35 Mind Blowing Blogging Facts

 

  1. Roughly 81% of people who own a blog will never make $100 from it.
  2. A large majority of bloggers – ⅔ to be exact- haven’t updated their blog in more than a year.
  3. A new blog is created every half a second.
  4. The most popular time for blogs to be read is between 7 and 10 AM.
  5. 40% of bloggers use WordPress as their platform of choice.
  6. Individual blog posts that feature images receive, on average, 94% more traffic.
  7. Blogs have been ranked as the 5th most reliable source for finding accurate information.
  8. The US alone is home to 31 million bloggers.
  9. 60% of US citizens who shop online claim that they have purchased an item or product after having it recommended to them by a blog.
  10. Most bloggers fall within the 21-35 age range.
  11. Blogs that are updated daily tend to get 5x more traffic than  those who update a few times a week.
  12. There are more than 80 languages used to create blogs.
  13. 77% of Internet users read blog posts on a regular basis.
  14. 40% of companies based in the US use blogs for marketing purposes, saying that their blogs are critical for success.
  15. As of January 2016, Tumblr hosted over 246 million blogs.
  16. “Blog” was the word of the year in 2004, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary. 
  17. Half of all bloggers have multiple blogs, with four being the average number for professional bloggers.
  18. Huffington Post is the highest earning blog, earning over 28 million a year.
  19. Those who use the internet in the US, spend, on average, 3x more time reading blogs than they do accessing email.
  20. In 2019, it takes roughly 3.5 hours to write one high-quality blog post.
  21. Blog posts longer than 3,000 words get the most shares on social media.
  22. 36% of readers prefer list-based posts.
  23. When crafting a post, using photos of real people instead of stock photos, can have your blog seeing an increase of 35%.
  24. Marketers tend to re-purpose their blog content 2-5 times.
  25. 19% of today’s bloggers regularly add video content into their blog posts.
  26. 5% of bloggers do not use any analytics tools.
  27. Out of every 10 posts, one is considered compound – that is, increasing  in popularity over time.
  28. The best title length for a blog post is 6-13 words.
  29. 55% of bloggers write fewer than 1,000 words per post.
  30. 46.8% of bloggers invest less than 5 hours a week to their blog.
  31. On average, readers take 37 seconds to read a post.
  32. Headlines with emotional ties see more traffic.
  33. Post headlines using the word “photos” perform 37% better than headlines that don’t.
  34. Long-form posts perform, on average, 9x better than short-form posts.
  35. “How to” posts have been found to give blogs the most credibility.

What You Need to Know About Dryer Vent Cleaning

When left unmaintained, dryer vents can cause fires which do not only damage properties but can also be life-threatening. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission, over 15,600 dryer fires occur every year, causing millions worth of damage to properties. The main cause of these fires is the lint in the appliance’s heating element.

Because of this, some insurance companies and fire departments now require dryer ducts to be inspected and maintained on a regular basis. There are a lot of companies that offer annual or semi-annual dryer duct and vent cleaning service in order to help individuals and companies meet requirements and prevent potential issues in the long run.

Aside from fire prevention, a well-maintained vent will allow your dryer to operate more efficiently and promote energy and cost savings. It can also prevent damage to your clothes because of excessive heat, and prolong the lifespan of your dryer because a dirty vent will require the appliance to work twice as hard.

How Dryer Vents Cause Fire

When lint in the dryer vent and ducts affect the operation of the appliance and air flow, drying time becomes longer and the motor tends to overheat. The lint underneath the dryer can then easily catch fire and the air draft can draw the fire up into the dryer ducts. When not maintained on a regular basis, the ducts will also be coated or clogged with lint, thereby causing fire.

Other causes of dryer fires include problems with the thermostat and limit switch, presence of lint inside the appliance, a broken hose behind the dryer, debris that block the vent, or a damaged lint screen.

Signs That Your Property is at Risk of Dryer Fire

Here are some of the signs that your home or establishment may be at risk of a dryer fire:

  • Your dryer ducts and vent have not been inspected or cleaned in over a year.
  • The length of the dryer duct is over 25 feet and air flow is slow.
  • You use the dryer frequently.
  • The duct of your dryer is made of flexible plastic or vinyl, which burns easily.
  • Your dryer has flexible foil ducts that can restrict air flow. It is recommended to use solid metal tubing that has a diameter of around 4 inches.
  • It takes longer than usual for your clothes become dry, particularly those which are made of heavy material.
  • After a drying cycle, the clothes are hotter than usual.
  • When you turn on the dryer, the flap of the vent hood does not open.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Dryer Vent Cleaning Company

When choosing a reliable professional to handle your vent cleaning LV area, it is important to thoroughly understand what the company has to offer. Below are some things to consider before making your final decision:

  1. The experience of the service provider with your type of property

Although all dryer vents have the same purpose, the frequency of usage of the dryer and the requirements for the service will differ. For instance, a commercial dryer used for a laundry facility involves more usage and will require the service to be completed at a certain schedule and in accordance to business safety regulations. Meanwhile, a dryer in a residential property will require the service to be completed according to the unique needs of the occupants. With this, it is important to make sure that the professional has prior experience servicing your type of property.

  1. How quickly the professional can respond

The speed of service delivery is important because delaying the maintenance of your dryer vent can potentially cause hazards to your building or household. It is recommended to choose a company that can quickly respond to short notice requests.

  1. The type of training the professionals undergo

The main reason for hiring a service provider is to ensure that your dryer vent is cleaned by someone who actually knows how to do it properly. Hence, you must choose a professional who has undergone relevant training and is certified to do the job. Otherwise, why not just do it yourself?

Conclusion

Your dryer vent is indeed an important component that shouldn’t be disregarded. While it is possible to clean it on your own, it is more practical and safer to have an expert inspect your dryer and perform the necessary maintenance tasks. Furthermore, a professional will also know if you need to replace certain parts or your dryer altogether and prevent further damage, expenses, or hazards.

Google: Friend or Foe?

When we were little, we asked mum everything from why the sky is blue to where our favourite sock was. These days, kids (and adults) just ask Google. And with so much voice-activated AI in our homes, we can probably get an answer from Siri, Alexa, or Cortana. It may be cool to hear that disembodied voice tell you exactly where your toothbrush is, but is it worth the risk of the eventual robot apocalypse?

Search engines and related technology – including the internet of things –play a big role in our lives. We often ignore this role, not actively thinking about the influence it can have. After all, we already have the vague notion that Google knows more about us than our significant other, or even our mother. Still, in recent times, we’re paying more attention to how much of our data is ‘out there’ on the web.

To de-activate or not to de-activate

Some respond with a call to kill social media accounts and eliminate cyber footprints. But … one, it’s hard to completely wipe out your online presence. Reputation management firms can scour the internet (for a price), but they can’t wipe it clean. And two, many of us don’t want to give up our online existence. It’s too important to us. So when we receive those privacy emails, we click on ‘read and agreed’ just like we did before.

Web companies are responding differently to Europe’s new General Data Protection Law (GDPR). Some – like Slack and Facebook – have offered new tools for reviewing your data and deleting it if you want to. Others have shut down, temporarily or permanently. Either way, review your privacy settings. And as for all those emails from services you no longer use, you might want to unsubscribe and revoke access … just to be safe.

Much ado about search engines

As for Google itself, it’s became enmeshed throughout our lives. Many of us use Google Drive for data storage, Gmail for personal and corporate email, Google Calendars to plan or schedules … and we’d literally be lost without Google Maps. Of course the downside of this is Google knows all our secrets, dirty or otherwise.

Glance at your Google stats. You’ll see they have your active phone number, a list of places you visit regularly, and even consistently updated routes of your commute. You could argue that collecting all this information helps the products work better for you. It’s also a little creepy that someone can sit at a computer and get exact details of your daily travel path.

Search for business needs

On the other hand, Google is the most frequent way that new customers discover your business. As a customer, you use it to verify before you buy, benevolently surveilling everyone else. Plus, while the constantly changing search algorithms drive SEO experts to abstraction, it’s a benefit for the average user.

Algorithm updates force SEO teams to replace tips, tricks, fluff, and churn with genuine, helpful, high quality content, which makes the web better for everyone. It seems the pros outweigh the cons after all.

Why are so many companies updating their privacy policies?

You’re probably receiving a lot of ‘privacy update’ emails at the moment. The bulk of them are from services you don’t even remember signing up for. Before you get upset and mark them all as spam, think of it as the email version of Marie Kondo. It’s time to de-clutter your virtual space and review your virtual footprint.

Everything you put online is a breadcrumb trail. Ordinarily, these details are used to send you target ads based on your interests.Other times, they can be built into a composite that can lead to identity theft, cost you a job, or compromise your relationship. Think about it this way. Someone with less-than-kosher intent sends you a friend request on Facebook or follows you on another platform. You accept without thinking twice.

A new kind of fake friend

This person now has access to your status updates and friends list. If your friends’ privacy settings allow it, this person can access their details too. Most of what we post on social media is trivial. You may whine about being stuck in traffic, publish a #TBT fromyour first day of school, or share a flash sale at your favourite store.

All your friends are doing the same thing, so a keen observer can get enough details to impersonate you online. They can deduce where you grew up, your childhood pet, mum’s maiden name (these are common answers to security questions) … and whether or not you’re home right now.They could access your email, hack your preferred platform, or create fake social media accounts to fool your friends, family, and bank account.

The trouble is … none of this is illegal. You offered this information freely. And even if the criminal didn’t harvest it from your public profile, they may have taken it from a source you agreed to. Every app, newsletter, or online quiz you sign up for has some form of data collection, and you inadvertently told them exactly how they could use that information.

‘Senator, we run ads’

A senator asked Mark Zuckerberg how he makes money off an app that’s offered for free. Hesmirked, explaining he sustains his business model by selling ads. That’s the main function of all that data sites collect – to figure out what you like and feed you relevant ads. However, there are some sneaky clauses in there, and when we find out what they are, we panic.

In recent months, Europe passed a new law called GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). It’s 261 pages long and says customers must consent before apps and websites store their data. So the privacy update emails are to remind you to agree to newer T&Cs. Which you probably did.Without reading them.Again.

Some companies responded to GDPR by offering tools so you can review and delete your data. Other apps shut down altogether. So if you do nothing else today, unsubscribe from all your idle services, and check the privacy settings on your social media platforms

Free blog creation

Are you looking for an easy and immediate way to share your passions and your knowledge with others? Do you love writing and do you think that one day it can become your job? There are no doubts, you need to open a blog and start writing about everything that interests you. How do you say? You are not yet very experienced about the world of computing and the Web and do not have the faintest idea  how to create a blog ? Well, do not worry, even this time you can count on my help. I can in fact provide you with all the explanations you need to succeed “in the business”.

On the Internet there are many possibilities to open a blog, some of which are very easy to use and do not require any technical knowledge from the user. In order to create a blog it is therefore not essential to be perfect connoisseurs of the IT world. In fact, everyone can create their own online space in four and four without any particular difficulty, you have my word.

If you are therefore really interested in finding out how to proceed to create a blog I suggest you take a few minutes of free time and concentrate on reading this tutorial. You just have to choose which of the solutions I am about to propose, you think may be more suited to your needs, subscribe to it and start posting your content. That said, we ban the chatter and start immediately to get busy. I do not assure you that at the end of this guide you will become a blog-star but certainly you will have much clearer ideas on the matter, trust me!

WordPress

One of the most complete and famous platforms to create a blog is WordPress . It is a free and open source CMS (content management system) that can be installed on any Web space and enriched with customized features thanks to the use of plug-ins developed by third parties.

You have two ways to create a blog with WordPress : the one offered by the WordPress.com site, which allows you to create free “pre-packaged” sites on a space offered at no cost (with some limitations, such as the impossibility to install plug-ins or insert advertising in the blog), or the “manual”, which consists of buying a web space and installing WordPress in the latter.

If you do not have special needs and you want to open only a personal blog, the first solution is perfect to start with. On the other hand you do not have to do is connect to the WordPress.com website by clicking here , press the Create websitebutton  located at the center of the web page that is shown to you, indicate the type of blog that you intend to create, choose the appearance of the home page and a theme to be assigned to the entire site and indicate the address you want to assign to your blog. The address will be  [blog name] .wordpress.com.

Then, click on the Select free plan button and fill out the form that is proposed to you by typing your email address, the username and password you wish to use for accessing the service. Finally, click on the Create blog button  and then on the Continue button to immediately access your newly created blog. As soon as you have a minute, do not forget to confirm your e-mail address that you have chosen to associate with the service by clicking on the link in the e-mail that the WordPress team has sent to you.

At this point you should find yourself in front of the dashboard of your blog on WordPress. To start writing a post immediately click on the button  Start an article placed in the middle of the screen. To explore all the other features and to make further changes to your blog served instead of the commands attached to the sidebar located on the left.

In case you have aspirations a bit ‘higher, you must instead proceed to purchase a Web space and manually install WordPress on the latter. Then connect to the WordPress.org website by clicking here and press the Download WordPress 4.x button  to download WordPress to your computer. When the download is complete, you must extract the contents of the archive you just downloaded (eg  wordpress-4.1-it_IT.zip ) to any folder and edit the file wp-config-sample.php with  Notepad  (or any other text editor) following the instructions in the file itself.

After this step, you must upload with an FTP program  (if you have not already downloaded one on your computer you can consult my guide on FTP programs toimmediately fix the WordPress files on your Web space and connect to the page [address of your blog] /wp-admin/install.php to complete the process of creating your blog. Find more details about this operation in my guides on how to create a blog with WordPress and how to manage a WordPress blog .

How to create a personal blog

A personal blog can be both an important showcase from a business point of view and a space in which to post and share your thoughts. A friend of yours has just opened one, you would like to follow his example but, not being particularly interested in the subject, you do not know how to do it. Quiet, if you want, I’m here. If you have five minutes to dedicate, I can help you create a personal blog illustrating all the solutions you can rely on and pointing out, step by step, all you need to do to open your “space” on the Web and get to know new people.

We assume that today there are many platforms that allow you to create a blog in a simple, fast and above all free of charge without having to worry about more complex practices, such as registering a domain or choosing a paid hosting . The most popular platforms are WordPress and Blogger , which allow a wide autonomy of site management by the user and are always very flexible. Less flexible, but to keep in mind, are two other platforms that have managed to stand out in recent months:  Medium and Tumblr, which are more “closed” than WordPress and Blogger but in certain contexts offer more convenient features to use.

Would you like to know more? Good. So, if you agree, I’ll start to show you the main blogging platforms with which you can create a personal website without having to worry about expenses or other “technical” problems. Enjoy reading and have fun! I bet that, from here to a few minutes, your first posts will already be online, ready to reach a potentially vast audience!

Create a personal blog with WordPress

People who open a personal blog for the first time, generally, do it using the WordPress platform . Are you wondering why he is so loved by people? The answer is simple: extreme simplicity of use and complete customization thanks to many themes and plugins, which are the real strength of this CMS (content management system). Thanks to the additional components, in fact, it is possible to extend the basic functionality of WordPress blogs and customize them according to their specific needs.

It is good to point out that there are two ways to use WordPress : the first, which I will focus on today, provides the opening of a free blog with wordpress.com underline  and has several limitations, primarily the inability to monetize their content through the insertion of advertising banners and the inability to add plugins or custom themes to the blog.

The other way to use WordPress, the most “free” and professional, provides free download of CMS files, then upload to a separately purchased Web space (along with a domain). Performing a custom installation of WordPress, there are no limits on monetization, plug-ins or customization of themes. In fact, it is also possible to subscribe to paid plans of WordPress.com  that, starting from $ 4 / month (with annual billing), allow you to activate the plugin upload and advanced customization of themes, but personally, if you do not intend to exploit the free version of the service, I suggest you resort to installing the CMS on an external space.

Without this premise, let’s move on to action: if you want to try WordPress and create a personal blog with the latter, connected to the site  WordPress.com . Then click on the Start Now button and wait for the following screen to load, where you must select the type of site you want to open. Among the options available to you, choose the first one by clicking on the Start button with a blog .

On the new page that opens,  assign an address to your site , you are asked to type the name of the new blog. When you have made your choice and after typing it in the Enter a name or a keyword , verify that the domain name is available in the free version of WordPress. Then click on the Select item and proceed to the next page, where you have to choose a plan among those proposed. The first option is Free , which you can select by clicking the Start with free button .

You are one step away from creating your first personal blog on WordPress! The last step required is the creation of an account , so you need to type in the rectangle Your e-mail address the email address you want to associate with the WordPress account, under the item Choose a username your nickname and under the item Choose a password what will be your access key to connect to the account.

Once you have completed filling in the required fields, click on the Continue button and then on the item View my website to view your personal blog.

To publish your first post, click on the Write an article button  located at the top right. In the new screen appears the text editor with which you will write your posts. So fill in the Title field with the title you want to give the article and move to the white text field below to write the body of your post.