Comments (14)

By Les Scammell, July 28, 2008 10:29 am

I have installed a new plugin to see if it can improve the number of comments I receive. I may even start writing posts worthy of comments now .

The plugin is keyword luv. If you haven’t heard of it before it is quite clever. Instead of leaving your name and url etc, to benefit from the keyword luv you will need to enter your name with an appropriate keyword.

Before I go any further, I think you should think very clearly about your comment link. Most people just enter in their homepage url. This is a waste of a comment link. Find a page you want to promote and that you would like to see rank well in the search engines – remember, search engines rank pages, not sites.

Use the url for that page when leaving a comment rather than your home url. If the url is long, simply copy and paste it. Now that you have the page you want the link juice to flow to, select the most appropriate keyword for that page.

Now, when leaving a comment here or on any other keyword luv site, enter your name with the at symbol then the keyword. EG – les@keyword – then enter the page url, then leave your comment. Now you have keyword rich link to one of your pages. These links are worth far more than a none keyword link to your front page (almost worthless for SEO purposes).

Having said all this, I still moderate comments and will throw out worthless or spammy comments. Leave a good comment and it will stay. I will generally try to visit your site and return the favor. If you have any trouble with the keyword luv plugin let me know.

Comments (4)

By Les Scammell, July 26, 2008 10:45 am

Google PageRanks are about to be updated. For change, rather than people seeing strange movements in their toolbars rankings and wondering, ‘what the heck’, Google, or at least Matt Cutts, have decided to make the announcement ahead of time.

The announcement was short and sweet:

Hey folks, I wanted to let you know that new toolbar PageRank values should become visible over the next few days. I’m expecting that also in the next few days that we’ll be expiring some older penalties on websites.

What is interesting is the last couple of words – expiring older penalties. If you have had previous penalties applied  – and there is no clarification here – but I would think those that got hit late last year – will have those penalities removed.

If you did get a Google slap-down late last year and everything bounces back with this update – let us know. It would be interesting to see which penalties get expired.

Over the next few days you may notice your page rank bounce around a little as the different data centers release the new rankings – btw – this is really just a little PageRank update – nothing serious and no major change to the algorithms.

With the Google buying Digg debate that has been raging, I have to wonder if Matt Cutts has released this info to take the focus of that issue – particularly since he added in the comments section:

I figured the SEO industry could use something to discuss, so I thought I’d give people a heads-up about the toolbar PageRanks.

I am not cyncial – much!

Comments (6)

By Les Scammell, July 22, 2008 1:03 am

Most of us probably need to improve our SEO skills just a little. We can read blog articles and pick up little gems here and there, however it is like finding pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle and trying to fit them in little bit by little bit.

A business called SeoServiceProvider now runs twice weekly (Tuesday and Thursday) one hour SEO workshops that are inexpensive yet very informative – I say inexpensive – they cost all of $20 for the one hour. We spend more than that on music lessons for the kids, or tutors for their school work.

The rewards from a well optimized site will more than pay for the cost in the long run. What I really like about these workshops is that you are not committed to buying a certain number and sticking to a timetable. You can attend as few or as many as you want. You just buy each workshop when you are free to attend. I suggest you check out their one hour SEO workshops – you have nothing to lose by looking.

Disclaimer: this is not a pay for post or affiliate program. The recommendation is made based on prior experience with the owners of the website.

Comments (4)

By Les Scammell, July 21, 2008 12:47 pm

WordPress 2.6 is not too bad although it still has some design issues that I don’t particularly like. I come to those a little later.

If you are using the Joost de Valk plugins Google Analytics, robots meta or RSS footer, then you may find there are issues. Your first step is to ensure you have the latest copies of these plugins. Your plugin option from the dashboard will help to auto update these plugins.

Once updated and activated, you will need to go to each of these plugins and reset the values. For me, the RSS footer plugin has lost all its information so I will need to re-enter it all. If you receive this via RSS or email you may notice the footer a little empty at present.

If, like me, you use your footer to carry messages, or for me to carry links to promotions for subscribers, losing that information can be embarrassing and lose you subscribers. The robots meta and Google Analytics will also create problems that you wont know about.

If you use those plugins then update and check the settings. Thanks to Joost de Valk from Yoast.com for letting everyone know through his blog. Sometimes it pays to subscribe to those who write your plugins or themes.

What I don’t like about WordPress 2.6

WordPress 2.6 is not too bad, a tad better than 2.5. However the one thing that is really annoying me at present is in the widget control options. If you have created text boxes and want to switch them from say left to right side bars, there is no option to simple drag and drop from one to the other. In fact you have to remove it from one sidebar and as soon as you do, you lose all the script within the text box.

The only way to move a text box from one side bar to another is by copying the contents, removing the box from sidebar, saving, selecting the second sidebar, then adding a text box and pasting the code in. Don’t forget to save again. That is a lot of steps compared to WordPress 2.3 where you could drag – drop and save – job done.

Poor design WordPress – so far I am happy with the rest – if anything annoys me I will let you know.

Have you checked out PeperJam as an advertising option. I am really happy with them so if you are looking to advertise on your blog, sign up and get $10 free when you run one of their ads on your blog. Use this link to get started.

Comments (10)

By Les Scammell, July 18, 2008 7:27 am

Submit your sites to directories with high rankings and get valuable backlinks to your sites. Before submitting follow a couple of tips:.

1. Submit to two or three each day – don’t mass submit, Google will smell a spam rat
2. Make each submission unique when it comes to descriptions
3. Select the most appropriate category
4. Be selective – you do not have to submit your home page

Directories that offer free submissions often require a link back, however, because they are free the backklink can be quite valuable.
http://www.dmoz.org/ 8
http://www.la-ma.org/ 6
http://www.mxdu.com/ 6
http://www.jayde.com/ 6
http://www.mygreencorner.com/ 6
http://www.ghinmeca.com/ 5
http://directory.classifieds1000.com/ 5
http://www.concensus.org/ 5
http://www.directorydice.com/ 5
http://www.domaining.in/ 5
http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com/ 5
http://www.illumirate.com/ 5
http://www.info-listings.com/ 5
http://www.publimix.net/ 5
http://searchsight.com/Directory.htm 5
http://www.uc33.com/ 5
http://www.amray.com/ 4
http://www.a1webdirectory.org/ 4
http://www.boshuda.com 4
http://www.businesspagesupdate.co.uk/ 4

That list should keep you busy for a day or two.

Comments (3)

By Les Scammell, July 16, 2008 11:11 pm

Well, having just updated my WordPress to 2.6 I must say it is not smooth sailing. If you have upgraded then i suggest you check your permalinks. Just click on any of your posts and make sure they open up in their own page.

A lot of blogs are finding that the permalinks are not working after the upgrade. If your blog is affected, you will need to go into the permalinks options – settings/permalinks from your dashboard – near the bottom of the page are two new additions – categories and tags. Just enter some text in each – the words categories and tags will do – save and if you have wp-cache enabled, clear the cache and try the links again. It should be fine.

Otherwise, the upgrade seems to be working fine – however your the reader so you can tell me if you notice anything unusual. A few neat things about 2.6 – you will see a bubble on the Plugins link telling you of any updates pending – that is handy. Before switching themes you can preview in private before sending it public – that is handy.

Let me know if you come across any problems with the update.

Comments (3)

By Les Scammell, July 13, 2008 4:31 pm

Join the Pepperjam affiliate advertising network (only if you click on the official banner) and you will receive $10 as a starting bonus. The bonus is paid once you start publishing Pepperjam affiliate ads.

If that isn’t enough, you can write up to five blog posts and receive another $10 per post – that is effectively $60 in your first month and that is before you start earning from any of your affiliate ads. According to the information on their blog, it is up to five posts per month so I don’t know how long that will last for. You will need to get approval prior to making your blog post (BTW – this is not one of those pay per post posts).

You will like their site, it is easy to navigate, the sign up process is extremely quick and approval is granted or denied just as quickly. Now they took me on so they can’t be too fussy – you should all be shoe ins. There is a wide variety of affiliate partners to advertise, something for every niche. Get in quick before the offer finishes.

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By Les Scammell, July 13, 2008 3:41 pm

The upgrade to this new theme is almost complete – a couple of little quirks I need to iron first. At least WordPress makes it a little easier. If anyone knows how to get the comments activated on the static pages let me know. That is my biggest problem for now.

Upgrading to a new them is not just switching themes in your WordPress themes section. There is far more to it than that. I picked up a few tips from a post at Blog Marketing Journal titled WordPress Tips To Help With Site Maintenance.

If you have registered for third party entities like Feedburner, MyBlogLog, Google Analytics and so on, you have to be sure you transfer every snippet of code from one theme across to the next. There is at least one easy way to do it. Perhaps someone should create a plugin that handles all these snippets for you.

The easiest way I found to transfer from one theme to another is to have two WordPress theme editing windows open at the same time. One window with the current theme and the other window with the new theme. From there it is just a matter of checking each file and copying and pasting each snippet of code into the new themes files.

Make any other changes you need then send it live. Let me know what you think. There are still a few little tweaks I want to make – otherwise I am pretty happy with it. WordPress is still my preferred platform at present.

Don’t forget to sign up for my feeds by RSS or email to receive free ebooks each week.

Comments (1)

By Les Scammell, July 7, 2008 2:55 pm

If you subscribe to my posts by RSS feed or through email you will be entitled to receive free downloads. Links for the downloads will be in the footer of the feeds. Each weekend I will update the free download that will be available for that week. This weeks free download is a special YouTube ebook on how to get the best out of YouTube. It includes a website template and resell rights. Subscribe now to receive your link.

You may have noticed my sidebars updated. I have joined the PepperJam network to see what sort of potential they have. I have also joined an affiliate marketing site, their products are extremely popular now, particularly if you want to be able to provide content on your site quickly and easily. Check them all out if you have time.

I am still looking for a good WordPress theme so if you are a WordPress theme developer let me know what sort of costs are involved to have a good theme developed. Nothing special except static pages must have comments enabled.

Comments (6)

By Les Scammell, July 6, 2008 12:30 am

Updating a site is never much fun and I still haven’t finished. If you can recommend a good provider of WordPress themes let me know. I want something similar to this – a little lighter on code, faster to load, and perhaps lighter in color. The one thing I want most themes don’t seem to have and that is comments enabled on pages. If I have to pay – so be it.

As to upgrading – what is your opinion – dark themes such as this one, or the new look ‘white’ themes that seem to be cropping up everywhere? Please do let me know – I am in two minds.

While your here, check out the video – kinda how I feel after doing some updating that didn’t quite go well – ever notice it takes 1 minute to create chaos and hours to reverse it??????

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Comments (3)

By Les Scammell, July 1, 2008 4:48 pm

Building any sort of tips list is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in that field. Follow these five tips and before you know you will have a perfect tips list for you particular field.
photo credit: Graham Ballantyne

• Make sure your tips have no basis in fact. In other words,  just make them up.  If you make them up nobody can check them. If no one can check them then they cannot prove you wrong – if they do – ignore them anyway.

• Make your tips so generalized they can’t possibly be implemented logically. If people cannot implement your tips they will never know they are meaningless nonsense. If someone complains they cannot follow your tips, tell them to read the tips carefully and try again.

• Refer to the latest beta release of any software as if you’ve been using it for years. Make sure you write in such a way that it makes others feel a little silly for asking questions.

• Make your tips interesting. People love interesting content. The web needs interesting content. If your tips are interesting you can’t fail!

• If in doubt simply copy someone else’s tips list and change it around a bit.

I hope this helps. Let me know the next time you create a tips list so I can check them out.