or, more of these mistakes that we are going to talk about.
In fact, I have noticed a lot of marketers making these mistakes. And the fact that these are some of the basics makes it a crime to make these mistakes.
So let us discuss each of these and understand how to ensure that we are avoiding these Instagram mistakes.
Here is what we will be discussing in this episode –

• The most common Instagram mistakes that people make
• An Instagram mistake that is almost always the reason for driving low traffic to your websites
• 2 tips to make your Instagram content even more effective
• A simple tip for a better profile description

Resources mentioned in this episode
We did not discuss a lot of tools and resources in this episode. But if you are keen on knowing about some of the best tools for Instagram marketing, then you might want to listen to the following episode –

• Instagram Marketing tools

We have a few other interesting episode on Instagram marketing which you might want to listen to –

• how to make money with Instagram
• how to build your followers on Instagram
• how to market on Instagram

Thank You for Joining in
I would like to thank you all for joining in today for this episode on Instagram mistakes.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and also learnt some tips on how not to make the same Instagram mistakes that a lot of the other marketers are making.
In order to stay updated with the latest episode you might want to subscribe to the podcast.
You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:
Click here to Subscribe via iTunes
Click here to Subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes Feed)
Click here to Subscribe via Stitcher

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What are the different ways to use Content Curation as part of your Blogging Strategy?
One of the questions I am asked the most, by people coming across my Content Curation course is the above. Most of them have never used content curation and they are absolutely unsure of how to and when to start using Content Curation as part of their blogging strategy.
In this episode I will be talking to you about 5 different ways to use Content Curation in your blogs. This is the fifth and the last part in a series on Content Curation.
You can find the other posts at the below links:

• Episode 44 – Content Curation Tools
• Episode 45 – Content Curation Types and Strategy
• Episode 46 – Common Content Curation Mistakes
• Episode 47 – Effective Curation Commentary Styles

We will be closing off this series by discussing about how you can incorporate Content Curation into your content strategy and derive the maximum benefit out of it.
If you wish to learn more about Content Curation, you can check out my course at http://blogcurationblueprint.com
5 Ways to use Content Curation in Blogging
Content Curation not only helps in getting readymade content for your blogs, but also helps build relationship with influencers in your industry.
If you can incorporate Curation in your overall blogging strategy and build it into your overall plan, you will be able to build an influencer tag for yourself and at the same time generate a lot of traffic by ways of referrals.
But, how you would use content curation is something that you need to plan and decide.
Here are some of the things that we discuss in this episode –

• 5 Ways I use Content Curation in my blog
• A Curation technique that will help you build a relationship with influencers in your industry
• An effortless content generation technique
• How to get the most benefit out of Content Curation

Resources mentioned in this Episode
We didn't discuss a lot of resources in this episode. But if you have been following me on this series you would know about the essential tools and resources for content curation.
Here are those –

• Blog Curation Blueprint
• Feedly
• Content Gems
• Rightrelevance
• Drumup.io
• Scoop.it
• Paper.li
• Workflowy
• Evernote
• Onenote
• CurationSuite

Thank you for Joining
A sincere thanks to everyone who joined me on this episode today and for following me throughout this series. I am sure you would have learnt a lot about content curation and how you could use content curation as part of your overall content marketing.
I hope you enjoyed this show and particularly this episode.
Please do share it with your friends and social media circl...

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What is a Curation Commentary and what is the right approach to an effective commentary?
This is the 4 part in a series on Content Curation. You can find the other posts at the below links:

• Episode 44 – Content Curation Tools
• Episode 45 – Content Curation Types and Strategy
• Episode 46 – Common Content Curation Mistakes

By now I am sure you would have understood what curation is all about and also about the importance of commentary in an effective content curation strategy.
Curation is all about engaging your readers by providing them all the content that they are looking for, at one place and in one simple readable format.
And commentary is the value add that you do to the content that you are presenting to your readers.
What is an effective method of writing a curation commentary?
In this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, we will be discussing about the different types of curation commentary.
Effective Curation Commentary Styles
Curation is content aggregation. You are finding the best content from around the web and posting it at a single place for your readers. This is not a very difficult thing to do and there could be many others who will be doing the same thing.
So how do you stand out from the crowd?
Another aspect is about adding value to the content that you have curated. Your readers are not coming to your site just to read a bunch of links that you might have added to a post.
They would be interested in knowing what is so special about that link and what is your thought about the information in the post that the link leads to.
This is what commentary does in curation.
Commentary is about adding your thoughts about the content that you have just curated. And in this episode that is what we are discussing.
Here are some of things that we will be discussing in today's episode –

• 4 different commentary styles for effective content curation
• Adding value and standing out from the content curation crowd
• How to ensure your commentary is effective

Resources mentioned in the episode
We did not discuss a lot about tools and resources in this episode. But there are some tools that we already discussed in our earlier episodes which are essentials for content curation.
Here are some of those tools –

• Blog Curation Blueprint
• Feedly
• Content Gems
• Rightrelevance
• Drumup.io
• Scoop.it
• Paper.li
• Workflowy
• Evernote
• Onenote
• CurationSuite

Thank you for Joining
Thank you for joining today's show and I hope you all enjoyed the show today.
Here are 3 things to do, if you really enjoyed the show today –

• Subscribe to the podcast and get access to an exclusive episode on "creating effective content" and a FRE...

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So we are into the 3rd episode on Content Curation and in this episode we are going to discuss about the most common content curation mistakes.
You can read the other episodes at the below links –

• Episode 1 – Tools in Curation
• Episode 2 – What is Curation

Content Curation is a very simple method. And all that you need to do is follow the basics.
The best part about content curation is that the content you are publishing is already proven to be of top quality and all that you need to do is provide a short insight into the context of the article. So you have your action plan laid straight out in front of you and all that you need to do is execute it.
I often hear a lot of people saying that content curation doesn't work. And in almost 90% of these cases, the reason why Content Curation did not work for people, is because they were doing it all wrong.
And so in this episode we are going to discuss about the most common Content Curation mistakes to avoid in order to succeed in Content Curation.
Most Common Content Curation Mistakes to Avoid
Mistakes often happen when you are not aware of how something works. But there are yet other mistakes that happen purely because of carelessness or, the unwillingness to follow a laid out process or, system.
So if you are ready to learn how Content Curation works and also have the willingness to follow the system to the "T", then there is no reason why you would make any of these mistakes that we are going to discuss today.
But if you are making any of these mistakes, then it is time that you identify them and make corrections so that your overall content marketing strategy doesn't get impacted.
In this episode we are going to discuss the following:

• The single biggest mistake that most Curators make and which can prove fatal to your blog
• How do you ensure that your curation is different from all the others
• What is the ideal proportion of Curation Content to Original Content, in a blog?

Helpful Resources for Curation
Here are some of the resources that can help you in your content curation strategy –

• Blog Curation Blueprint
• Curation Suite
• Feedly
• Content Gems

While I recommend Curation Suite for aggregating and curating content, it is not necessary that you use this tool. You can curate content without any of these tools, though that might take slightly more time.
Thank You for Joining
I wanted to thank you all for joining me on this episode today.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and learnt a lot about content curation and the most common content curation mistakes to avoid. If you really liked this episode then don't forget to do the following:

• Take a couple of minutes out and write a genuine review for the show on iTunes
• Do provide us with a rating, because that helps in the rankings of the show on iTunes

If you are not on iTunes, then you can listen to the show on Stitcher in Android phones.
You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:
Click here to Subscribe via iTunes

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Wondering what is Content Curation and how you could make it a part of your content marketing strategy?
There was a lot of feedback that I got about the last episode and some of readers even asked me to do a series on content curation. The most questions were around understanding what is content curation and what are the different types of content curation that you can use as a part of your content marketing strategy.
Welcome to episode 46 of the DKSpeaks Podcast. Continuing on from where we left in the last episode where we discussed about the different tools that we use in our curation, in this episode we will discuss in detail about what is content curation and what are the different types of content curation that you can use in your content marketing.
What is Content Curation & Types of Content Curation
Let me first put it the way Wikipedia explains it –
Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Services or people that implement content curation are called curators. Curation services can be used by businesses as well as end users.
Two points are relevant in this definition.

• Process of gathering information
• Relevant to a particular topic

So, content curation is all about aggregating content and that too, about specific topics.
Content Curation was a phenomenon that always existed. If you are a fan of art and have visited art galleries, then you would be able to connect with this term.
Art galleries curate art forms from different artists and presents them at one place for you.
The benefit – You get to see best art forms, hand picked for you, all at one place.
And this is the exact same benefit that your readers get, when they read your curated blog posts.
People prefer curated posts because they can avoid wasting time on the internet looking for good content. Instead they would be able to find all of it at one place, on your blog.
We discuss this and a lot more in this episode of the show.
Here are some of the things that we would be discussing in this episode.

• What is content curation in detail
• What are the different types of content curation
• How to make your Content Curation even more effective
• How to make sure that your content curation stands out in the crowd

What form of content curation you would like to choose will entirely depend upon your content marketing strategy.
Resources discussed in this Episode
Here are some of the resources that we discussed in this episode –

• Blog Curation Blueprint
• Curation Suite

Blog Curation Blueprint is a course that teaches you everything about Content Curation. It will show you how to curate content without struggling and how to make money with content curation.
I will be launching Version 2.0 of Blog Curation Blueprint by mid-April and all subscribers who join in now will get instantly upgraded to Version 2.0 free of cost.
So join Blog Curation Blueprint today!
Thank You for Joining in
So, on a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest), where would you rate content curation as compared to other forms of content generation?
What part of content curation do you think is the most difficult, if any?
Comment below and let me know your thoughts and we can start a discussion around it.

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Hello and welcome to episode 44 of the DKSpeaks Podcast.
Have you read some of the best weekly roundup on some of the top blogs around the web. Problogger does one for blogging and you will find many other blogs like Social Media Examiner doing the same thing. Have you ever wondered why would a blog as successful as Problogger would curate content.
There is a lot of noise on the internet and abundance of information suppressed in all this noise. For an average visitor on the internet, finding information that is relevant is going to be a lot of hard work, considering the amount of noise that he will have to browse through before he reaches the information that he is searching for.
If such a visitor comes to your blog and finds a collection of all relevant and best content on your blog, would he be disappointed and click away from your blog.
No.
He wouldn't.
Rather, he would be happy about the fact that he doesn't have to dig through the loads of pile to find what he is looking for.
Tools for an Effective Content Curation Strategy
Content Curation is a nice addition to your content marketing strategy. And if done well, it can not only increase your audience retention but also reduce bounce rate.
I am a fan of Content Curation and I simply love its sheer power in holding a reader in his spot.
You would have seen my weekly link roundups. This is just one form of content curation. There are various other forms of curation which we will be discussing in the coming weeks.
In case you are interested in learning more about content curation and how you could make money with a curated blog, you can check out my course at Blog Curation Blueprint. (PS: Blog Curation Blueprint Version 2.0 is in the works and should be launched shortly. All members would be upgraded to V2.0 by default)
Content curation is a win-win for both the content marketer and the reader, because the content marketer gets ready made content and the reader gets a collection of the best content at one place, that way saving him a lot of time he would otherwise have spent trying to find that information.
The success of content curation lies in an effective commentary. We will be discussing about these points in the next few episodes.
In this episode we will be discussing about the tools for an effective content curation strategy. Here is what we have covered in this episode –

• How to improve the effectiveness of content curation
• Why is content curation an effective content marketing strategy
• The essential tools for an effective content curation strategy

Resources mentioned in this episode
Here are the resource we mentioned in this episode –

• Blog Curation Blueprint
• Feedly
• Content Gems
• Rightrelevance
• Drumup.io
• Scoop.it
• Paper.li
• Workflowy
  *

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How to research Keyword for Blog Posts?
Welcome to another episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast. In continuation with what we discussed in the last episode, on long tail keyword research, in this episode we will be discussing "how to research keywords for blog posts".
I was so confused with this entire thing that, whenever I read a blog post on one of the well know blogs, I would often check on the keywords that they could have possibly used for that specific post.
While 90% of the time, I ended up with just one conclusion – none of these posts targeted a specific keyword and there was no real keyword research on most of these posts.
Most of these posts still ranked on the first page of google for a lot of the keywords related to the topic that the post was on. The one reason I could think of, could be the brand value that these blogs carried. They were authority sites and Google might just have felt that it made sense showing them on the first page of the search results for most keywords on that specific topic.
Nevertheless, keyword research has its own advantages and I would always recommend doing a thorough keyword research when you plan on writing your blog posts.
How to Research Keywords for Blog Posts
In this episode, I am going to show you a very simple way of researching keywords for blog posts. I would be using researching tools that are free to use.
This concept follows a simple principle. We are going to pick up keywords that might not have a lot of search volume. Instead we will pick keywords that have moderate search volumes around 500 or, more per month. With these keywords you will be able to rank on the first page of Google pretty easily.
And when you have many such articles targeting keywords that have 500 or, so searches per month, cumulatively you will get a lot of traffic to your blog.
Here is what we will be discussing in this episode –

• How is researching keywords for blog posts different from that of keyword research in PPC campaigns?
• 2 simple approaches on how to research keywords for blog posts
• The free tools that I use for the keyword research
• How to find blog post ideas

Resources mentioned in this episode
Here are the resources that we used in researching keywords, in this episode –
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• KeywordTool.io
• Google Keyword Planner
• Long Tail Pro (Paid Tool)

I have used only the first 2 tools in the steps that we saw in this episode. But if you want to cut the hard work and save a lot of time, you can go for the paid tool, Long Tail Pro.
Thank You for Joining
I wanted to thank you all for joining me in today's episode.
What do you think about the tips that we spoke about in this episode? If you are using a different keyword research approach, then do tell us about it.
If you have any questions, post them below in the comments section and I would be happy to respond to it.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, then I would request you to –

• take a couple of minutes and post a genuine review for the show on iTunes
• rate the show on iTunes because your ratings will help in the rankings of the show

You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:
Click here to Subscribe via iTunes
Click here to Subscr...

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How do you do Long tail keyword Research?
Keyword Research is one of the most misguided aspects in internet marketing. There are a hundred different methods and theories out there that tells you how to do keyword research.
But most guides and theories out there complicate keyword research to such an extent that it is highly unlikely that you wouldn't get confused with the entire thing.
In fact, Keyword research used to be extremely overwhelming for me as well and I would spend hours researching keywords with no real results. I had also spent a lot of money on the latest keyword research tool, all of which would be marketed as the next best thing, but would eventually turn out to be nothing more than crap.
Of everything in keyword research, long tail keyword research used to be the most mis-interpreted and consequently the most confusing concept.
And if you are to do a long tail keyword research for the next post you are going to write, then you are sure to spend the next few hours trying to figure it out and end up losing all the time that you could otherwise have used on writing your blog post.
So how do you do long tail keyword research?
In this episode, I am going to show you a simple step by step method that I follow to research long tail keywords so that you don't spend hours doing something that shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
How to do Long Tail Keyword Research
I follow a very simple technique to research long tail keywords. And this technique doesn't take more than 30 minutes. This might not be a technique that a lot of the experts might be using, but this technique yields results.
And since it follows the basic concepts, there is no reason why it would go wrong.
In this episode we will be discussing –

• Why long tail keyword research is important?
• What are "seed keywords" and where is it used?
• Why you wouldn't need expensive software to research your keywords?
• A few simple techniques to generate proven long tail keywords with high search volume and low competition
• How does Google's autocomplete feature help you in your keyword research?

Resources mentioned in this episode
Here are the resources mentioned in this episode –

• KeywordTool.io
• Google Keyword Planner
• Long Tail Pro

While I do not recommend buying any expensive softwares for keyword research, Long Tail Pro is something that you would want to go with, if you want to save some time.
The method that I discuss in the episode is a manual process and takes about 30 minutes. But this very same process takes less than 5 minutes on Long Tail Pro.
Thank You for Joining
So how do you do your long tail keyword research?
Did you find the steps that I mentioned in this episode, easier that all the other methods that you have heard off?
We would like to hear from you. Please comment below and let us know your thoughts.
I hoped you enjoyed this episode. If you really liked it,

• Do provide us with a rating on iTunes
• Subscribe to the podcast to stay updated and also to receive an exclusive episode that is not published elsewhere
• Do share this episode with your friends

You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:
Click here to Subscribe via iTunes

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How to do SEO Yourself for your blog?
SEO or, search engine optimization is a big thing. Or, so it looks! And videos and articles that talk about link building, Private blog networks, Google penalties etc. make it overwhelming for the average newbie.
And we end up paying dollars to SEO experts who promise first page rankings for your websites.
But do we really need an SEO expert for your blog?
Not really!
SEO for your blog is all about following some very simple steps. And most of it is laid down in simple and understandable terms. If you are able to do these, then there is no reason why your blog posts will not rank on the first page of Google.
How to do SEO Yourself for Your Blog
The objective of search engine optimization is to rank on search engines. In fact, I should put it as "ranking on the first page of Google", because for a blogger, Google is synonymous with search engines.
And that too, if you are not able to grab the first couple of slots on the first page of Google, then the effort is not worth it.
And this is where all of it goes wrong.
Because people start to tweak their websites and articles with everything that the SEO experts out there says in order to be picked up by the search bots.
Search engine optimization is not about tweaking your websites for search engines.
Instead, it is about letting the search engines know that you content is reader focused and that your readers are sure to find valuable information about a specific topic in the article.
And, this is done by marking out certain points in your article. Following these guidelines is what goes into On-page SEO.
In this episode we will be discussing about SEO and how to do SEO yourself for your blog in 3 simple steps.
Resources mentioned in this Episode
Here are the resources that we spoke about in this episode –

• Adwords Keyword Planner
• Keywordtool.io
• Yoast SEO
• SEOPressor
• Cloudflare CDN
• Hostgator Hosting
• Bluehost Hosting
• WP Super Cache
• PR Buzz
• Fiverr
• Domain Hunter Plus

The following are some of the posts that we spoke about, with relevant information on backlinks building.

• Moz
• Quicksprout
• Ahrefs
• Backlinko – a slightly different variation to Broken Link building

Here is the video on how to configure Yoast SEO.
Thank you for joining
What's your thought about SEO and how do you optimize your blog? We would like to hear from you.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I would like to thank you all for joining me today.
If you really liked this episode, then here are 3 things you might want to do –

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If you are wondering as to what push notifications for WordPress is, then you have not been reading some of the top blogs in the industry. Because it is unlikely that you would have missed that notification on the top-middle of the blog as soon as you browse over to the blog. And these days, pretty much every blogger, rather I should say, website is implementing this.
If you are still wondering as to what this is, then let me show something from a blog that I visit and read very frequently.

That was Yaro Starak's Entrepreneurs Journey.
Do you see that small popup on top of the website, that is unobtrusive yet attention grabbing? That is an example of push notifications.
You will see this being used by pretty much every blogger today.
So what are these and why are business owners using these push notifications?
In order for us to understand this, we will need to look at what happens after somebody clicks on that "YES" button you see in that popup. Here is an image of a sample notification.

Just so that I brush up your memory, you would also have seen these notifications from Facebook, popping up at the bottom left corner of your computer. This is even if you do not have Facebook open on your computer.
Now, that would have given you a fair idea of what these push notifications do and why is Facebook and a lot of the bloggers using them on their sites.
Push Notifications for WordPress and Email Marketing
These push notifications are a good way to stay in touch with your readers and blog visitors. In fact you can send all kind of information to your subscribers as a notification.
And because of their unobtrusive nature and the fact that it cannot go unnoticed, it is a perfect replacement for Email Marketing for obvious reasons.
In this episode of the DKSPeaks Podcast we will be looking at push notifications for WordPress and an in depth analysis of their benefits. Here are some of the things that we will be discussing in this episode –

• How does Push Notifications work?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of Push Notifications?
• What are its advantages over Email marketing and is it going to replace email marketing?
• Is this the death of Email marketing?
• What are the best push notification services?

Resources Mentioned in this Episode
We spoke about some of the best push notification service providers and their pricing structures in this episode. The below are these service providers –

• Push Crew
• Push Engage
• Let Reach
• Almost all of these services come with Free trials and you can take them for a trial before deciding on the one that is right for you.

Thank You for Joining
I hope you liked this week's episode and want to thank you all for joining me.
If you liked this episode you can help me build the buzz around this show by –

• Taking a couple of minutes out and posting a genuine review for the show on iTunes
• Rating us on iTunes as that would help in the rankings for the show.

Don't forget to subscribe to the show to download an exclusive guide on "How to find Content ideas for your next blog post" and an exclusive episode of the show that is not available elsewhere.
You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:
Click here to Subscribe via iTunes
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How to Secure Your WordPress Blogs?
This is one thing that every blogger on the World's largest blogging Platform – WordPress, is worried about.
Why?
Because WordPress is the world's favorite CMS platform (sarcasm intended).
According to a study by the security firm Sucuri, 4 out of 5 hacked websites that they investigated were running WordPress as their content management platform.
More precisely, Sucuri reveals that 78 percent of the total number of hacked websites it investigated were WordPress sites, with Joomla in a distant second, taking up only 14 percent of the data sample. Further, six percent were no-CMS websites, 5 percent were running Magento, and 2 percent were using Drupal.
If you are still wondering as to what was the "sarcasm" in that earlier comment above, then let me explain. WordPress is indeed the favorite platform of everyone – both bloggers and hackers alike.
And hackers don't have to work hard to break into a WordPress Installation and take the site down. Sucuri, in its investigation found that the primary reason for WordPress sites getting hacked was outdated plugins and not the Core files itself.
As for a breakdown of hacked WordPress sites, Sucuri says that a large part can be attributed to outdated plugins. There were minimal attempts to use vulnerabilities in the WordPress core itself, and crooks relied on WordPress' popularity and its large plugins and themes ecosystem to inflict their damage.
If that wasn't horrifying enough, then let us look at some more reasons why WordPress is the favorite platform of hackers and how to secure your WordPress blogs.
How to Secure Your WordPress Blogs
Have you ever woken up to a Blank homepage on your WordPress blog?
Or, you might have seen a page with a disastrous formatting that left you wondering as to what happened to your WordPress blog overnight. If yes, then welcome to the world of WordPress bloggers.
I went through both of the above.
Now, imagine if this happens to a blog with over 400 posts and you don't even have a backup of the files and the database!
I am sure you would agree that it is not the best situation to be in.
And, I was in that situation too. It was after all of this that I realized how important securing your WordPress blog is. And since then I started spending a lot of time to ensure that I ring-fence my blog enough to prevent this from happening.
In this episode we are going to look at why a WordPress Blog gets hacked and how to secure your WordPress blogs from hackers and spammers.
Here are some of the things that we are discussing in this episode –

• Why is the single most important reason for a blog getting hacked?
• 2 things that you should avoid to ensure that your blog is protected
• A simple plugin to update all your blogs in a single click
• A readily available firewall that is free to use

Resources Mentioned in this Episode
These are the resources that we spoke about in this episode –

• WP Pipeline
• Hostgator Managed WordPress Hosting
• Bluehost Managed WordPress Hosting

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Single Optin Vs Double Optin!
Its the question of "To be or, not to be".
When I first started with SOLO ads, the first seller gave me a piece of advice – "If you want good conversions, then keep your optin settings to a single optin".
I was skeptical at first, because I was always told that optin settings should be at "double optin". I never questioned the logic and blindly followed the guidance.
In due course I figured out the reason why you would choose "double optin"; reduce spam complaints and prevent your autoresponder company from banning you.
So when this friend of mine asked me to use "Single optin", I was a little surprised. But I followed his advice and since that date I never went back to double optin except for running a few tests on what worked well – single optin or, double optin.
Single Optin Vs Double Optin – Which one?
While a lot of people would recommend going with the obvious, i.e double optin for your list settings, I recommend otherwise. And in this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, that is precisely what we will be discussing.
Some of the things that we will be discussing in this episode are –

• What are the reasons for selecting "double optin" for your list settings?
• Single Optin Vs Double Optin – the pros and cons of both!
• How to solve for the negatives in "Single Optin"?
• How to carry forward the positives of double optin to single optin as well?
• Which one to select and why?

If you are buying SOLO ads, then it is always single optin that you should choose.
Why?
Because you are buying cold traffic and that too from an email that is offering something free. They have no clue of who you are and what you do. They were not expecting an email from you.
They clicked on the link in the email on impulse and was taken to a page where they saw something free being offered. They entered their email address in the flow. And then they forget you, your offer and everything.
This is what happens in SOLO ads.
Imagine, if you put a "double optin" to this entire funnel. Only a very less % of people who entered their details in the optin forms, will click on the confirmation link in their emails to verify.
And this essentially means, reduced conversions for you which in turn means a lower ROI.
This is not something you would want to do, especially when you are paying for clicks.
So your next question is – what happens with other forms of traffic? What option to select?
Listen to the episode for more details and some handy tips.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
The below are some of the recommended resources to build your list.

• Autoresponder – Aweber
• Landing Page Builder – Thrive Content Builder
• Optin Form Builder – Thrive Leads

Over to You
Thank you everyone for joining me on this week's podcast. I am hoping you liked this episode of the podcast.
If you liked it, please do post a genuine review of the show on iTunes and also do rate the show. Your ratings and reviews will help in the rankings of the show on iTunes and will help others who are looking for similar information find the show.
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What's Your Biggest reason to HATE Instagram, if at all you are?
I seem to have started loving this picture sharing social media site. If you had asked me the above question about 6 months back, I would have had at least 12 different reasons for hating Instagram.
And most of the reasons would have been around the flexibility to use the tool, the usability, lack of automation, dearth of content to post etc. I am sure, your reason for hating them would also be something similar to these.
Then one day I came across this tool, that solved one of my biggest problems with Instagram – Automation. And that was the day when everything changed.

It is true. It is just a matter of searching online and you are sure to find a lot many people who have the same problem. And where there are a lot of people who have the same problem, there is bound to be a tool, a way, a method or, a service that will simplify it or, provide a resolution to it.
20 Instagram Marketing Tools to Fall in Love With
With Instagram gaining on popularity both because of the high levels on engagement and the many options available to market and with Instagram introducing Business Profiles, it was just a matter of time that you started seeing marketing tools that could simplify marketing on Instagram.
There are hundreds of services that can automate or, simplify most of the activities that we do on Instagram. But most have a similar limitation. And this limitation has nothing to do with how they operate. In fact these limitations are driven by the way Instagram works, more so because of the fact that Instagram is an app-only social media site.
It is here that my quest started to find tools that did not require a lot of intervention and could work on autopilot to some extent. And for that to happen, these tools needed to be a PC based tool.
And you would see that most of the Instagram Marketing tools that we are going to discuss today are Computer based tools. I am sure you would fall in love with them, at least some of them for sure, if not all.
If you have any other Instagram marketing tools that you would like to recommend, feel free to let us know about it by commenting below.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
We discussed a lot of tools in this episode. You will find links to all of those below. While some of these are paid tools, some have a basic version that is available for FREE. So if you are an individual marketer, you can always use the basic version and if you like the tool enough to want to upgrade, then you can take up that option.
So here are the 20 Instagram Marketing Tools we discussed in today's episode.

• Grum
• Simply Measured
• Iconosquare
• Instagress
• Repost for Instagram
• Crowdfire
• Social Insight
• Stencil – The guys at Appsumo keeps running promotions on this tool. You can join them and watch out for some promos to save some money.
• Quick – Quick is an app available both for the iOS and Android.

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How much money did you make on Instagram, in the last month?
I know that is a slightly tricky question to ask and if you are anything like me, then the answer would be – "ZERO".
But with the growing popularity of Instagram (check out some of these Instagram statistics at expanded ramblings), if you are not using it then you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
Instagram is still an unsolved puzzle for quite a lot of people. The fact that this is a phone only app make it even worse and if you are not a mobile phone whiz, then Instagram is going to be the most difficult thing you would have ever dealt with.
It was the same with me until about a month back and while it is still too early for me to call myself a success on Instagram, I still wanted to share these Instagram tips with you.
What do people do on Instagram, according to you? The answer is, "Share photos".
So the obvious question is, "How do you make money by sharing photos and what photos would you share?"
Instagram was one of the most difficult social media tools for me because of the way it worked –

• It was a phone only app and you had to share photos using your phone. So if I had a photograph on my computer that I wanted to share, then I had to first transfer it to my phone.
• I do not click a lot of photos and even if I do click some, they are primarily my private family photos which I do not like sharing on social media sites, especially if it is a business account.
• Instagram only allows a single link and that is in your profile. You cannot add a link to the caption for your photographs.

So how do I build my Instagram account and more importantly use it to build my business?
2 Simple Ways to Make Money with Instagram
In this episode we will be discussing about 2 simple ways you could be making money with Instagram even if you do not have a real business.
I have seen a lot of people who run online stores posting pictures of their products and also using Instagram to sell them. There are a few apps that help you do it. But what if you do not have a store?
I spent a lot of time trying to find out how to make money with Instagram. And it was by sheer coincidence that I came across a profile where I saw the person mentioning, "for a shoutout and pricing for shoutouts, please send me a message".
I quickly browsed through the photographs that she had posted and found a lot of photos, where she had given a shoutout to another Instagram user. I realized that these were paid shoutouts and that the user was charging money for this shoutout. I reached out to her for a shoutout to see how much she was charging.
I was shocked to see her response. She was charging around $200 for a shoutout. She would send one post out, everyday for a week. And guess the number of followers she had. It was about 8,000.
You would by now have realized the potential of Instagram and how you could make money with Instagram.
Here are the things you will learn in this episode –

• Why you should be on Instagram today?
• 2 ways in which you could make money with Instagram
• How to use Instagram on a PC?
• Tools that will help you build you Instagram Business.

Resources mentioned in this Episode
Managing Instagram is slightly difficult in comparison to a lot of the other social media channels. You require some handy tools in order to ensure that you are leveraging time and automating some of the tasks. Here are some of the

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What is your single biggest worry about online assets – your blog, your websites and your money-sites?
If your response was anything other than "Security", then you need to rethink. But if you answered in "Security", then let me tell you that you are in the same league as thousands of other website owners.
But the worst part in all of this is the fact that there is no real solution to it. You can use one of the many security solutions like Sucuri, Wordfence etc. to secure your websites, but you still need to be aware that these tools can only protect you to a certain extent. The rest is onto you to ensure that you are prepared to deal with a dire situation.
You might have noticed that my last post was almost about 2 and a half months back and also that I have never taken such an extended break from blogging. As for my podcasts, I had always ensured that I maintain consistency. But all that went for a toss over the last couple of months. And all this thanks to a hacker.
This was not the first time that my sites were hacked. In fact, after the last time this happened I had ensured that I secure my sites with some of the best plugins I could find, but I still couldn't prevent another attack.
And the reason was an old WordPress installation that I forgot to delete from my hosting. Since most of the files in this installation was outdated, it was easy for the hacker to get into the files and then use them to get into the other WordPress sites.
To sum it all up, I spent almost a month and a half restoring all my websites, about 40 of them and 3 of my niche blogs. While it should have been a couple of week's job, it was only because of some of my mistakes that it took me so long.
Nevertheless, all of my sites are back up and the experience I gained following this hacking instance has made me a little more wiser and given me some extra knowledge.
I am putting together a complete guide on how to save your WordPress sites, in which I will be detailing everything about prevent hacker attacks and tips on restoring your WordPress installations.
You might see a slight inconsistency in my posts and podcasts for some time until things stabilize, but I should be back up and running in another couple of weeks.
Ways to Generate Free Traffic to Your Blogs
In this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, I will be discussing about 2 simple methods using which you can drive FREE traffic to your blogs. These traffic methods have helped me through the situations that we discussed a little while back, when you sites get hacked.
Since these are FREE traffic generation methods, I am not impacted financially with the loss of traffic. Also the traffic just doesn't get impacted unless the website is down for a long time.
You need to keep one thing in mind, when you include these traffic generation methods in your strategy. These methods are long term methods and will help you in the long run. You will have to be patient and consistent with these methods. Do it the right way and don't let it go in between.
It also means that if you are looking for immediate traffic, then these methods will simply not help you. You will have to look at paid traffic generation methods like PPC.
In this episode, we will be looking at the following –

• How to use your existing content to generate traffic
• How to establish yourself as an authority in your niche
• A strategy that generates traffic and also helps build your list

Resources mentioned in this Episode
The below are some of the resources that were mentioned in this episode –

*

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What is your Optin Form Conversion rates?

If you have been into any form of online business, I am sure you know the importance of capturing your visitor's email address. The single biggest reason for most internet marketers' failing is not capturing emails.

Visitor memory is short and if you are pitching something to a visitor who is not in a "buying" frame of mind, then you need to understand that the chances of them buying in the first instance itself is less than 5%. And the chances of them coming back to your website or, blog is even lesser.

Why?

Because there are thousands of other websites similar to that of yours who are doing the exact same thing that you are doing - pitching the exact same product or, service.

It is not until you knock a door at least 3 times that they buy something from you. And in order to do this "knocking" in an online business, you need to capture email addresses.

But the problem question is - why would somebody give you your email address? And it is this question that ultimately leads to the metric called as "Conversion rates", meaning the number of visitors out of all of who came to your website, who gave you their email address.
7 Factors Impacting Optin Form Conversion Rates
In this episode, we will be discussing about 7 such factors that impact your optin form conversion rates to a great extent. It is important that you keep each of these in mind and optimize your optin forms, in order to get the best conversions.

Here are some of the things that we will discuss in this episode:

• How to find a good link bait for your Optin form?
• Why you might just be driving away you visitors forever
• The 4 types of optin forms that work the best
• How some optin forms play better on human psychology
• A technique that almost always gives you a confirmed optin

Some of the factors are dependent on the amount of flexibility you have in testing your optin forms. Most optin form generator plugins limit the amount of things you can do to your optin forms.

It is important that you use a good optin form builder plugin that you have enough flexibility and features to experiment and find the aspects that works best when it comes to conversions.

And it is hence that we recommend Thrive Leads, which is the most feature rich optin form generator plugin, but with an absolutely light weight code.

In order to deliver your freebie to your visitors, store their email address and to continuously market to them, you will need a reliable autoresponder. We recommend aweber which is the best autoresponder amongst all the ones that we have used. And the latest "Campaigns" feature in aweber, helps you automate a lot of the things that you need to use with your email marketing.
Resources from this Episode
Here are some of the resources from this episode:

• Thrive Leads
• Thrive Content Builder
• Popup Domination
• Aweber

Disclaimer: Some of the above links are affiliate links. If you chose to buy from these links, I might stand to earn a small commission without any additional cost to you.
Thanks for Joining in Today
I hope you liked today's episode. If you did like it,

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Whenever I talk about SOLO ads, the first thing that I get asked is - What is right for an email list - relationship marketing or, selling solo ads?

I had read this on one of the blogs where a well know internet marketer had mentioned that if you could make $1.00 per subscriber in your email list pretty much every time you email them, then you would never want to sell solo ads to the list.

It's true. But in order for you to build your list and prep them to a point where you are able to make $1.00 per subscriber is not an easy task. It involves a lot of effort to build that relationship and then nurture it so that they never lose confidence in you.
What is the best for your List - Selling Solo Ads or, Relationship marketing?
The core principle of relationship marketing is to build relationship with a cold subscriber list. The list that you are building primarily consists of people who don't even know you well. Hence it becomes important that you build a relationship with these subscribers, so that they confide in you and believe in your recommendations.

While a lot of well know internet marketers teach relationship marketing, the biggest challenge is the learning curve until you are able to master the technique of building that relationship. It can take a lot of time and if you are willing to spend time learning that technique, then you should be good with it.

But if you are looking to make money immediately and that through a sustainable business model, then selling SOLO ads is the best amongst those.

In this episode of the DKSpeaks Podcast, we will be discussing the pros and cons of both these strategies, so that you could decide on which one works the best for you.

Here is what we will be discussing in today's episode:

• The one big negative of relationship marketing
• Why you need to exercise caution while selling SOLO Ads
• What is the best way to ensure a balance between these 2 strategies
• Is selling SOLO ads a legal business?

Resources mentioned in this episode
We didn't talk about a lot of resources in this episode. But I recommend 2 products that were launched recently. These are as below:

• Socifunnel Pro
• Broad Targeting Formula

If you wish to learn about relationship marketing, then there are a lot of courses that can teach that to you. The best amongst all of these is Andre Chaperon's list building courses - Autoresponder Madness and Lucrative Email List Building.
Thank you for Joining
Thank you all for joining me on today's episode. I hope you liked this episode. If you did, then please do rate the show on iTunes and also post a genuine review about the show. Your ratings will help in the rankings of the show on iTunes and will also help other find the show.

You can subscribe to the show to stay updated with the latest releases.

Don't forget to share it with your friends and social media circles using one of the sharing buttons below.

You can post your questions, feedback and suggestions in the comment box below. You can also record them using the recording option here.

You can subscribe to the podcast using any of the below links:

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What about your theme do you like the most?

If you answer was "look and feel", then let me tell you that about 95% of the blog owners are with you. They also chose the theme for that exact same reason.

But is that the only thing that you should look for in a theme?

Today, Wordpress is the most used content management platform. In addition to the fact that Wordpress is an open source, this popularity can also be attributed to many other reasons like the flexibility of the platform, the options to enhance it using one of the many plugins, the availability of thousands of themes to customize the look and feel of the website etc.

But the fact is that all of these options and features comes with a caveat - the fact that anybody can break into the code and hack a website in minutes. This answers the question on why there are so many regular updates that we see to this platform.

Now imagine you have a Wordpress installation that is up to date, but you are running a theme that has an outdated code which can easily be hacked into. It will not take more than a few seconds for a hacker to hack into your website and all you hard work can be gone in minutes.

There is many more aspects to consider, than just the "look and feel" in a theme when you are selecting a Wordpress theme for your blog.
Selecting a Wordpress Theme - What to look for?
In this episode, we will be discussing some of the basic things that you need to keep in mind when you are selecting a Wordpress theme.

Keep in mind that themes are more than just designs or, frontend for your website. In fact a lot of other things depend upon the theme of your website. The loading speed of your site, the functionalities, the aesthetics etc.

We will discuss about 14 such aspects that you need to look for in the minute prints that accompany with a Wordpress theme. Some of the things that we will be discussing are -

• How does a theme impact the site load speed?
• What is the one thing that you absolutely need, when you buy a theme?
• Why I don't recommend the themes that are sold on a "SALE" at warrior forum?
• Why you shouldn't be spending all the dollars on hiring a developer to design a theme?

The points that we discussed today should help you decide on a theme for your Wordpress blog.
Resources discussed in this Episode
Here are some of the resources that we discussed in the episode today.

• Thrive themes - Our most recommended theme
• Genesis from Studiopress - This is a framework and you will need a skin for this one
• Thesis themes - This is also a framework and you will need a skin for this one
• Profit Builder theme - This is more of a sales page and landing page builder but also comes with a blog theme
• Optimizepress - Another sales page and landing page builder but comes with a decent blog theme

Thanks for Joining in
I want to thank you all for joining in with me on today's episode. I hope you liked the episode. If you did, then please take a few minutes to post a genuine review about the show because that will help others who are looking for similar information. Also please do rate the show on iTunes and Stitcher.

If you have any questions or, feedback you can post that by commenting below. You can also record your question using the option on the sidebar.