OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Don’t you just love it when someone comes to your blog and types in “Internesting post”? I mean, it’s nice that they read it–maybe, but I totally doubt that they did, but if they did, nice. But let me ask you why don’t they have anything better to say?

I mean, I get some great comments here. People are totally helpful, start up a discussion, or whatever, and that totally rocks!

But when I see a comment that says, “Interesting post,” I’m SO beyond flattery. LOL I know it’s someone just tyring to get a link back or whatever.

‘Course you’ll notice that I got the smackdown again from Google for having the paid links on my site. I’m a PR 2 again. Big whoop. Page rank means exactly the same thing to me as does “Interesting post.” I totally ignore both of them. The vapid blog comment gets sent right to Akismet.

PLONK!

Am I cranky today or what?

Yes, I am.

Working too hard.

But I have a call coming up tonight. But that should be fun. Some SEO talk: http://easyseotricks.com/paul if you’re interested. This is what I love, so it will be fun. Come on over.

Popularity: 5% [?]

If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll know that I’m an inveterate theme changer.  I can’t help it. I see something new and shiny and I just run for it. Colors and images totally turn me on.

My whole family are artists, so it’s no wonder, eh? It’s on my side and my husband’s side, too, so my daughter lucked out with the best art genes from both sides. I just like pretty shapes and colors. Oooh… Ahhh… Drool.

So, when I see a theme that just grabs me… I grab it.

The one I have now isn’t quite my cup of tea. It’s OK, you know. Businessy and such, but it’s really not me.

And you probably feel the same way about your theme or that ubiquitious Kubrick theme that everyone starts out with. You don’t have to be stuck with that!

There are a couple of three or four ways to change it.

You can go into your Design tab and mess with the header colors. Just making them a little different is good. And if you’re not very techy, this is a way you can go right away with no tech acumen whatsoever. You can also have headers made by a graphic artist and just swap out the header image, too. That’s pretty easy to do.

But finding and uploading a new theme is just as simple, really.

Go to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ and find a new one that you like and that suits your purpose. You can afford to be a little quirkier with a personal blog, or if your niche is a little quirky. For business blogging, think clean and bright. No black. I know this now, as my friends gave me the smackdown about my last <sigh> really favorite theme.

Once you have the theme, extract the files, and upload it via ftp to your blog’s wp-content/themes folder. Once you have done that, it will appear in your Design area. One really cool feature about WordPress 2.6.x is that it allows you to preview the theme before you actually let it go live.

The only thing about changing your theme that you probably won’t like is that some customizations will have to be re-done. Your widgets should still work, unless you’ve gone from a three-column template to a one-column template, but then, it’s only a matter of rearranging. So, that’s cool.

But if you’ve added any social networking buttons, as I have AddThis, for example, they’ll have to be re-done. Kontera is something else you’ll have to reload into the template. But if you haven’t done any of this stuff… you’re probably good to go.

I know WordPress just keeps making things better and better and they totally rock! But here’s something for my wishlist: When someone chooses a new theme, can’t you magically just make it appear on my blog without having to make all those customizations all over again?

That would be sweet!

Popularity: 19% [?]

clipped from wordpress.org Stefan Esser recently warned developers of the dangers of SQL Column Truncation and the weakness of mt_rand().  With his help we worked around these problems and are now releasing WordPress 2.6.2.  If you allow open registration on your blog, you should definitely upgrade.  With open registration enabled, it is possible in WordPress versions 2.6.1 and earlier to craft a username such that it will allow resetting another user’s password to a randomly generated password.  The randomly generated password is not disclosed to the attacker, so this problem by itself is annoying but not a security exploit.  However, this attack coupled with a weakness in the random number seeding in mt_rand() could be used to predict the randomly generated password.  Stefan Esser will release details of the complete attack shortly.  The attack is difficult to accomplish,  but its mere possibility means we recommend upgrading to 2.6.2.

Hmm… That means what if you don’t have passwords? Probably not much, but I’ll still upgrade to be safe.

What’s that they say about better safe than sorry? I’ve been hacked before and it’s totally no fun. That’s why it looks as if I just started blogging last year. Not so. I’ve been blogging since Blogger first opened. That was a while back.

But I also lost 2 years of posts from this blog when the (*)(&^(*& hacker did his worst. That totally hurt. It was my own fault for not having regular backups.

If you don’t have the plugin “WordPress Database Backup” go get it now at:
http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup

Can save you from a world of hurt.

Popularity: 26% [?]

In my travels, I’ve become involved with tons and tons of video. I mean, we use video in The ListBuilding Club. I use video in my own site, Blogging4Boomers.com and with various other projects. I really enjoy it and we just bought a Mino Flip Cam. It totally rocks! It’s so simple that anyone can use it. Point and make a video.

Where I find issue is with distribution. I mean I like Tube Mogul a lot. It’s a free distribution service, but it only sends out videos, no podcasts, and no social bookmarks, either. But it has better stats than other services.

We’ve been using Traffic Geyser and when I say “we” I mean, me personally and Overcome Everything. We use it for all of the videos we send out (and that’s a LOT of videos). It’s a great way to submit not just the video but the podcast, a blog entry, and the social bookmarking is included. It’s $97 a month, but you can get a $1 trial.

However, I’m finding that some of my descriptions aren’t getting through, so no option is perfect.

But…

My friend, Cyndi Parker, has just opened a site called Easy Push Button Traffic. It’s the same price as Traffic Geyser, and it not only distributes video and podcasts, it also distributes articles and press releases. How cool is that?

If the software works as well as the affiliate manager does, it’s sweet! It’s probably the best affiliate area I’ve seen. Lots of tools, all well organized, and I know Cyndi. She’s a very cool lady.

Anyway, it’s an alternative to Traffic Geyser, which I also enjoy. I encourage you to check them both out and see which one is right for you.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Whoa. Really, really cool stuff going on over at WordPress.org. They’ve released WordPress 2.6 with some totally sweet options.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• Preview past post revisions.
  WP 2.6 lets you see what you’ve done before and even compare revisions to see which is best very easily.
• New Press This! button allows you to post from wherever you are online
  Snatch snippets of other blog posts, pictures, and get them onto your blog. (With proper crediting, of course.)
• See your theme before you actually change it.
  A new preview window allows you to see what a theme will look like with your content before you hit the change button.
• Get your word count!
  This is totally something I can use. Find out how many words are in each post you make.
• Give your pictures captions
  Let people know what your picture is about.

And there are more features that are new, like bulk dealing with plugins and such. Really, really sweet. Check it all out here: http://wordpress.org/development/2008/07/wordpress-26-tyner/

I love WordPress! Don’t you?

Fantastico doesn’t have it yet, though, and I’m lazy. I’ll wait. That way, the bugs might be worked out of the new software before I use it. Love that WordPress.

Popularity: 48% [?]

So, today’s the last day of this awesome conference and I’m totally looking forward to it. First up is Simon Leung, who’s really brilliant. Think we’ll learn something? Hmm… No doubt.

And then, one of the nicest people online and off, Mike Morgan. I finally get to meet him, which was totally cool. I’m so looking forward to the call we’re doing together on June 19 at 8 p.m. EDT. You won’t want to miss that one. He has something very special for my listeners. If you haven’t yet signed up for the teleseminar calls, you can get in under the wire for this one at Blogging4Boomers.com

Anyway, it’s always hard to stop being in conference mode, and get back to the real world, but hey…

I’m looking forward to that, too.

That’s how it is when you love what you do, eh?

Popularity: 25% [?]

Do you know what a very big secret is to getting traffic to your blog on a regular basis?

It’s so simple, you probably haven’t thought about it.

In fact, you may be a pretty casual blogger. You do it when the spirit moves you, right? Or when you have time.

Well…

I’m here to tell you that one HUGE factor in getting traffic to your blog is by posting every single day.

Argh! You think. Easier said than done. What do I write? How will I find the time?

There are two ways you can post to your blog every day and not feel too pinched.

When it comes to the writing of posts, that can be pretty simple. You can read something online and write a post about that. I love to do that. When I find something that’s pretty cool or interesting in my niche, I love to tell people about it. Those are easy posts to make because someone has already given me the material.

Or, you can take a PLR product and break it down into articles that you rewrite. Don’t just slap up the stuff without rewriting first, or it probably won’t do you much good with the search engines. PLR products are sold to tons of customers who may all be using the stuff verbatim. Don’t do it. You’re just tossing out duplicate content.

You can also someone to write blog posts for you. That’s the easiest way yet.

So, let’s say you have content and no time. That’s simple, too.

In WordPress, right in the “Publish Status” box, there’s a phrase that says, “Publish immediately.” And beside it, a link that says, “edit.” When you click that, you can set your post to publish at any time of the day or night on any day of the week, month, or year. It’s really sweet.

So, like you have 5 articles and you have a weekend or a block of time  you’ve scheduled in for blog posting. Post all of the articles at once, and set them to go out whenever you like.

In my mind, that would be 5 days, back to back.

Here are the facts…

In April, I had 50% more visitors to my blog because I posted every day. I decided to slow it down a bit in May to see what would happen.

People forget you. People unsub because you’re not adding new content fast enough. There are all kinds of reasons.

Just keep posting, every day, though, and you’ll see an enormous difference in the traffic to your blog, your opt-in numbers, and even your sales.

Come on… It’s really not that tough. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a few more ideas for posting content…

Stay tuned.

Popularity: 46% [?]

Don’t you agree? I mean Weblog. No wonder we call these incredible journals BLOGS. It sounds better. It’s more friendly. People want to read blogs, but weblogs?

I would be like reading the Star Trek Captain’s Log. Boring. I mean, when you see the adventures of everything going on out in space as they occur, pretty exciting, right? But if you had to sit and read what Archer, Kirk, Picard, Cisco, and Janeway had to write, would you be as excited?

I mean, think about it. They wouldn’t be able to give you the nuances. No exclamations. No backstory. It would just be LOG. Boring.

Blog is actually kind of an upchuck of words, when you think about it. You b-b-b-blooogggg. Yuck.

Why not CyberProse? Internet Musings? Or how about Interstellar Exposition? There, that one has some class.

So, remember…

Next time you want to bore people with some stupid story about what you ate for breakfast, you’re writing an Interstellar Exposition.

No, huh?

Well… Still beats the hell out of Weblog. Blech!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Do you Twitter?

I don’t mean, do you chirp like a bird or talk inanely until your lips fall off? I mean, do you belong to Twitter?

Well…

Why not? It seems kind of silly to be “following” the activity of people, but I follow some pretty cool people, like Brad Fallon and his “Free Line Report” and Paul Colligan, podcasting journalist. So, when I go to Twitter, I can see just what’s up.

I get a Twitter from Brad daily, and if you’re interested in Web 2.0, the Free Line report is pretty cool. Takes just a minute to watch and keeps you up on the 2.0 news.

Paul Colligan posts to Twitter about a gazillion times a day. I try to stop by the stuff I’m really into, and keep the other stuff for later. There are just so many hours in the day!

I keep one open for education, usually first thing in the morning. It’s a “Tellman” thing. He says, “One hour of education; one hour of implementation.” It really works, and because of that bit of encouragement, I learn something new about our online world of glittery gems at least once per day.

But anyway, Twitter is so cool that some guy named James Buck, a graduate student in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley was arrested last month in Mahalla, Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. He just had enough time to Twitter “arrested” and his Twitter followers both here and in Egypt contacted the U. S. consulate to help him. How cool is that? James was freed and his one-word “Tweet” of “Free” was the next message he sent along. CNN even reported on it.

So, see? Twitter is useful.

And with folks following you and reading your blog and such, and some signing up for your list, it’s the best of all worlds.

Plus, it’s the quickest micro-blog on the planet.

Who doesn’t need more time?

Popularity: 37% [?]

Wow. I always wait a little while when WordPress makes sweeping changes to their software. I don’t care how great the programmers are (and WordPress is totally smokin’ awesome), there are going to be bugs. I like to wait until the bugs are worked out.

But…

I have a membership site about learning to blog and Web 2.0 and all kind of cool stuff about blogging, and decided that so as not to confuse my members, I’d better do the upgrade.

Wow.

My favorite feature thus far?

Automatic plugin updating.

OMG… It’s totally awesome. Plugins aren’t hard to upgrade, of course, but they’re time consuming, especially when you have as many as I do. But the newest version of WordPress has a new feature… the automatic upgrade. You click on the link and it downloads, unzips, installs, and reactivates the plugin for you!

Is that cool or what?

I’m in blogger heaven today. Still haven’t checked out all the cool features, but if the automatic plugin installer was the only thing new, I’d still be tooting WordPress’s horn.

Fan-freakin’-tastic!

I love it!

Popularity: 33% [?]