OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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So, if you go to the bottom of each of my posts, you’ll see a cool new device. It’s called the “Social Twist Tell-a-Friend” button.  If you like a post, you can email, blog, Twitter, or tell your friends about it on Facebook. Pretty Sweet. You can get one for your own blog at http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/

Cool thing is that it will also give you stats. If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ll know that I LOVE stats. So, this very easy to use plugin (all you have to do is upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder and activate it) serves two purposes for me.

The typical chicklets that you see on my blog and everyone else’s don’t allow people to email folks about your incredibly brilliant blog post, either.

Work a peek, even if you aren’t concerned with spreading the social word.

Wait! If you aren’t, you totally should be. Nothing is better than word-of-mouth recommendation.

Oh, and you can use this on websites, too.  It’s worth the time to just check it out. Did I mention that it’s a free app?   The only thing that could make it better is a diamond tiara.

Popularity: 17% [?]

The WordPress folks are at it again. They’re coming up with a new interface that was supposed to be ready on November 10, but they say it will be another two weeks before they can take WP 2.7 out of beta.

Personally, I’m too timid to install the beta version. Bugs, trouble, and I’d be in the basket. I mean, I’m great with doing things once the blog is installed and all, a regular mechanic. But I freak out when things don’t work the way they should, so I’ll just wait.

But it looks like they have redesigned the dashboard again. Lord, how many videos will I have to make to show people the differences? At least 2 that I know of.

Oh well, I’m sure it will be better.

And it apparently has an automatic upgrade option. Well… I love the automatic plugin upgrade. I’m excited to learn of the automatic WordPress upgrade because every frickin’ time I turn around, my version is out of date. Grr. The list of features I read says that upgrades are performed over a secure connection, too. Great!

So, that’s cool.

There is also:

• Bulk editing for  posts
• Sticky posts
• Comment threading
• Comment reply from admin (Like that one, eh?)

And you can vote for your faves over at the WordPress Blog. The most votes so far have been for the new design/layout, so that must be pretty sweet. And next was my favorite, the automatic upgrade.

So, we’ll be waiting guys… 2 weeks is October 24. You rock!

Popularity: 26% [?]

Thanks to Jack Humphrey yet again. This time he’s given us a compendium of very valuable lists at Mashable.com. You check out these lists on Jack’s Friday Traffic Report blog at:

http://tinyurl.com/4avo5b

This is awesome!

There are lists for podcasters, lists for WordPress, lists of business tools and on and on. I mean, the resources in this list are great! If you don’t find a tool or two to use in that list, you must be a zombie.

Or something.

Really. I would advise you also to subscribe to Jack’s newsletter, The Friday Traffic Report, too, which you can do right at the top of the blog. He gives tons of interesting and very cool information every single week. Thanks for the compilation, Jack, and all the great content that you provide week, after week!

I put some newsletters aside, but FTR is one I read every time it hits my inbox.

But ultimately, the thanks goes to Mashable.com for providing the lists on the list, right? Sweet! You guys rock.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Had a call last night with Nancy Hults. She grilled me about blogging, and I told her tons of great stuff.

I love to do calls because I can interact with people. We don’t often get to do that. We sit in our offices (actually, mine is a corner of my bedroom, which is pretty big, but still… I digress.) and we type away or code away or video away or whatever. And NOBODY is there to connect with.

Anyway, I spilled my guts–again. If you enjoyed the call I did with Erik Stafford last month, this one may be even better. I encourage you to go and listen to the replay:

The replay details…

Bridgeline: 712-432-6190

Passcode: 58643#

recording code: 114#

You won’t regret listening. If you’re interested in ways to make your blog better, in ways to make it profitable, and ways to make it search engine friendly, grab a pen and some paper and dial in.

And enjoy!

There’s a pretty cool offer at the end of the call, too. Worth $100 to you. So… check it out.

Popularity: 23% [?]

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: 26% [?]

Can you tell? I mean, I’m just enthralled with all the cool things you can do, right? You can bookmark, network, Tweet, Tumbl, or blog and if you work them all together, they become a powerful traffic machine!

About three or four months ago, for a hoot, I set up a bunch of sites about cats. I love ‘em. I have two and have always had them around and thought it would be a lot of fun gathering material for them. Well, I was right! It was fun setting the stuff up. And it was like a test. I wanted to see if I could make Web 2.0 work for me in a niche.

I have a hub at HubPages, a Squidoo Lens, a couple of blogs about cats, and even a wiki. All full of fun content and information about the different cat breeds. Check out Captivating Cat Breeds, if you’re curious.

Once in a while I’ll add something, but I really haven’t done much to the sites, as you’ll see. But here’s the cool thing: I just realized that the system is getting traffic! And they’re just sitting there.

I didn’t do much about monetization because that wasn’t really my intent. I just wanted to have fun and so… Duh. I never realized that any of these sites would become popular. I mean, they’re not tearing up the track yet, but if I build them out, I can see that they will.

Next thing on Pat’s agenda: Find cat products that pay. Ha! Are there such things? Yes. I’m thinking a brass kitty bed or an automatic litter box that never smells might do the trick. (Is there such a thing?) LOL I’ll find something.

The point is, don’t rule out Web 2.0 when you’re marketing. If you’re not using it, you’re nuts! You don’t have to do a lot for the content sites like HubPages or Squidoo or any of them. If you don’t want to write articles, get someone to do it for you. I did, and I’m a writer! But who has time for fun like that? Har.

Create a whole new set of domains for what you want to do, and then, set up a systematic circle of sites so that you’ll get traffic and visitors. Like, link your Hubs to your blogs and to the wiki, for example. Here’s the thing… Most of the traffic is coming from organic search! I’m not paying a dime and like I said, I’m not really doing a whole lot about these.

Maybe I should huh? I’m on a new mission to be Cat Woman.

What? Someone already did that? Sheesh.

Popularity: 37% [?]

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: 55% [?]

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: 27% [?]

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: 47% [?]

Have you started to notice it? I mean, blogs… web pages… all to the far left of the screen??

It’s making me crazy. Even WordPress has moved their “write post” to the far left, and I feel unbalanced.  Those of you who know me well probably think that already, but hey…

Doesn’t it bother you that you have to turn your head to look left when trying to read something?

I mean, we’ve been indoctrinated with the idea that people like 650 pixels in the middle of the screen. My eyes expect that. Then, some of younz throw a curve ball and thwack! My neck flys west and I’m reading stuff that’s out of kilter.

I hope this isin’t a trend. What marketing firm made a study and decided that we’re better off with 19 inch uber flat-screen monitors that only have half their space taken up? There’s like all this white stuff on the right.

I know, I know… You’re thinking, but my monitor isn’t that wide.

And this could be making you happy.

If so, I heartily apologize for the rant.

But I have to say that it will be a very long time until I’m used to this looking left fad. It’s making me cranky.

Popularity: 45% [?]