3 Reasons You Should Be Using a Related Posts Plug In
SEO is a term that is overused in the world of blogging and it's usually done so by people who have absolutely NO idea of what good SEO is compared to bad SEO. The truth is that 95% of bloggers probably don't have to do much more than use a good SEO plug in like All in One SEO and change your permalinks and you will be in good shape.
If you do want to take it a step further then there is a great little plugin called Related Posts that will benefit your blog in a number of ways.
Benefits of Related Posts
Internal Linking - Internal linking has a number of benefits and which is more important is up to you. If you make it a habit to build a number of links that link to your other posts then this will allow the Google Bot to more easily traverse your website and will allow more of your content to be indexed quickly.
Free Advertising - Using the related posts plug in will place a series of "related" posts at the end of your article. If a reader completes one article and liked it, sees a few more with interesting titles, then they are much more likely to click on them and read your content. Using this plugin is like free advertising for your older content.
Page Views - One "stat" that shows a readers interest in your blog and allows you to measure how compelling your content is to readers, is the number of page views for your site. The higher the number then the better, readers are enjoying your content and checking out other articles as well.
Tread Cautiously
The Plug In that I use is a "tag" plug in that uses the tag function of Wordpress. It is simple and very easy to install. As you search for RP plugins you will find about a dozen of them, tread lightly and be careful, they range from a snap to install to fairly complicated for a new blogger.
Take advantage of a simple way to advertise your content, if you are just starting out then you need all the help you can get. To find the plugin that I use simply click here . It couldn't be a simpler install, you just need WP 2.3 or higher since it uses the tags to associate posts.
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The Mystery of the “Post Slug”
Have you ever wondered what exactly a Post Slug is? When you write a post you see it to the right of the WYSIWIG and if you are like me, you simple don't mess with it. Everything seems to work just fine without touching it so better left alone right?
Well maybe. The Post Slug is something that 99.9% of Wordpress users probably just don't bother messing with, but it does have a purpose and you may find it useful. The Post slug basically becomes part of your permalink. Normally your permalink is made up of your post title depending on how you set them up in your options.
Let's take this post for example...normally my permalink would look like http://bloggingessentials.com/the-mystery-of-the-post-slug. For this example I am going to put "post slugs explained" in the post slug title. You can see the permalink becomes http://bloggingessentials.com/post-slugs-explained
Why might this be useful? Well it has its place I guess, if one wanted a shorter permalink than the post title would allow you can use a one or two word post slug and this will become part of your permalink. Sometimes we get rather wordy with our post titles but would prefer a more concise permalink for that post.
Whatever use you might find for it, at least now you know...."The Mystery of the Post Slug."
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Six Killer Wordpress Theme Sources
Bloggers of all shapes and sizes tend to obsess over their theme. Your WP theme is a reflection of you, it reflects your personality in many ways. I know when I first started out on my very first blog ever, I obsessed over finding the perfect theme.
I am not one for colorful, frilly, fancy themes which is why I like the clean, white look to the current theme I am using here. Tastes vary of course, so you can find a little of everything in the links below.
In any event I wanted to share with you some of the best sites I have found in my travels to find Wordpress themes. You can check them out below:
Free Themes
http://www.briangardner.com/themes - Brian is the author of this theme along with many others. Super clean code that is very easy to understand if you want to make modifications. I am holding a contest to win one of these themes at my other blog here.
http://wpthemez.com/ A great site where designers from all over the web post their themes and users Vote on them. A great way to eliminate some of the clutter surrounding free themes and get right to the good stuff.
http://www.wpthemesfree.com/ Thousands of free themes at this site. A lot of clutter but chances are you can find the theme that suits your personality.
Premium Themes
http://www.adii.co.za/ Adii is putting out some killer wordpress themes. I haven't had the pleasure of using one of them yet but I know the time is coming. He designs nice stuff and seems to be pretty active in the blogging community. Seems like a good guy for lack of a better word. Good guys usually stand behind their stuff. Check him out.
http://www.solostream.com/ Michael Pollock is the genius behind the scenes at Solostream. Some killer wordpress themes are coming out of his studio and his support is second to none. Most of his themes have videos posted on his site showing you how to modify different things. Hard to beat that for support.
http://www.uniqueblogdesigns.com/ You can find a lot of premade templates here for under 100 dollars that look fantastic or you can pony up some real coin and get a custom template designed for you from head to toe. This company rocketed to stardom when they redesigned www.JohnChow.com and www.ShoeMoney.com almost back to back.
That's it....my collection of my favorite killer wordpress theme sites....I am sure I have missed a number of talented designers so feel free to add them via the comment section. That way this article can become a resource for newbies for years to come.
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Being Social is Critical for Newbies
Whether you are just getting started on your blog or are a seasoned blogger, being active socially is critical for the success of your blog.
The more like minded people you can put your blog in front of, then the higher the likelihood that you will garner new readers.
Developing new readers and maintaining existing readers are what its all about for those who are taking their blogging seriously.
You I am sure have heard of the normal social channels such as Digg, StumbleUpon, delicious etc but I want to make sure that you are aware of another site that I have had a tremendous amount of success with, and that is www.blogcatalog.com.
Blogcatalog is a social forum where you can register your blog, join discussion groups, build friend lists etc in order to socialize with like minded people who might find either you or your blog interesting. There is even an entire category devoted to "Shameless Blog Promotion."
I have had my other blog registered there for a while and I just put this one on there tonight so traffic is non-existent at this point but I am sure within a day or two I will have a steady stream of traffic coming to see my pad. A site like blogcatalog can drive a lot of traffic to you daily or very little, it will depend on how much effort you put into it.
It costs you nothing, so I would invest the 10 minutes it would take to check them out and see for yourself. You won't regret it.
Anyone reading this already belong?
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5 Plugins for a New Blog
I am continuing my previous article on setting up a new blog and in this article we will discuss a few must have plugins that you should install right out of the gate.
If you haven't yet discovered the world of plugins when it comes to Wordpress, then you are in for a treat. Plugins allow an incredible amount of versatility and I would urge you that anytime you are trying to figure out a way to do something with your blog, do a Google search for your issue and add "wordpress plugin" to the search string. Chances are someone has already developed a solution.
Wordpress comes packaged with a great plug in and that is Akismet. It is a SPAM catcher and won't allow a bunch of junk comments to pollute your blog, but their are a few others you should really consider. Wordpress should package them with the zip file in my opinion but for some reason they don't. They are:
- All-in-One SEO Pack - A must have plugin for any blogger. SEO pack allows you to add keywords and a description to your post so that it fares better with search engines. The description is useful so that you can describe your posts rather than the search engines just using the first couple of sentences from your post. If you want to read a detailed article on it's use then read this article here from one of my other blogs.
- Feedburner Feedsmith - Forwards all Wordpress feed entry clicks to your feedburner feed. This plug in makes maintaining your feed a snap. RSS subscribers are a sign that people like your style and want more...don't make it hard for them to subscribe.
- WP Database Back-up - I recommend that everyone back-up their blog’s at least once a month. With this plug-in it couldn’t be easier to do this. Think of the work lost if you crash and lose all of your posts?? That would bring a tear to the eye of some Bloggers.
- Subscribe Remind - Inserts text and a link at the bottom of every post reminding readers to subscribe to your RSS feed. Again...subscribers are the foundation of your blog. Make it as easy as possible.
- Related Posts - This allows you to posts links at the end of your articles to archived posts that may be relevant. It decides what is relevant by tagging your posts or choosing to just pull from a relevant archive category. If a reader did read all the way to the end, then with this plugin activated they might read another article, rather than clicking out of your blog.
These are the basic plugins that I would install on day one. You will find dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of plugins available for Wordpress and just as many opinions on which ones you should be using. Be aware that plugins can cause problems if you are not careful installing and/or the author of the plugin isn't competent in programming.
Use the backup plugin above frequently and stick to the common and popular plugins at first until you get a better idea of what you are doing. You will run across a zillion "My Top xx Plugins" posts around the blogosphere, just tread lightly and be cautious.
These are my must haves.....what are yours?
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Permalinks for Newbies
If you are launching a new blog then you no doubt have your work cut out for you. It seems like no matter how hard and long you work at it, the site is never the way you want it to be. Rest assured this is perfectly normal and you aren't alone.
This article is intended for those who are just starting out with Wordpress as we will discuss some of the basic steps you should take once you have your blog set up. I am not going to cover anything to do with uploading, installing etc but rather the things you need to do to get your blog "ready" to be on the worldwide web.
Time spent early in this stage will pay off for you in the long run.
First thing right out of the gate....change your permalink structure. If you look at your "links" that show up in your browser window you will see see that Wordpress defaults to a funky looking link, this is awful for SEO (search engines) purposes and will make your blog difficult to navigate and difficult for search engines to categorize. Take a look at the example below.
What you want to do is go to your Dashboard, click on the "Options" Link, click on the "Permalinks" link and then review.
You can see what I have done; click the Custom box at the bottom and type /%postname% in the field and save your update. What this will do is create a permanent link to each of your posts that contains the postname. You have other options that will include the date, postnumber, etc, but it seems to be pretty widely accepted to use the postname as the permalink.
It is much more user friendly to both readers and more importantly Search Engines. This is what that ugly link above will turn into.
Much prettier....and again, much more search engine friendly. If you wait until your blog is established and has a lot of content, then making this change becomes a major pain in the butt....so set it up correctly right on day one.
My next article will discuss the plugins that you should install when starting a new blog so make sure you grab my feed - it's an article you won't want to miss!
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Newbies Guide to PageRank
If you listen to some bloggers you would think PageRank was like the Holy Grail but in reality, PageRank is a numeric value that is assigned by Google as a measure of how important a page is on the web.
Google calculates this rank using the number of your sites inbound and outbound links (an inbound link is another site linking to yours, and an outbound link is one that you are linking to yourself).
Google figures that these links are in essence casting a vote for that other page, as they figure that if the page had no relevance then why would you be linking to it? The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be, at least in the eyes of Google. It isn't quite that simple and we will discuss it further, but this is the definition in a nutshell.
The links are not all created equal in the eyes of Google. An inbound link from a PR5 site carries more "weight" or "influence" than an inbound link would from a PR2 site. The higher the value of the opposite page, then the more value the link carries.
You should also be aware that not all links are even counted by Google as they have a fairly sophisticated system for filtering out links from known link farms or link directories. They have recently become very stringent in regards to paid links as well.
Paid links were a pretty common practice in prior times, if a new blogger wanted a higher PR then all they had to do was buy a few links on a higher PR site and voila. This is a practice that Google frowns on these days and they often dole out penalties for those who partake in this practice. I have heard of PR5 sites being reduced all the way to PR0 overnight.
How is PageRank calculated?
The only formula that I have been able to find on the web to calculate pagerank is shown below and it is quite complicated. I am not sure that the average blogger gives a rip as to how, they just care more about what to do and what not to do to make it happen.
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))
This is the original equation that Google published back when they first started using PageRank and I have not been able to find anything different. The formula could very well have changed but you can get the basic premise of it here if you are a bit on the sadistic side.
In the equation above 't1 - tn' are pages linking to page A, 'C' is the number of outbound links that a page has, and 'd' is a dampening factor, usually set to 0.85; but again this may have changed since the time this formula was published.
A simpler way of looking at it:
PageRank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the PageRank of all pages linked to it)
"Share" = the linking page's PageRank divided by the number of outbound links on the page. So in theory a PR6 site with 100 outbound links might not give you the same value that a PR3 would give with only say 2 outbound links.
This is another reason to avoid link farms and directories; even though they have high PRs, they have hundreds if not thousands of outbound links. You don't get as much juice as you might elsewhere.
Very few topics get as much heat going on the blogosphere as PR and I am sure some have different theories than , but now you have a pretty decent understanding of how PR is calculated and what is involved. It's pretty simple - write good content, write a lot of content, drive traffic to your site, comment on other people's blogs, and you will likely see your rank raise in no time.
If you want to know where you stand right now then this site has a lot of great tools to monitor the health and well being of your site. You can check your backlinks, current pagerank, predicted pagerank etc.
What's in YOUR PageRank?
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