Written on August 2nd, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse
The Problem of Default About Pages
One of the common problems that I find being made on many WordPress Blogs is the default ‘About Page’ being unchanged.
You’ve probably seen them as you’ve surfed around - you click on the ‘About’ link in the blog’s template and are taken to a page that says something like this:
“This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.”
Do a search for the first few words of this message and you’ll find just under 200,000 examples of what I’m talking about. Surprisingly it’s not just new blogs that have it - I’ve seen quite a few established blogs with it.
This message is the default message that WP uses when a page in a blog’s template hasn’t yet been edited. There are variations on the message but they are only meant as a message to you as the blogger and they are not meant to be left up for your reader to read.
Editing these pages is simple. In your Wordpress backend/dashboard hit the ‘manage’ tab and then hit the ‘pages’ tab. In the list of pages that you see there you’ll find the page that needs changing (in this case it’s the ‘About’ page). Click the ‘edit’ link and make some changes.
On an ‘About Page’ you’ll obviously want to share some information about you and/or your blog. For some tips on what to put on about pages you might like to read two previously written posts on the topic here and hear.
Alternatively - if you don’t want and About Page (while it can add a lot to your blog it’s not compulsory) find it in your blog’s template and delete it. All you do by having the default one is frustrate your readers. There’s nothing more of a turn off for a blog that doesn’t go to the effort of making sure all it’s menu items lead to useful information.
Written on August 1st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 02:08 pm by Darren Rowse
AdSense on Google Page Creator
It’s been coming for a while now but today it was made official - you can now put AdSense on Google Page Creator pages.
I got a bad feeling that this could be a spammers paradise!
Written on August 1st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 04:08 am by Darren Rowse
Introduction to Desktop Blog Editors
LifeHacker ran a reader poll last week on what desktop blog editors bloggers are using. The results showed that just over 60% don’t use any. It was a close race after that with Performancing’s Firefox extension winning out with 11.7% and w.bloggar coming in second at 10.2%. Ecto, Qumana (I reviewed an early version of Qumana here) and Zoundry were the others but got only between 8.4% and 3.2%.
As a followup post Lifehacker has done a little introductory comparison between the editors and includes BlogJet and Flock’s blog editor in the wrap up.
Another one that I know some people use is Thingamablog (although it’s been a while since they updated). There’s also Blog Desk, Post2Blog and Mars Edit. There are others - feel free to let us know what you use in comments below).
Do you use a blog editing tool outside of your blog’s platform?
Why would you use a Blog Desktop Editor?
Here’s why I use ecto (for Mac) and can’t imagine blogging without it (the reasons I mention here would be similar to why most bloggers use different editors):
- One Click Blogging - most blog editors have a way of publishing to your blog with one or two clicks from your browser. Ecto for instance has a bookmarklet that allows me to highlight text on a web page, click the bookmarklet and have what I’ve highlighted come up as a quote with a link back to the page. I can format how the quote and link looks as a default - add my own comments and then post publish.
- Manage Multiple Blogs from One Point - at one point (a year back) I was blogging on up to 20 blogs each week. Many blog editors allow you to set them up to blog to them all without having to log into the back end of the blogs. It will also allow you to have multiple blogs on multiple platforms, so if you have TypePad, WordPress and Movable Type blogs you can edit them all from one spot. This speeds up your blogging. Many editors will let you set each blog up differently with it’s own defaults and settings.
- Image Management - drag and drop images into the editor, resize them like you would a Word document, rename them, create thumbnails etc. While many blog platforms now allow this from within them I find editors slightly more functional.
- WYSIWYG - again, blog platforms are headed in this direction but I find they they can be a little buggy in this mode. Of course you can always go into HTML mode also if you’d prefer to edit your posts that way.
- Offline Blogging - one thing I especially love about using ecto is that I can head to my local cafe (where there’s no WiFi) and blog away to my hearts content in ecto. Then when I come home or hit a WiFi area I can simply publish my posts. Previously I had to type things up in a text file, copy them across, format them and then publish.
- Backed Up Content - another reason I like to have a desktop editor is that it means I have a copy of my posts on my desktop for easy reference or backup purposes. I’ve never needed it as a backup but regularly look in ecto for old posts rather than search for them on my actual blog. ecto has a ’search’ feature that will scan old posts if you’re looking for a word or phrase - very handy to see what you’ve previously written or if you’re on the road speaking somewhere and want to use an old post in your presentation
- Spell Check - again, it’s built in to many blog platforms but having an as you go spell check is very handy - especially for me who is spilling challinged. If it could only do grammar too!!!
- Integration - I can’t speak for other editors but ecto integrates with delicious, has tagging of entries built in, automatically pings different services and has a range of other automated features that make blogging a breeze.
Each editor will have it’s own feature set but in all I find desktop blogging editors to be an essential part of my daily blogging rhythm. They are especially useful for busy bloggers or bloggers who are managing multiple blogs.
Do you use an editor? Which one? Why? What features would you like to see in your ‘dream desktop blog editor?’
Written on August 1st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Revisited
Welcome to August.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to walk back down memory lane to what was happening on this blog a year ago today.
August 2005 was a special month at enternetusers as I launched my first month long series with these words:
“Starting Monday I’m going to turn up the ‘Blog Tips’ volume to 11 and am going to attempt to vomit onto you everything I know about how to make your blog better.”
The month was a pretty amazing experience. I wrote my little heart out and also received a lot of submissions from readers to be included in the project.
Over the course of the month I covered a lot of ground including:
- When is it Time to Go Pro as a Blogger?
- There’s a Hole in my Blog - Holistic Blogging
- Getting inside Your Blog Reader’s Mind
- Converting One off Visitors to Your Blog into Regular Readers
- Strategic Blogging (a mini series - collated into one post)
- Declaring War on Blogger Apathy (another mini series collated into one post)
- Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers (another series)
- Email Newsletter Tips for Bloggers
- 10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on your Blog
All in all I wrote 47 tips over the month and readers submitted 169 tips. You can see the complete collection of links to all 216 tips at:
31 Days to Building a Better Blog
I thought I’d post a link back to this project for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it was so much work and I often look back at it and feel sad that it just languishes away in archives.
Secondly, I’m proud of it. While the series almost killed me I had a very satisfied feeling by the end as I looked back at what we’d done together. It must be one of the most comprehensive collections of blog tips and tutorials on the web.
Thirdly, since last August the readership of enternetusers has doubled and I know that many of you were not around when the series took place. Most of what was written last August is still relevant for bloggers today - hopefully in linking back to it readers will find a few undiscovered gems.
Enjoy
Written on July 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
Keyword Misspelling Tool
One of the things you find when you use a tool like 103bees to check your incoming search engine traffic is that some people find your blog as a result of both them and you misspelling words.
I remember early in my blogging that I had one post that was getting quite a few visitors every day and I couldn’t work out why until I looked at my stats and found that one of the people commenting on the post had misspelled Melbourne (the city where I live) and that every person hitting the page had typed the same spelling into Google. I was the one of three search results for that spelling and as a result had a pretty decent chance of getting the visitor.
The poor spelling of the reader leaving the comment drove traffic to my blog.
I’m certain that this happens every day for many bloggers - however I also know some webmasters (and one or two bloggers) who purposely exploit the misspelling of search engine users. They write articles with spelling mistakes in them on the keywords that they are trying to attract traffic for.
This isn’t really my style (my goal is to build quality into my blogs - all misspellings and poor grammar are purely accidental!) but Microsof adCenter Labs have developed a tool that those wanting to explore misspellings might want to use - their Keyword Mutation Detection Tool in which you can input a correctly spelled keyword and find out how readers commonly misspell it.
found via Jake
Written on July 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 03:07 am by Darren Rowse
Yahoo! Launches New Crawler
If you’ve noticed any changes in the traffic coming to your blogs from Yahoo! it could be a result of their New Version of it’s Search Crawler called ‘Slurp’ - (a crawler is the bot that Search Engines send to your site to index it).
Slurp is said to be faster and more efficient and will have to visit your site less and will use less bandwidth when it does.
Have you noticed any changes?
I’m yet to do any detailed analysis but my first impression is that it’s not had much impact upon the amount of traffic Yahoo! has sent to most of my blogs - however for a couple of them I’m getting traffic from Yahoo! for the first time ever (I’ve never had much luck with Yahoo SEO to this point so this is a welcome sign.
Written on July 30th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 01:07 am by Darren Rowse
Feedburner Ad Network - Three Months In
After three months of participation in FeedBurner’s Ad Network I received my first payment (for April) yesterday.
Feedburners ads are the ones you’ll see in my RSS feeds. My first impression review of FAN is still pretty accurate to how I’ve found the system.
I’ve added it to three of my blogs (the ones with the biggest RSS subscriber lists) and while April only earned me $79 - that was only from 10 or so days with it on just one blog (enternetusers).
The amount FAN is earning me varies quite a bit between my three blogs. enternetusers is actually the better earner - partly because it has the most subscribers but also probably because it has full feeds rather than partial and perhaps because it’s channel is a better paying one than the others (blogs are put in channels depending upon their topics - some attract higher CPM than others).
There have been a good variety of advertisers over the period. I like that I can approve or reject advertisers as they sign up. I’ve actually rejected about 20% to this point (either because they were willing to pay only a small CPM or because I felt they were inappropriate for my feeds.
I’m pretty sure they are still restricting publishers joining FAN to those with larger subscriber lists but if you get the opportunity and have a large enough subscriber base I’d say it’s definitely worth a go.
Written on July 30th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
I Get Paid to Sleep
The quote that stood out to me in the article on MSNBC that I mentioned a few posts ago was from Andrew Leyden from the Podcast Directory who marvels at his new income source by saying:
‘”I get paid while mowing the lawn. I get paid while cleaning the garage. I get paid driving my wife to her office, buying groceries, seeing a movie, playing video games, or just surfing the Internet. That’s really the nice thing about AdSense: No matter what I’m doing, people keep clicking and I keep getting paid.”‘
For about six months a few years back I did shift work in an in-flight catering company. It was the most boring work ever. I’d stand in front of a conveyor belt for hours on end putting orange juice on trays as they went past. The only way I could get through a shift was to play little mind games as I worked - one of which was to work out how much I was being paid per orange juice (I’m not good at maths so it’d take a whole shift to work it out).
Now I sometimes play a different game - this time not because I’m bored but because it’s kind of fun.
I work out how much I get paid to sleep, to play with my son, to walk out to the mail box, to take a weekend off at a Bed and Breakfast etc. It’s an amazing feeling to know that you have a business that earns you an income whether you’re actually physically there working on it or not.
A lot of people see making money online via blogging as being a ‘passive income’.
I don’t agree with using that term to describe ProBlogging simply because there is a lot of work involved and it does take years to build up (read this enternetusers Public Service Announcement if you’re seeing quick and easy dollar signs floating in front of your eyes thinking about blogging). However - there are moments where the income feels, and really is, quite passive.
Of course if you remain passive for too long your income will suffer - but it’s a nice feeling to be able to take a day off and know that the work you’ve invested in your blogs in the previous months and years is still paying off.
Written on July 29th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 01:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Comment Spam - Is Akismet OK?
Is anyone else using the Akismet comment spam filter getting hit big time by spam today?
I’m not sure if it’s down, whether someone’s found a way past it or whether I’m just getting a massive attack and the normal small % of spam is getting through - but for the last couple of hours I’ve had so much comment spam that I’m deleting it as fast as it’s coming in!
This happened last week for a few hours one day also.
Looking at the numbers of what Akismet is stopping it does seem to be working to some degree (as the total number is going up) but it’s definitely not getting everything today.
Very odd.
PS: Looking at their graph tracking spam it seems that the last 24 hours or so have seen a massive spike in spam attacks.
update: The spam attack has continued. It’s been 6 hours now with it coming in as fast as 2 to 3 comments per second (thats just what Akismet isn’t stopping - add to that what it is stopping and it’s a massive attack).
I’ve noticed that this often happens on weekends - I guess spammers know its a time that bloggers are online and less likely to be dealing with it.
I’ve also been watching the Akismet graph and even though there is still 14 hours left in the day the amount of spam it’s reporting is almost as high as yesterday and yesterday was the second highest recorded day of comment spam in the time since they started tracking it. Looks like today will be a new record.
I have enabled the option in WP to make sure that you have to have had a comment approved previously for your comment to escape moderation. This means none of the spam is actually going up live on the blog which is something at least. It does mean however that I have a massive list of comments to moderate (legit ones and spam). Apologies to first time commenters whose comments are all being put in the queue.
If this doesn’t stop before I go to bed in a couple of hours I might need to disable comments overnight tonight as I don’t really feel like facing 500-1000 comment spams when I wake up tomorrow! Apologies in advance if I do disable them - it’ll be temporary.
Written on July 29th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse
BlogHer in Spirit
I think most people are aware that the BlogHer conference is currently under way in San Jose. From what I’ve read about it - it’s going really well and there are some wonderful bloggers in attendance.
However not everyone is in a financial or life situational position to be able to attend and while there’s plenty to read on their blog about what’s happening Phat Mommy is encouraging non attendees to attend BlogHer in Spirit. It’s a nice idea and she’s followed it up with a post on Friday’s topics.
A number of bloggers have picked up the idea and run with it including Erica from LittleMummy withtwo posts on first day workshops - the first on audience building and the second on generating an income from blogs (official page on the sessions).
update: Jen is Live Blogging from Blogher, Huffington post has notes on the keynote and Laura is sharing some impressions - as it Lipsticking.
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