How to Get Free Blogging Help

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I spend time every day helping people with their blogs. I work on projects for my clients, sure, but I also answer tons of emails and spend hours switching between multiple chat windows trying to help my friends. Don’t get me wrong - I love to talk blogging, especially when I can help people understand something new or make their sites better. But I also want to make sure they (and you!) know how to find help in case I’m not available.

Google is Your Friend

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve said or typed this. It’s just the truth! You can literally find the answer to ANYTHING through a Google search, but you have to know how to word your searches.

Let’s say you want to put social media icons in your blog’s header. You know it can be done because you’ve seen it on other blogs, but you have no idea where to start. Here are a few examples of ways to find out what to do through a Google search:

Good: “social media icons in header”

Better: “wordpress social media icons in header”

Best: “wordpress [name of your theme] how to put social media icons in header”

The first example is good because you’re telling Google what you’re looking for. However, you run the risk of getting a lot of pictures of social media icons in headers, or you might find instructions for a different platform that don’t work on WordPress (or Blogger, or Tumblr, or any other platform you might be using).

The second example is better because (1) it identifies the platform right away and (2) it still tells Google what you’re looking for. This should yield a number of results that might help you find out what to do, though you might have to sift through some unrelated results here and there.

The third example is best and should be the most helpful. You’re identifying the platform and telling Google what you want, but you’re also including your specific WordPress theme (because the steps may be different on various themes). As an added bonus, you’re asking the question that will likely match several search results exactly. Because, if you’ve read about using SEO, you know that a tutorial for putting social media icons in the header will likely be called something like “How to Put Social Media Icons in Your Header.”

When you search for something, try to imagine what the perfect resource article would be called, then search accordingly. You have to be very specific if you want specific search results.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask!

If I was surfing the web and came across something amazing, I wouldn’t hesitate to email the site’s owner and ask how s/he did it or what the technique/element was called. The potential problem with that? The person might have hired a web designer and may not be able to answer the question. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get the designer’s info and ask that person instead!

I’ve gotten several emails from perfect strangers who saw a site I did and want to know how they can replicate a certain part of it on their own sites. I don’t mind a bit to share that information - it’s not like I invented something totally new and different. Like everyone else, I built on what someone else did before me. Plus it’s usually readily available in the page source of the site, which anyone can view by right clicking.

W3Schools.com

Hands down, w3schools.com is one of THE BEST resources on the internet, and it’s totally free. If there is anything at all you want to learn about HTML, CSS, PHP, jQuery, Javascript, or anything else you could possibly do online, that’s the place to go. I get a little dizzy thinking about how much information is available through W3Schools.

W3Schools also sells a ton of books (though they contain the exact same info you get on the website) and offers certifications in various forms of coding for $95. Basically, you read and practice at home, pay the fee, take an exam, and voila! You’re now certified in XML or whatever you choose.

I will warn you that the information on W3Schools is very technical. If you are easily overwhelmed when it comes to doing things on your blog, I recommend that you wait until you’re a little more comfortable. Then again, if you need something relatively easy, like the HTML code to insert a link, it’s all right there with simple instructions and all the explanation you need.

Theme (or Plugin) Support Forums

Nearly every possible theme or plugin has its own website with support options. Sometimes, no matter how much you’ve researched or how much you know, you just can’t get something to work right. (In my experience, several themes have failed to interpret certain code snippets in the same way as others, even when that code has worked in many other situations.)

Product-specific forums exist for a reason - to help users figure out how to do what they need to do. You can’t just start a thread asking someone to do it all for you, though. Read your theme’s documentation first. Check the FAQ. Search the forums. Search Google. Make every effort to solve the problem on your own before you ask other people to spend their time working on a solution, and be sure to mention the things you’ve tried.

These are just a few ways to get blogging help without spending any money. Sometimes it’s necessary to bring in reinforcements, but it can be very rewarding to solve a problem on your own. Where do you turn for blogging help? Any resources I didn’t mention?