All Entries in the "Improve your blog!" Category

Rotating Videos In Sidebars

I’ve always liked having a video in the sidebar of my blogs, especially in the WP-Vybe theme that, for now, is my preferred Premium theme.

The problem is that, especially if you have your Right Hand Sidebar enabled in Posts, everyone keeps seeing the same damn video on every page load – boring!

You know what really helps in ranking well in Google! Well one aspect anyway? The time your visitors spend on your site!

Personalizing Your New Blogwam Blog – Part #1

Once you’ve got your new blog up and running under your control then you have some things to consider;

• Do you want to give it YOUR voice?
• How are you going to market/promote it?
• How are you going to add new content?

I’ll cover all these points eventually, but let’s start with some sidebar personalisation…

Twitter – Who Has The Most Followers?

Twitter, to me, was like texting – something I rarely if ever do. But there’s no arguing the fact that Twittering is the latest BIG Web 2.0 application to simply explode. Seems the world is divided into those who Tweet and those who don’t. Internet Marmite!

Personally I’m happy to add the ubiquitous “I Tweet will you follow” icon on a sidebar of my blogs but only because I’ve got the Twitter Tools plugin installed…

Meta Title and Description length – Optimum?

When I first looked in to the MSN Loophole thing it reminded me of basic ‘on page’ SEO techniques generally and while doing that I bumped into one that we should use every time we make a post but usually don’t.

I’m talking about a post or page’s META Title and Description and squeezing the right amount of letters ( and spaces) in there for maximum effect.

As usual, being lazy and in a hurry, unfocused and scatter-brained, I’d made the mistake of forgetting the basics. But,Google is ALL about the basics!

Putting Amazon Widgets Into Your Blog – Is It Worth It?

In times gone by Amazon’s affiliate account was a waste of time- 4% commission on a $9 paperback? Forget about it!

Well I don’t know if you’ve been to Amazon lately but 4% – 6.5% of the purchase price of a Rolex watch or 90″ Plasma TV is worth a new look I reckon!

Adding Or Changing Adsense Code In Your New Blogwam Site

More in the ‘new blog’ tutorials to get newbie owners of a deluxe Blogwam themed and tweaked site up to speed. In today’s video it’s about adding Adsense code to the sidebars and also how the cool pre-installed plugin ‘Adsense Deluxe’ works.

Some links to more Adsense advice and a list of Adsense alternatives…

Adding Ad Code To Your New Blogwam Site’s Sidebars

Your newly purchased Blogwam site comes fully loaded with various products that your visitors can purchase or apply for. initially those links point to my account so let’s change them to credit yours.

This tutorial will also be useful come the day when you want to run some new ads, or change the look of the sidebars…

So You Just Bought A Blog Eh?

This post, and others in this category, are specifically aimed at those very smart cookies who have either purchased a uniquely designed site from me on Ebay or the Sitepoint Marketplace and are now looking for tips and techniques to help with SEO and monetization of their all new site.

Also aimed at purchasers of the amazing WP-Vybe Theme around which all my latest sites, including this one, are based. Simply the best on the web in my (humble!) opinion…

To Ping or not To Ping!

Probably the biggest problem facing bloggers who auto-post too quickly is multiple pinging penalties – so if you’re running Caffeinated Content or similar for, say, 30 blog entries in a matter of minutes you’ve just pissed off a load of RSS aggregators/update services…

Auto Bookmarking Your Blogs – Black Hat?

Keeping to the Automated principle of blogging I like to get my posts bookmarked automatically too. That way you really can ’set and forget’ your new guest blog that you’ve now got access to via a Blogwam swap.

That being said it doesn’t hurt to pop back to your satellite blogs and give them a ‘boost’ every now and then and that’s where the latest Bookmarking tools come into play. But do they still have value and might you end up being perceived as a Bookmarking spammer? Practice restraint is my advice…