blogging 102

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes I was asked recently how to get a 1000 visitors a day to your blog network.  If you have a network it is quite easy.  The more blogs you have the more content you have, and more content you have the better chance you will get hits from search results.  Here is my quick list of do’s and don’ts. Content isn’t enough.  You need content with good keywords and for that material to be indexed.  If you run a wordpress blog the Google XML Sitemap Plugin is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for getting indexed.  If you want to be properly indexed it is highly important that you use good content specific keywords and tags.  I generate specific keywords with Wordsfinder and use the Calais Tagaroo Plugin to generate Semantic tags, both of which appear as meta keywords to search engines thanks to my theme. Write about popular things.  If you follow the first rule of good tagging and and getting regularly indexed, writing about... 

Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes Something is up at Technorati. For more than a month now I have been having problems with them properly indexing one of my blogs. Despite the fact that it was being updated either manually or automatically with daily digest posts, http://www.bradsotherblog.com was simply not getting its ping through to Technorati. This just isn’t me, either. The first suggestion they made was to manually ping your blog at http://www.technorati.com/ping this works for all of my blogs except The Other Blog. After trying that and a ticket submitted with no answer I finally complained on the post board and the blog was quickly taken care of. They apparently want to take care of people who open their mouths in public a lot faster than they do those who wait patiently for returned emails. Well that one ping they did worked exactly once, the blog updated and jumped from an authority of 8 to 14 when all was said and done. I checked back a week later and nothing since that... 

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes There were several old combinations that worked well together but since WordPress 2.3 came out many of them stopped working properly or stopped working altogether. Fear not there are replacements out there. Unlike many of the regurgitated idiot lists currently out there, everything I list will work in WordPress 2.5 the only version of the blog software you should be running. Ultimate Tag Warrior hasn’t been supported by the author since WordPress 2.3 came out. Many of its features and those of Bunny’s Technorati Tags, Jerome’s Keywords, and other tagging programs are easily replaced in better plugins. The All in One SEO Pack can even be replaced now. The new power plugin combination consists of Headspace2 and Simple Tags. Between these two plugins you can hand every task that you used to require half a dozen plugins and tweaks. convey_source = "English"; Read More →

Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes Akismet This is the best in spam control there is hands down. Ultimate GA (Google Analytics) You can use the Google Analytics services without this plugin, but frankly why would you want to. It makes the service so much easier to use and, even better will write a lot of the code into your blog for you. This is a 5 star plugin and a must have. HeadSpace 2 is the best all around meta tool there is. It is a little harder to get setup than the All in One SEO Pack but it is a far superior plugin. Mani at Daily SEO has a really great post about getting it set up right using one of his themes, but the principals are the same no matter what theme you use. Google XML Sitemap Generator is the best tool you can have for getting indexed quickly and efficiently. CommentLuv by FiddyP is a sure fire way to get your readers involved by providing not only a link back to their site, but assuming they have an accessible feed it will post a link to their latest post too. Auto... 

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes Everyone needs to go have a look at their Technorati accounts today and make sure that their posts are getting indexed properly.  Because of some flaws and coding errors, and down right hacking by theme designers your Blog may be at risk.  Not only is Technorati not indexing, it can very well lead to your sight as being mark for spam on Yahoo and Google. To see if you possibly aren’t being indexed or the spiders are just taking their sweet ass time getting to you try manually pinging  your account by entering a post specific url into the form at http://www.technorati.com/ping/  Give it an hour or so to get around to you and see if you get your pages added in, before bitching at tech support.  Also remember if you are using FireFox as a browser you should hit control f5 to reload the page and bypass the cache file when you are checking these accounts. Check out Vulnerable WordPress Blogs Not Being Indexed for further reading.  If you have WP...