Since Web 2.0 (Learn more: Wiki) enables virtually anything we choose to be automatically processed and published, content creators (Bloggers, etc.) need to know how to take full advantage of such services. Thankfully, Wordpress allows bloggers to use these automatic services for free and with ease. However, taking full advantage of these automatic services requires a small addition to your control panel. (more…)
As most of y’all probably know, Wordpress 2.7 [Coltrane] has entered the scene.
This new version of Wordpress sports yet another interface change, and a bunch of new (and rather amazing features). Though I haven’t upgraded yet, I have played around with the new interface over on Wordpress.com - and I’m impressed. It appears to be well done, easy, and more efficient. Many of the new features, like built-in stickies, mass post editing, and replying to comments right in the dashboard, have me drooling. However, I am reluctant to upgrade.
The trend for new version’s of Wordpress result in an “urgent” security fix/bug fix just a few weeks later is very consistent. While I think the people over at Automattic are awesome, and I love them for continuing to improve the (arguably) best blogging platform in existance, they always seem to create problems with new versions of Wordpress. (they’re already talking about v2.8)
New versions of Wordpress, (practically) always introduce new security problems, bugs, and (with few exceptions) outdate plug-ins. I’m almost done with plainbeta’s re-design, and I don’t want to upgrade to Wordpress 2.7 because I haven’t been able to find a Related Posts and/or a Popular Posts plug-in that works on Coltrane!
Once I do find such plug-ins, I will gladly upgrade to what appears to be the best version of Wordpress yet. Until that time, I’m going to stick with Wordpress 2.6.
Haven’t heard about Wordpress 2.7? Check it out!
Upgrading Wordpress has been one of my greatest fears since my first upgrade back in October of 2007 - after all, I nearly lost my blog in, what I’ve dubbed, my near Wordpress disaster. For that upgrade, the wonderful Automatic Upgrade Plugin wasn’t working for some reason, so I had to do it manually - nearly resulting in disaster.
However, this time around, the Automatic Upgrade Plugin worked and upgrading was a breeze.
Though I have only been using Wordpress 2.5 for a few minutes, I must say it’s beautiful. The interface is wonderful - user friendly and very versatile.
While the blue is a little too ‘baby blue’ for me…
They layout is extremely well designed and easier to navigate.
There are also many new subtle (and very nice) features - but if you’re curious to what they are… fire up the Automatic Upgrade Plugin and give it a whirl.
I do have one problem with Wordpress 2.5 - though the blame isn’t entirely at the geniuses over at Automattic…
The Popularity Contest plugin does not work. I’m hoping that Alex King (the author of the plugin) fixes it soon - because I would have no clue where to begin.
In the mean time, I look forward to exploring the many new features of Wordpress 2.5 and can’t wait to launch my new look - because this one is really starting to bother me…
As we learned before, getting links is the only way to increase your Google PageRank. So the question that would follow is, how do you get links? But there’s a little more to it than just getting links. Some links have more influence than others… the better the content the greater chance of links… so there’s more to it.
Now, I know this horse has been beaten to dead, so I won’t make this complicated.
Without further ado, let’s dive into increasing PageRank.
First of all, good content gets you links.
Plain and simple.
If you don’t have good content, no one will link to you - no matter how many strategies you use.
Beyond that, it’s mostly chance and timing.
But what can be done, I’ll share.
Different strategies work better for some people, and others work better for others.
So I’ll share what has worked for me.
In my experience, commenting on other blogs is the best thing you can do.
In the past, commenting on other blogs has been my greatest source of visitors.
By posting high quality and in-depth (that’s key) comments on similar blogs, you get the attention of that blogger and it’s regular readers and commentators. Then that blogger (or those readers) will get an interest in your blog and check you out. Those visitors will then (most likely) subscribe to your RSS. When they’re subscribed to your RSS, they’ll stay up to date with your articles, and give you links.
Further more, if the blog you’re commenting on has DoFollow enabled (Learn more about DoFollow), then you’ll get some PageRank credit from that as well.
After commenting on other blogs, participating in forum with a link in your signature would probably be best. The same principals apply - so I shan’t repeat myself.
Another great link and traffic source is Wikipedia
Wikipedia is ranked 8 by Alexa (11.28.07) and it’s traffic is still climbing. That’s a lot of visitors. Granted, they’re browsing a lot of pages, but why not get a link to a page on your web site on this traffic monster?
Note: Your link MUST pertain to the article. If the link isn’t relevant, and you’re persistent - your entire web site shall be banned from Wikipedia. (Read the Wikipedia policy on External Links for more info.)
I have done this for one of my previous sites (that is now offline) - and I got a lot of traffic. I don’t remember the specific statistics, but I got most of my traffic from links from about three Wikipedia pages.
Ok…
so those tips weren’t out of the ordinary…
but sometimes we all need to be reminded of them.
Do you have any other strategies that work for you?
Whooh boy - what an interesting episode BlogRush has been. In mid-september, BlogRush entered the blogging world promising many new visitors to your blog. BlogRush then had some spam issues and spam-blogs putting the widget on their site. The results were disastrous. BlogRush lost credibility for it’s links and for obtaining visitors. But even so, it had potential and I urged bloggers not to throw BlogRush out just quite yet. It had potential, but needed some refining. Then at the end of October, BlogRush launched version 2.0 with many new updates and more promises.
Being a blogger, I was interested again. The only true way to discover the truth was to try it out again - so I did.
I wanted to know for myself if BlogRush would really live up to it’s promises. It didn’t.
Since October 31st, my links were placed on BlogRush widgets across the web over 7,500 times - out of all those links I was clicked on a grand total of 5 times.
Sorry, but a click-through rate of 0.06% isn’t good enough for me.
Conclusion: BlogRush isn’t what it made it self out to be.
I am now removing the widget from my site.
Sorry BlogRush.
Google PageRank - it’s what all web designers, web masters, and bloggers covet. Despite this desire for a higher number, an aura of mystery surrounds both Google and it’s PageRank - and for good reason. Google’s inner-workings is a closely guarded secret. However, back when Google first started they published the equation that calculates PageRank. They most likely use a variation of that equation, but the original will be good enough for our exploration purposes.
The Formula:
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))*
where t1 and tn is the pages linking to Page A, C is the number of outbound links on Page A, and d is the ‘damping factor’ - which is normally 0.85.
If you’re mathematically challenged (like me) - here’s a simpler way of looking at it:
Page A’s PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 x (a share of the PageRank of every page that links to it)
Basically, get links - get PageRank.
But there’s more to it than just links - so let’s dive into that.
When Page B links to Page A, Page B is ‘voting’ for Page A. Page A’s new PR is Page B’s PR x 0.85 + 0.15.
If Page B and Page C links to Page A, then Page A’s new PR is Page B’s x Page C’s x 0.85 + 0.15.
Simple, right?
Well, it seems so - but there is more to consider.
To keep this post manageable, I’ll speed through them.
If you look closely at the equation, you’ll notice that the worth of the link is divided by the quantity of links on that page. Thus, the more links on one page, the less they’re worth.
Google’s PR system isn’t the smartest. For example, http://plainbeta.com, http://www.plainbeta.com, and http://plainbeta.com/index.html are different pages to a crawler.
(So standardize your pages!)
The maximum PR increases as the number of pages on the site increases. So the more pages you have, the greater your PR can be. This is why you should submit your sitemap to Google through Google’s Webmaster Tools. If you’re a blogger using Wordpress, use the Google Sitemap Generator to index your site and submit it to the Google God.
Paid links are another thing to consider. In fact, there has been quite a hype in the past with bloggers losing their PR because of paid links and then getting it back by removing them.
So, don’t put paid links on your site if you’re concerned about PR - if you do, you’ll be penalized.
Update: However, if those links have “nofollow” (What’s NoFollow?) enabled, then it’s alright to have them. However, Google can be finiky, so things could get a little hairy - but you should be alright. (thanks to David Airey for the reminder)
And link farms… Some people believe they’re great - others don’t. If you get a link on a link-farm - it won’t be worth much. Remember what we learned earlier, the more links on a page - the less they’re worth. And often, Google will ignore link-farms in their calculations. Furthermore, if you link to a link-farm, you could be penalized.
And finally, Cookie-cutter pages (multiple pages that are exactly or nearly alike) can penalize your site. If you were to buy half a dozen domains, and put the exact same thing up with links to your web site(s), that would be a cookie-cutter site. That could spell trouble.
Want to get some tips on how to increase your page rank?
Check out the next post in The Quest for PageRank series: How to Increase PageRank.
Continued from: Why Blog? - Part I - What is Blogging?
Why Do People Blog?
To find out why people actually blog, it would be best to ask the bloggers themselves. Deron Sizemore of RandomJabber.com says, “I blog because I enjoy it. I feel like I’ve got a lot of ideas to share that I hope a lot of others can benefit from.” Another blogger, Simon Ward of Pingable.org, shares similar sentiments. “I enjoy writing about the topics I blog about. I enjoy learning, you never stop learning, and I learn a lot when I blog.”
Adnan of Blogtrepreneur.com blogs for a different reason. “I blog in order to build relationships with fascinating people who share similar interests and characteristics to me… A blog can be a great way to build these relations as it’s primarily a form of conversation between me and my readers.” Adnan also blogs “to build Blogtrepreneur into a base where I can launch successful websites and products from in the future.” In fact, Adnan has used his blog to launch a blog evaluation service called blogLOUDER. Adnan used his blog to launch blogLOUDER and since then, blogLOUDER has done remarkably well.
As previously stated, arguably the second most common reason to blog is for financial income. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net and Digital-Photography-School.com started blogging primarily because he enjoyed it. Now Darren is making a six-figure sum from blogging - and loving it. Many others are hoping to achieve financial freedom as, just Darren has done. Tomaz Mencinger of FreedomIdeas.com and TennisMindGame.com current job contract will end on December 31st, 2008; he hopes to be “financially and personally free” through blogging and other entrepreneurial ventures. He is currently making upwards of one hundred dollars a day from Adsense alone and is well on his way to ‘financial freedom.’
There are Bloggers on the other end of the spectrum. ‘Small Potato’ of WPdesigner.com doesn’t really know why he blogs. When asked the question, “Why do you blog?” he replied, “I have no idea. It just happened. About a year ago, I started a blog simply to publish free WordPress themes for people to use. As time passed by, I started publishing other types of content, like tutorials. I kept going from there. Right now, Wpdesigner.com is doing well and [is] publishing content other than free WordPress themes…”
As can be gleaned from the words of Bloggers - there are many reasons to blog. As stated, the most common reasoning is personal enjoyment, others seek ‘financial freedom,’ and others blog for reasons not explainable. Evidently the Blogging Empire is not likely to fall anytime soon; over 175,000 new blogs are created every day and over 1.6 million posts per day - that’s over 18 updates a second.*
Blogging allows anyone and everyone to get their voice out. Bloggers don’t have to hope to get their articles published in a newspaper to be read by a specific community. Bloggers can say what they want and make it available to everyone with the simple click of a mouse.
So why blog?
To be heard.
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