Blogging Technology

WordPress ·gives bloggers ·amazing ·power to engage ·their readers and· to make their ·blogs very appealing ·to search engines. ·

This means you’re ·giving the search ·engines what they ·want, and they’ll ·reward you with WordPress ·gives bloggers ·amazing ·power to engage ·their readers and· to make their ·blogs very appealing ·to search engines. ·

This means you’re ·giving the search ·engines what they ·want, and they’ll ·reward youmore and more· web site traffic over time. Yet, many WordPress bloggers aren’t taking advantage of some of these hidden gems.

Of ·course, many ·people host their ·blogs on Blogger.com or TypePad, but that’s another story for another day. The short version is that while WordPress may look a little intimidating at first, it’s just as easy to manage as TypePad, and has immensely more flexibility than either Blogger or TypePad.

Oh, ·and if ·your free Blogger·.com blog mysteriously disappears overnight (as we had happen once), you have nobody to call. So if your blog matters, get yourself a good web host and give it some WordPress lovin’.

These· are the vTop 10 Must-Have vWordPress plugins that every serious blogger should be running. Yes, they are a handful at first, but it’ll be well worth it. Set aside an afternoon to give them a try, and watch your readership and your free search engine traffic go through the roof.

Get ·lots of ·Search Engine Optimization· (SEO) goodness with a Tagging Plugin

We’ve ·all been s·eeing tags show· up all over the place, as a replacement for categories. They’re everywhere, from Amazon.com to all your favorite blogs. Their main purpose is to segment your information so your readers can easily find it - kind of like categories, just a little more flexible.

But ·tags are ·very important for ·SEO, since tag pages rank very well in natural search engine results. This means that a well configured tagging plugin can help you get more web site traffic for free.

We use the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin for tags, and recommend it highly. It’s a little complex to configure at first, but then it just works.

After ·you install ·and configure your· new tagging plugin, remember to display the tags for each post under that particular post. The tagging plugin will create a “tag page” for each tag, so clicking on a tag will list all the posts on your blog pertaining to that tag.

One ·thing you ·may not realize ·at first is that for every tag you create, a new page is create on your blog. You can quickly go from 20 pages to 800 pages - tons of good quality content for Google and Yahoo to slurp…

A ·bonus tip: ·when showing these ·tags, configure them to point to the particular tag page on your site, i.e. NOT to Technorati or elsewhere, which is often the default configuration. This way the search engines will also find and give importance to these pages.

Make ·it easy ·for readers to ·RSS subscribe to your blog, with Feedburner

Just ·a year ·or two ago,· RSS was the domain of the hopelessly nerdy and geeky. Fact is, most modern desktop software, from operating systems to Internet browsers, is coming out with RSS support. And your readers want to access your content over RSS. So are you going to make it easy for them or not?

What’s the best way to configure and track RSS for your readers?

While ·WordPress comes· with good built·-in RSS support, FeedBurner provides some great “finishing services” that you won’t want to miss out on. They’ll transparently format your feed so that any RSS reader will be able to read it. Also when people click on your “sign up my RSS feed” button, they won’t get a jumbled confusing mess in their browser. FeedBurner detects a regular browser and shows them a pretty HTML subscribe page.

More ··importantly for many bloggers·, they’ll give you feed analytics. Yep, you’ll find out how many people are actually reading your RSS feed. Pretty cool.

To ·get set ·up with FeedBurner, ·download and install the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin. Then follow the directions to create a FeedBurner account and configure your new RSS plugin with the specifics of your new FeedBurner feed.

As ·an added ·bonus, your new· FeedBurner plugin will automatically redirect all your current RSS subscribers who are on your blog’s original feed, and get them all pulling on that shiny new FeedBurner feed. So you’ll have real numbers on who’s reading your blog by RSS.

Should· you provide· a full or ·just a partial RSS feed?

This debate has been raging in blogger circles for years. Many bloggers are afraid to provide a full feed, because some spam blogs may pull their feed and get their original content scanned by Google first. This means the spam blog will get Google original content credit.

This· is technically ·a fair concern·, thought it’s a little short sited. A professional blog with a strong following will be Google cached MUCH more quickly and frequently than some fly-by-night AdSense spam blog. Those tend to have a short life expectancy to begin with.

On· the other· hand, there are· people who will read your blog ONLY if they can get it as a full RSS feed. They like to use their feed reader, and that’s it. So it’s up to you to decide if you want those readers or not.

More ·often than ·not, your best ·bet is to listen to your audience and give them what they want, the way they want it. Don’t base your decisions on fear and a lack mentality.

Keep ·your readers ·engaged and on ·your site longer by showing Related Posts

Visitors to a new site are amazingly flighty. They take a few glances around and decide quickly if it’s worth staying. The ones who stay are usually sucked in by the great content on your blog.

What’s ·the point ·of showing related· posts? Does it really matter?

When· a reader ·comes to the ·end of that very captivating article, what is it they want more than anything in the world?

Since· they took t·he time to ·read your article, their brain is focused on that topic, and it’s feeding on that very yummy content. And by it’s very nature, it’s screaming for more! Showing a list of related posts at the end of an article is a brilliant strategy to keep readers engaged and ON YOUR SITE!

How ·and where ·should you d·isplay related posts on your blog?

The ·best place ·to show r·elated posts is a bulleted list right at the end of the article. Our stats show that links just below the post have the highest click through of any location on the page!

We· went with ·the ·WASABI ·Related Posts plugin, since it’s the most popular related posts plugin, and it just works. Keep those readers hooked. Remember, the first taste is always free!

Add related posts to your feed as well

As ·an added ·benefit, you can ·display related posts Just like showing related posts under a particular blog post on your site, this is a great way to engage RSS readers by giving them more options. This means more to choose from if they don’t like the particular item they’re reading, or they just want more!

Use this plugin which brings together UTW and WASABI Related Posts to add a list of related posts to your feed.

Dust· off and ·feature some o·f your older posts by showing Random Posts

Over ·time, dozens ·and then hundreds ·of posts get buried and abandoned in the archives of most blogs. A great way to bring these out is by featuring Random Posts in a spot either in your sidebar or somewhere around the list of Related Posts.

There ·are many ·reasons to pull up ·these. First of all, the search engines are still sending visitors to those post, IF they know how to find them. Getting even more activity there means better rankings for those posts in the search engines, and thus more web site traffic. Yumm.

This ·is now easy·to do since the ·good people who brought you the WASABI Related Posts plugin have also made available the excellent WASABI Random Posts plugin.

Get your readers involved and keep their interest with Latest Comments

People love to talk and share their opinions on all kinds of topics. But most people don’t want to be the first to say something.

Get ·them talking ·and involved ·by highlighting the· latest comments across all the posts on your blog. As your blog grows in size, you’ll find people landing on older posts from search engine or direct traffic, and leaving comments on those. Showing those comments in a “latest comments” list will prompt more discussion on those topics. And more content on those pages is a great way to get even more search engine traffic.

This ·is great to· feature to add i·n your sidebar, thus getting yet more comments and visibility to those previous posts. We recommend Brian’s Latest Comments plugin. It’s simple, very customizable, and works great.

Sh·ow off your ·Most Pop·ular Posts - new visitors love these

Captu·re the intere·st of your new vi·sitors and regular readers by giving them easy access to your best and most popular articles.

The most popular articles are generally those that are the most interesting to your readers - unless you do very strong and focused social media or other promotion, but this is generally not the case.

Be ·aware that ·there IS a ·little increased overhead on your system with this, since the plugin will record EACH view of EACH post on your site by logging ALL these views in your MySQL database. This shouldn’t be an issue, but can add up if your site gets over 50,000 visitors a month.

We· use the· Top Posts by Category Plugin.

Give ·visitors and search ·engines an easy way to navigate your blog with a Site Map

New visitors often like to look around and get their bearings

A ·site map· is very helpful· to give your visitors an at-a-glance view of your site, how it’s organized, what information is available where, and so on.

Search engines depend on site maps to find all of your buried articles

Search engines can’t send you traffic if they don’t know what great content is hiding on your site. Let them quickly and easily find all our your articles with a dynamically generated site map.

For· a quick ·example, see ·what we’re doing with site maps in the footer of our www.AskDanAndJennifer.com Dating & Relationship advice column.

First, ·create an a·utomatically updating ·HTML site map page for your visitors

This is mainly for your visitors, but also for some search engines that happen to find it. This is not a plugin per-se, but rather a custom WordPress page that auto-generates your site map. Get it here.

Then, create a Google XML site map for your favorite search engines

Get the Google XML Sitemap Plugin, which auto-generates a site map in Google Site Map format. This plugin also updates the site map every time you make a blog post.

You ·absolutely do ·NOT want ·to be updating a site map by hand every time you post. Unless of course you would find that therapeutic.

Bonus· tip: To ·get the most ·benefit, add your UTW tag pages to your dynamic site map with the Google Sitemaps - UTW Tag Addon plugin.

Help· your visitorsv promote and spreadv the word about your awesome articles and get you more web site traffic

People· love to share· cool stuff they find with others. They also like to bookmark good articles and websites for later. Social media makes sites like del.icio.us and even Netscape.com and Digg make it possible to do BOTH of these at once.

Make ·it easy for vyour readers to spread ·the word about you, and they’ll do it. Use a social media plugin that automatically pre-fills the fields for these visitors to submit your article to these social media sites.

Many· people use ·either Alex King’s Share This plugin or the newer but very popular AddThis.com plugin.

Place· this widget ·in a p·rominent spot· toward the end of your post, and watch others spread the good word for you.

·Encourage bloggers to c·omment on your blog by linking back to their sites

When ·people leave comments ·on your blog, it’s customary for them to enter their web site address. It’s only fair that people who leave insightful comments should get a linkback from your blog to their site, and get some search engine goodness from it.

Whether·you think it’s ·fair or not, ·this is still a great motivator to get ambitious bloggers involved in the discussions on your blog.

Disable the WordPress nofollow tag

WordPress· is configured ·to mark all these linkbacks with the “nofollow” attribute, so that they are ignored by Google and other search engines as far as SEO value to the commenters blog.

There’s ·a movement to ·encourage comments by disabling this “nofollow” tag for comments left on WordPress blog. Of course, there’s a DoFollow plugin that will do this for you.

Feature your top commentators on your sidebar, with a full link to their site

A ·similar and vmore powerful way· to encourage serious commentators to become involved in the discussions on your blog is to feature the top 10 or so commentators in your blog sidebar. Only the true top contributors will show up in this list, and it’s well worth the sidebar real estate to encourage the conversation these readers will often facilitate.

This ·can easily be ·done with the WordPress Top Commentators plugin.

What plugins do you use? Which are your absolute must-haves?

There are many other plugins available for WordPress, to perform just about every imaginable blog task. Leave a comment below and let us know your favorites.

Bloggers ·who are · interested ·in building ·high traffic to ·their blog and ·maintaining a successful ·blog should pay ·particular attention to ·Search Engine Optimization ·techniques which can ·help them improve the search engine rankings of their blogs. All search engines employ some type of algorithm that brings up the resulting links when a user searches for something. No, all search engines don’t use the same algorithm. But that’s not what this discussion is all about. I’m sure all of you are interested in getting your website/blog listed in the topmost search results. Am I not ? Well, listed below are 5 simple tweaks that can greatly influence your ranking in the search results.

1. Keyword Optimization -:

The ·use of ·relevant ·keywords in blog ·posts is one ·of the most common and also one of the simplest ways to optimize search engine ranking. It will increase your ranking if you use commonly searched words like for example: If you have a gardening site, you might want to use the word “Home gardening” or maybe even “House-keeping” more in your posts. As a result, when people actually type those phrases in the search box, your website is shown earlier because of the use of it in your web page is higher than the rest.

TIP : Don’t ever overdo it.

2. Get Link Love -:

Many search engines (almost all) rank your site on basis of the number of back links that lead to your site. Now basically you could do link-exchange. But search engines will rank you even higher if you get one-way links. It’s simple: The more back links one has, the more earlier is his page displayed in the search results.

TIP: Try and get as many as One-way links . It’s always more effective than link exchange.

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.

The most popular service is called Twitter, which was launched in July 2006 and won the Web Award in the blog category at the 2007 South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. The main two competitors to Twitter are Jaiku and Cromple.

Recently, however, many new services, with the same feature of micro-blogging are being born. Digg founder Kevin Rose, together with three other developers recently launched a service called Pownce, which integrates micro-blogging with file-sharing and event invitations. A Norwegian developer has also launched a service called Folkstr, which integrates micro-blogging with social networking

The popular social networking websites Facebook and MySpace also have a micro-blogging feature, called “status update”.

In May, 2007, an article counted a total of 111 Twitter-like sites internationally.

A blog is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

Blog may also refer to:
* Blog 27, a Polish musical group fronted by Tola Szlagowska
* Alcohol, in science-fiction-fandom slang
* BladeLogic, a software company with stock ticker BLOG

The ultimate “thing” to tag your post in the Wordpress blog.

A must have for all bloggers.

Ultimate Tag Warrior 3

tagging is the only thing which will be the factor for your post to be in the search engines.

do i need to say more.

The ·design of ·your blog definitely ·helps to attract ·new visitors but the textual content will always rule the search engines and of course, the mind of your readers. The following 10 tips will give you some ideas for improving your content and keeping your readers interested:

1. Pick ·a focus ·or a niche.

There ·are something ·like 77 million ·blogs. In order to gain readers who are interested in your content, it helps to write about what you know, whether that be sports or politics or parenting. Niche blogs are a fast-growing concept, and blogs about knitting, cooking, gardening, and crafts are attracting more attention.

2. Decide· if your· content will be ·family-friendly or mature, and then stick to it.

You· have to· write in your ·own “voice”, and your content should match it’s subject. If your blog is a way for your Grandma to keep up with what your kids are doing, then you probably shouldn’t use too many swear words or have ads with scantily-clad women in them.

3. Don’t ·feel obligated ·to post every· day unless you really want too.

Depending ·on the ·focus of your ·blog, you might not have a reason to post every day. And there is nothing more boring than a post that starts with “Well, there’s not much to say today.” Then, don’t say it! Wait until you have enough material for a complete post.

4. Treat ·your blog ·posts like a ·piece of real writing.

This ·is a mistake· that so many ·bloggers make. It’s okay to once in a while publish a post that is made up mostly of links to other things, but the majority of your content should be carefully thought out with a beginning, middle, and end. Break your content up into short paragraphs rather than long ones. Start with an opening paragraph to introduce the topic, middle paragraphs to give information, and an ending paragraph that sums everything up.

Here ·is a ·list of some ·very creative ways ·which can help you make your blog popular. If not popular, at least it will give you some ideas of what to post on your blog if you are running out of topics to write about.

1. Start ·a controversy. ·Just remember not ·to cross the line.
2. Start ·a contest·. Make ·sure to end it too.
3. Give away free goodies. People love them.
4. Write about other bloggers to interest their visitors to read your blog. Keep it positive.
5. Dress up your blog often (By dress-up I mean tweaking the design)
6. Interview other bloggers and post the interview.
7. Write about your personal life sometimes.
8. Ask questions to your visitors.
9. Share some secrets.
10. Celebrate your birthday with your visitors. Think of innovative ways for doing this.
11. Celebrate your blog’s birthday too.
12. Write something funny or disgusting. (Don’t make it a habit)
13. Make a bumper sticker with your blog’s name and stick it on your car. (Just make sure you drive often)
14. Write an e-book and distribute it to your visitors for free.
15. Introduce a commission based affiliate program.
16. Tell your visitors about your latest fad or obsession.
17. Post interesting pictures of your pets.
18. Congratulate the top commentators occasionally.
19. Encourage sharing of opinions.
20. Donate for a cause or become a volunteer for a non-profit organization. Ask your visitors to join you.
21. Put your blog’s ad in the local newspaper or the yellow pages.
22. Hold blog competitions.
23. Create polls.
24. Hold an auction and let people bid for something useful (For example, advertising space on your blog).
25. Write about your blog achievements.