About Beth

  • Beth Hayden is a social media specialist and technology trainer. She has provided training, consulting, blog coaching and development services for New York Times bestselling authors, political commentators, personal development coaches and university professors; she is also the creator of the popular “Basics of Blogging” workshops.

Upcoming Classes

What People Are Saying

  • "I took [Basics of Blogging] and it was fabulous. I left with all of the tools to get my own business blog running immediately; worth every cent!"

    Corinne McKay, ThoughtsOnTranslation.com

  • "What I love about working with Beth is that no idea is too far out. Whatever I can think up, she'll ponder and support online. She takes everything in stride."

    -- Rebecca L. Self, Ph.D, author, XPat Adventures

  • "Beth is a blogging wiz! She is an expert at the technical side of things (making sure that everything works!) and also has a great eye for content and the sort of writing that will connect with the reader. Beth is also a fantastic teacher--she got my site up quickly and also taught me the basics of blogging so that I could take it from there."

    --Toby Rogers, Webmaster, Drjackrogers.com

Categories

Find Me!

Kiva Projects

Archives

Blogging Services

Blogging Books I Love

Workshop Links

Basics of Blogging Links

Example Blogs -

Web Ink Now - David Meerman Scott, author of "The New Rules of Marketing and PR".  His book was actually published first on this blog as a series of blog posts and e-books. 

Celebrant Kim Kirkley - One of New York City's most popular wedding officiants writes this blog about creating beautiful, meaningful ceremonies.  This site was created using Blogger. 

Dr. Jack Rogers - A minister and author writes frequent posts about upcoming events, book signings, and political news. 

Gastrokid - A "foodie" in the UK writes a fun blog about creating high-quality kid-friendly meals.

Creativity Unleashed - Artist and teacher Traci Bautista uses her blog to showcase projects, publicize her media events, and advertise her workshops and retreats.

New York Hack - Taxi driver Melissa Plaut started this blog in 2005 to write about her about her experiences as a NYC cabbie.

Anatomy of a Blog Post:

Heidi Miller Presents


Finding Blogs to Read:

Google Blog Search - Search blogs here on all kinds of topics.

Technorati - A good blog index.   

New York Times Blog Index - All of the blogs updated by the NY Times can be found on this index.  Lots of great reading here.


Using Feeds:

Fantastic Feeds - Links to a slick little video that explains feeds simply and beautifully.

Google Reader - A online feedreader developed by Google.

Sage - An excellent add-on feedreader for Firefox. 

What is RSS/XML/Atom/Syndication? - A more detailed explanation of feeds by blogger Dave Shea.   

 

Building Your Own Blog:

Blogger - Free, cool, slick way to get started with blogging.

Typepad - More customizable (and some say, more professional) online blogging software.

Wordpress - Also highly customizable, but you need a hosting service and the set-up is slightly more complicated.

 

Photos:

dooce - How photos can add interest to a blog. 

Istockphoto - One of my favorite sites for great quality photos.  Most images are royalty-free and are just over $1 apiece.

Flickr Creative Commons - A great library of images.  The commons licensing rules are a bit confounding, so this is not a site I use frequently.

Free Digital Photos - This is a nice library, but when you use an image from here, they require you to link back to their site - read the Terms of Service.

Other Resources:

GoDaddy - My favorite blog-friendly domain registration service.  Allows for total DNS control, which means you can map a domain (http://www.bloggingwithbeth.com) to your hosted blog URL (http://smartscribes.blogs.com/bloggingwithbeth).