Spring is in the air, and with it a lot of rain. Now that March has passed and April is upon us, it’s that time again to do a roundup of last month’s posts. The month was full of guest writers, a nice change (as is having the Spring season finally here) and something I hope you’ve been enjoying. If not, I want to know about it, and why.

I plan to have at least another month of guest posts, as they just keep rolling in. I’m excited at the number of requests I’ve been getting and that other bloggers and writers want to contribute quality and useful content to this blog. That means a lot to me.

With that said, let’s take a look at what these guest authors contributed last month…

March’s Blog Posts on ReplaceYourSalary.com

How Working from Home Can Improve Your Personal Development

Should You Pay for a WordPress Theme?

Starting Your Small Business with a Small Amount of Money

Blog Posts Around the Web

Each month I try to share a few blog posts from other blogs I follow. I think it helps to give you an idea of other types of blogs that are out there that you may not be aware of, as well as other bloggers I look up to. Let’s take a look at some posts that stood out to me, and maybe you’ll find them helpful just as I did.

Andrew discusses 16 must-have WordPress plugins for your blog. Plug-ins are the lifeblood of any blog, and there are certain plugins you don’t want to be without. This is a must read.

TechChunks details the announcement that Google is going social. We all knew this was coming, right? I mean, they couldn’t just sit by and let Facebook dominate the internet. They won’t go without a fight, anyway. Definitely a must read and how this could impact search results and marketing as we know it.

Samuel tells you to stop reading and start doing. I’m all for learning, but there comes a point where you’ve learned enough that you can start putting what you learned into action, even if it’s a small task.

That’s all for now.

Again, please share your thoughts on the idea of showcasing more guest authors for the month of April. Do you think it’s a good idea, or would you rather see more of my own posts mixed within? I want to know, from you, the reader. Thanks!

This is a problem that all bloggers have to face, including myself. There’s a million different reasons why someone doesn’t like your blog or doesn’t like what you write. And, these reasons could even be causing some loyal readers to unsubscribe from your blog’s RSS Feed.

However, this post isn’t going to cover any of that stuff. Yes, that happens a lot, but there’s another reason why you may be losing blog readers. In fact, this problem could be hindering people from even reading your blog in the first place. And, I know for a fact that you want as many people to read your blog. Afterall, I feel the same way.

So, what could this problem be?

You may be l0sing blog readers because your blog simply takes too long to load. In this day and age, people are more impatient than ever. I happen to be one of those people, so if a page takes forever to load, I’ll just move on to something else. Well, good chances are there’s more people out there that do the same.

If your blog takes more than five seconds to load, you may want to look into speeding it up a bit.

This idea hadn’t even dawned on me until I read Sid Savara’s guest blog post on ProBlogger’s blog about 5 Plugins To Make Your WordPress Blog Blazing Fast.

The post covers 5 amazing WordPress plugins you can use to speed up the load time of your blog. I highly recommend you check out the post, especially if you’re having problems with your blog loading slow.

This could be due to images and other factors, including the popularity of your blog and how much traffic it receives on a daily basis.

One plugin that is recommend is WP Super Cache, which I’ve installed on this blog. It’s only been a day so far, so I haven’t noticed a huge difference yet. But then, my blog doesn’t get 1,000′s of visitors a day.

This is something that all bloggers need to be aware of and take into consideration. You don’t want to be losing blog readers before they even have a chance to read your blog.

For a couple years now I have used Blogger as my blogging platform. I like blogger; it’s simple to use and setup. There’s one downfall to Blogger, though. It hasn’t yet caught on to the social aspect of the internet. Everything, and I mean content, is streamed through social networks (aka social bookmarking sites).

These sites are kind of like a “vote” for your content. The more people that bookmark your blog or blog posts, the more votes you get. This is big news considering Google loves content. When these social sites are all linking to your content, Google picks up on this. This means big news for you. Your blog will get indexed higher in Google. This means more TRAFFIC!

So how do you utilize the power of social sites with your blog? Well, with Blogger, the only way to do this would be to manually bookmark your posts to all the major bookmarking sites. Very time consuming! Of course, you could use OnlyWire or SocialMarker to do this for you, but you still have to take the time to use those services.

There IS a much easier way to get MORE traffic to your blog. The answer is WordPress. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, and for good reason. It’s a little more technical, but that shouldn’t scare you away. The benefits outweigh the technically challenged, by far!

WordPress utilizes the power of Plugins. Plugins are basically little applications that perform a function or process. There are hundreds of Plugins available for WordPress, and they all serve a different purpose.

Here are some Plugins that you DON’T want to be without:

AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget – Allows your readers to bookmark your posts
Only Wire Autosubmitter – This will automatically submit your posts to your OnlyWire account… a true time saver!
Tweet My Blog – This will automatically post a tweet to your Twitter account when you make a new post, thus driving more traffic to your blog. Sign up for Tweet My Blog. Of course, you need a Twitter account to do this, so sign up for a free Twitter Account as well.
ShareThis – Allows users to share and bookmark your posts
Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites

There’s a small example of the kinds of plugins you can use with WordPress. You can obviously see the potential here, and you would be out of your mind to not take advantage of WordPress.

This is the main reason I started a WordPress blog. I saw the potential and the advantages WordPress had over Blogger. I still have my Blogger blog as well and will continue to use it, but WordPress will be my main blogging platform from now on.

Don’t have a WordPress blog yet? Sign up for a free WordPress account today and get started blogging!

This is my first post on my WordPress blog! I’d love to hear your comments. This is a DoFollow blog, so your comments are welcomed and encouraged. Thanks!