If you’re reading this, you’re probably a blogger and you’d probably like more visitors. :-)

It’s harder than ever to get your blog posts and articles seen. What worked even in 2005 is no longer enough.

The “king” of content marketing is Neil Patel and he’s just posted this article about where it’s all heading:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/future-content-marketing

The big message is this: Include your own stories and experiences in your posts. It’s the only way to be new and different — and of course it builds a relationship with your readers.

My brother Michael did this very naturally on some of the Happy Guide articles and it definitely lets you know that there’s someone real and helpful sitting behind the keyboard.

Best wishes,
James

Olivia asks…

“When I add a contact form and preview it, it shows MY email address in the ’email’ field. Is that visible to viewers? How can I view my pages as they appear to other people? Thanks!”

It’s because you’re logged into WordPress.com.

When you visit ANY website that’s been built on WordPress.com, your details will automatically populate the fields of the contact form — this of course includes your own website. It’s just to save you the trouble of entering them.

You can test this by visiting my contact page. You should find the form fields auto-populate with your details.

To see a website through the eyes of a “normal” visitor, log out of WordPress.com by hovering over your user image near the top-right of the screen (on a laptop anyway) and clicking “Sign Out”.

The form fields will appear blank to a “normal” visitor, as you’d expect. Because I like to stay signed in, I use a completely separate browser (in my case Firefox) to view my websites through the eyes of a regular visitor. Hope this helps!

Best wishes,
James

Karthik asks…

“Is it possible to change the ‘Leave a comment’ text to something else that’s personalized to the content of the site?”

It sure is! In your WordPress Admin dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion and scroll right to the bottom of the page. Under the “Comment Form” header, enter new prompt text and click Save Changes.

Update Feb 2017: Many thanks to yashovardhan99 who says you may not see this option on the mobile version of WordPress Admin. If so, switch to desktop instead.

Best wishes,
James