There are 3 things that you really need to accomplish to have a profitable blog.
It starts with keyword research. Finding keywords on your topic that are easily rankable and that buyers are using to search for items to buy is the first. There has to be enough traffic (people searching for the term) to make it worth your effort too.
Once you have found those types of keywords you need your blog set up properly to get your post on a keyword ranked higher. Little things in your settings can make a huge difference in where your post shows up in the rankings. One small change I made for a friend moved his post from page 4 to page 1.
Finally you have to have the proper monetization built into your blog. If you are getting traffic and do not have a way to generate sales you are not likely to be profitable.
In the past I have covered all three of these topics in teleseminars and for this weekend only you can get all 3 at over 50% off of the individual retail price.
I have missed a few posts the last few days because something more important came up. I needed to get introduced to the newest Paetzold, Miss Olivia Paige.
She was born Monday and came in at a sleek 7 lbs 12 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Last time I can ever mention her weight as I know better than to ask or tell a ladies weight.
Blogs can be a great way to keep in touch with your family. My grand daughter Maddie has had a blog since she was born and so will Olivia. Bought the domain just have not caught up enough to get it up and running.
This will allow their cousins that live in NJ, their great grandmother in NJ and their uncle in Texas to keep in touch with what is happening to them.
Now these are fun family types of blogs but to those that are the family and friends they are extremely valuable.
My family has quite a few but that is not surprising. My brothers grandkids race quarter midgets so they have a blog to keep us all updated of how they are doing good or bad.
So tomorrow I will get back to normal here and talk marketing and blogging but did want to introduce you all to the latest jewel of the Paetzold clan.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
There is a lot of confusion that people have on how blogs work. It can be quite confusing to those that are new or have only used static html pages.
Now this does not apply to just a WordPress blog but to any site that is using dynamic content.
When you look at the source code of a page that is in a browser you are seeing the compilation of a lot of pieces not the actual code that is on your web server.
The vast majority of your actual content and settings are in the My SQL Database and do not actually reside on the files that you have uploaded to your server.
Here is an example. When you load the index page of your blog your theme is going to pull in a variety of pieces like the header, the content, the sidebar and the footer to name just a few. See the image below.
Look at that in relation to what you see when you do a view source in your browser which shows just the actual html that is being displayed on the page.
Now that big piece of the source code above here is not all of the html pulled from just the very first line of what resides on the server that is being called when you go to your home page.
For curiosity purposes I copied the source code to an editor and that one single line on the index.php page generates 147 lines of html code from what it is pulling from server files and data base table settings on this blog.
As you can see the vast majority of what ends up being displayed to a visitor resides in the data base not on the server code.
This means that when you add a post, edit settings and things like this you are not changing the actual code on the pages that are on the server but these settings are being saved and called from the database.
So understanding that the what you are changing in the dashboard is being changed in the database. When you change the settings in theme options (if your theme has them) or in the plugin settings those are all made in the database.
Hope this helps you to understand how your blog actually works and as always your questions and comments are welcomed.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
There is lots of confusion about trackbacks and linkbacks so let me see if this old guy can clear things up.
Trackbacks according to Wikipedia
A trackback is one of three types of linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking, and so referring, to their articles. Some weblog software programs, such as Serendipity, WordPress, CuteNewsRU, Movable Type, Typo, Telligent Community, Kentico CMS and Drupal (via contrib modules), support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published. The term is used colloquially for any kind of linkback.
With current WordPress blogs and if you are linking to another current WordPress blog a trackback is not needed as long as you have the link in your content even as a hyperlink. Current WordPress platform will ping and create a pingback to that blog automatically. Pingback or linkback would be virtually synonymous on current WordPress blogs.
On some other platforms the linkback will not automatically notify the other blog by pinging. On those you will need to add a trackback.
If you are linking to some of the older legacy platforms you will need to create a trackback. Unfortunately I am not sure which platforms need this so if it is a different platform you may consider adding a trackback just to be sure that the other blog is notified.
Trackbacks will automatically ping when you post your entry. First you will need to get the trackback url which will be different than the regular url in most cases. Just click where you see the hyperlink for the trackback url.
Once you have the appropriate url you can add it to your post information by copying and pasting it into the trackback area when writing your post. (If you are adding more than one make sure there is a space between them.)
Hopefully this will help you understand the difference between trackback, linkback and pingback.
As always your questions and comments are welcomed.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Ever sit down to start your blogging and just stare at the screen? You know you have and it is the one thing that stops a lot of people from making blogging work.
The key is to have a topic. If you are like me once I have a specific topic sitting down and cranking out a blog post is easy. Coming up with the idea is where the problem usually comes in.
This is one of the reasons I rarely have trouble when I am doing my niche blogging simply because I have already created a list of topics when doing my keyword research. If you are not sure about doing keyword research check out EZ Keyword Research. So do the keyword research for your blog and you won’t lack for topics.
The real problem comes in when I am doing a blog like this where I am not as focused as I should be. I cover a lot of topics here although it is all about WordPress or blogging. It is a very general topic.
Now when I am getting lots of questions (you may have noticed I am always soliciting your questions and that is the reason) it is easy. Here is where you can use a survey of your readers to get future topics.
There are other ways to generate topic ideas.
First keep a notepad or tape recorder with you. I carry a little note pad and a digital recorder with me most of the time. I get ideas for posts at the strangest times and places and if I don’t make a note I will never remember when I finally sit down at my machine.
You can use Google News to keep track of what is new on your topic. Grab the feed of the news query and add it into your favorite feed reader (I use Google Reader) and you can just check it every so often and see what topics are hot. Quite often this will give you an idea or a different angle to address a topic.
Personally I like to add these into a mind map because it is easy to move them around and categorize and re-categorize ideas. Of course regular readers know that I tend to map out everything.
I find that once you understand how to use mind mapping that it makes it easier to write. Having your ideas and parts of your topic in order before you start writing always makes it easier and your content better.
Check out Discover Freemind to get a free download of mind mapping software and the opportunity for some training on how to use it.
Hopefully you will implement these ideas and next time you sit down ready to blog you will start writing instead of staring at the screen.
And oh yeah, leave your comments and questions below so I have more ideas for new topics .
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Yesterday I talked about the advantages to blog commenting and one of the comments mentioned that the only comments they get are spam.
With WordPress and some plugins you can eliminate most comment spam and here is how to do it.
First use two plugins.
Askimet which comes with the basic WordPress install
WP Spam Free which I have found to be quite effective
With Askimet you will need to get an API number to activate it. If you go to the configuration page in the top paragraph is a link to go register to get the API.
Just add the key into the box and update and you are running.
WP Spam Free just needs to be activated after you have installed the plugin and you are ready to go.
Now these two will stop the automated systems quite well so the only other spam comments are those that are done manually. These are the cretins that use the “Great post” etc types of comments.
For me if they come in once I just mark them as spam. Quite often that is enough and Askimet starts picking them up as spam. It is the ones that continue to come back that can become a pain. For those just ban the ip number and that will stop them.
To ban an ip from commenting just go to settings – discussion and towards the bottom of the page is a section called comment blacklist. Here you can add the ip as a separate line and it will no longer be able to comment.
You can also add in any name that will automatically keep a comment from posting as you can see in the image below.
These 3 things should allow you to stop wasting time with spam comments so that you can use that time to interact with those that are adding quality comments to your blog.
As always if you have an additional way to avoid comment spam or if you have a question on WordPress or blogging please leave you comments below.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Blog commenting can help you in a number of way and today I will discuss 3 specific ways. Before I do though a bit of a caveat.
Always make sure that you are adding value to the blog where you comment and please none of this “Gee I really like your blog” crap. Take the time to actually get involved in the conversation and show that you are not just trying to grab a quick backlink.
Here are 3 of the advantages to taking your time to comment on blogs.
Back link to your site
Direct traffic to your site
Exposure to your audience
Now lets look at these one at a time.
Back link to your site
When you are commenting you get to add your site into the registration box and this will create a back link to your site. Now be careful and use a name for registering because most of the better blogs will mark you as spam if you try and use anchor text instead of a name. (I will for sure on my blogs.)
Some will be using plugins like comment luv where you will get an additional link to your last post. (Like here.)
Direct traffic to your site
Some people will click through directly to your site. The better the comment you are leaving the more likely this is to happen. So the rule is add real value to the site you are commenting on and it will improve the chance you will get people checking you out.
Exposure to your audience
You should be commenting on the topics you cover on your blog and this gets you exposure to other readers that are interested in what you blog about. The more you are seen the more likely people are to see you as someone that know the topic and you are on your way to becoming a trusted resource.
So there are 3 advantages to commenting on blogs. Done right as part of your normal marketing plan blog commenting can help you build a following for your blog.
Let me know what other advantages you have found by leaving a comment below.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Now it won’t happen right away but as I just finished the blog tour Friday it is time to decide if it was good, bad or indifferent.
One of the best parts was that it made me create more content than I normally would. Each week there were an additional 5 posts to do for someone instead of just mine.
Because they were promised to someone else there was no procrastinating on getting them done. Giving your word in public definitely makes you keep on schedule.
It also helped me become more efficient in my blogging. As each week I was covering a specific topic and wanted the series to go together it saved time to do them together.
Once the planning was done the actual writing worked best and took the least amount of time when I did them in batches. It is something I have started doing on my other blogs for me.
Series on a topic tend to bring in more consistent traffic and the ability to interlink between them has helped the rankings in the search engines on some of the niche blogs.
So as a blogger the 2 month tour has improved my skills in some crucial ways. For quite some time I have been fairly prolific on my main blogs but this has and will continue to increase from this exercise.
The tour has increased traffic to this blog, added more people to my Twitter following and gotten my name and my content in front of new audiences.
Is it a lot of work to pull it off? You betcha. A blog tour is not for the faint of heart but the increase in traffic, the new friends and followers definitely has made it worth the effort and something I will do again in the future. (Just not in the next month or two )
If you want to increase your traffic, get exposure in more places for your message and willing to be organized and dependable then check out Nicole Dean’s Blog World Tour Guide and follow the plan.
Step out of the comfort zone and just go do it. I did and am glad I did.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Toady will be for those that want to use WordPress as a CMS system but not use it as a blog so they want to remove all the comment calls out of the theme.
Todays question:
Everyone has their own use for wordpress, many of us arent really using it for a blog rather a easy simple CMS, try understanding joomla! and you’ll understand why some use wordpress for CMS, anyway the comments are 100% unneeded on my site, I have found that its most likely listed in 3 pages, wp-content/themes/ common.php page.php and single.php havent got a working solution yet, but getting closer
Part of the problem with doing this is that each theme has the calls to add comments in a slightly different place. The calls are similar and you will need to look at the theme code closely to find all of the calls.
The three pages that need to be edited are usually single post, main index and the page and on most themes they will be called single.php, index.php and page.php but like all things that may be slightly different on your theme.
Before I start you should always have a backup copy of your theme before you start editing it. This way you if you make a mistake or have a problem you can go back to where you started easily.
The main page usually only has a link added to comments and that can be removed. The part to remove is highlighted below.
This will remove the comment hyperlink you see either at the top near the post title on your home page or it may be below the actual content depending on your theme.
There are usually two places to edit on your single post page because you will need to remove the call to pull in the comment box and there is usually a link near the post title. You can see a sample below where I have highlighted them.
Now the call to pull the comment box may be more complex on some themes. In this one it is only a single call but on some themes I have seen it be the full call for the comments.
The page will usually be the same as single.php and needs to be edited the same.
I usually don’t edit comment.php because that is the code that is called into the various pages and if you remove the calls form the pages it is never accessed.
Now WordPress can be used for many purposes including a squeeze page, a sales letter and a membership site along with being a static site and you can see exactly how to do all of these and more at WP Nerds.
Your comments and questions are always welcomed and I look forward to answering your question.
About the author
Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.
After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.
Normally I discuss how to use your blog effectively along with tips and tricks and usually when a topic takes over the blogosphere it is usually celebrity related or politically related. I stay away from those type topics here but this one is different.
The earthquake in Haiti has taken center stage and it has been interesting to see most blogs whether celebrity gossip based or political based on both the right and left. (The last two rarely are on the same page and usually at each others throat.)
You can donate through a variety of places to help these people and it can be as easy as sending a text message or donating through various web sites.
Here is a post that has a list of places where you can donate if you desire.
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