Open Letter to Automattic
Dear Automattic,
Thank you for, quite simply, the best blogging platform around. WordPress.com is a great way to befriend you.
However…
My back’s killing me, my brain hurts, and my eyes are rolling on the floor somewhere…
Here’s the thing:
I want to move from WordPress.com to GoDaddy using WordPress.
-
Setting up WordPress on GoDaddy – painless
-
Exporting – no sweat
-
Importing – still not sweating
-
Hacking together our own theme – done
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Automattically redirecting to our new domain – no way Jose!
Not only that, I have spent 90 minutes reading countless forum comments to come to the realisation that the “Domains” offering only goes one way; the opposite direction of where I need to go ;-)
Yes, I can put up a “I have moved” post, but this is so Web 1.0, and code is poetry – don’t you know?
Other like minds are in need of it too – see?
So Automattic, when you have some spare time, please please please fix it. If not, then please have a big red ”no we do not provide this” on the “Domains” page :-)
</rant>
PS: The X-hacker comment is very cute :-)
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
So you’re a small company with little or no marketing budget. What do you do? Guest posting on well known blogs is one way to get your name, your product, or your service out there.
Recently, Patrick Bisaillon of Piggy Bank Pie wrote a guest post for John Chow; a major coup. Originally, I had intended to interview Patrick for a follow up post here on how to contact bloggers, but his answers were too good to incorporate into a larger post.
As a result, I have chosen to publish his thoughts about his blog, his ideas for the future, and how he managed to get a guest spot on one of the biggest blogs around with his article: The Guest Bloggers Guide to the Blogosphere.
Please enjoy!
Lid: When did you start Piggy Bank Pie?
PB: I officially launched PiggyBankPie on Oct 1st 2007.
I’ve started working on the project around mid August, when I dropped out of the 30 Day Challenge. Now I guess I need to explain why I quit the challenge. ;-) Well, for those who have been active in the 30DC forums last August, I was the leader of The Teamless Team, until I couldn’t connect to the Internet for 3 days because I moved out to a new house.
When I came back 3 days later, all members had vanished and I ended up being team less. So after that I continued listening to the 30DC podcasts, but I decided I would not go for the gold and I’d simply try to get the most out of the learning material.
I started reading blogs about 2 years ago. Then, I discovered JohnChow.com via an interview on a TV show in Canada called The Lab with Leo Laporte (also broadcast in Australia.) I learned 3 things from this interview:
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The Make Money Online niche
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The existence of something called the blogosphere
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The power of blogging.
For me blogs were great sites where I was reading tech reviews, I had no idea bloggers were blogging about… blogging!
So while I was dealing with the idea of starting my own blog, I was also trying to find a niche. I came really close to start a blog on HDTV and Home Theater. But then came the 30 Day Challenge.
Lid: What are the original goals of Piggy Bank Pie and are you reaching them?
PB: My ultimate goal is to make enough money to pay guest bloggers publishing articles on PiggyBankPie. Am I reaching my goal? Slowly, yes.
In October there was not enough revenue to do such a thing. But November was different, and I was able to purchase 1 article per writer who contributed since the beginning. How’s December going? Can’t wait to see, but you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed for latest details on the story ;-)
Lid: Where would you like Piggy Bank Pie to be in one year?
PB: By being active as a guest blogger and expanding collaboration with other bloggers, I am hoping to enlarge my RSS subscribers and get better visibility. This should lead to increase in revenues for PiggyBankPie Writing Services and therefore money to pay authors contributing to my blog. If I have enough revenue in 1 year to purchase 2 articles per week, then I will be very happy.
Lid: Is this the first time you have guest posted at John Chow?
The Guest Blogger’s Guide To The Blogosphere was my first guest post on John Chow dot Com, and there will be a next time ;-)
It was the second post I sent him and John refused my first one because it was about Making Money Online. I guess he wants to protect his site’s credibility and I agree with that. We all know he’s making lots of money online, so he’s the best person to blog about this topic.
Lid: What type of relationship did you have with him prior to this post? E.g. commenting periodically for two months, subscriber for two years, uncle… ;)
PB: He’s my father! :-)
Just kidding.
I became a daily around May 2007. Then when I started the PiggyBankPie project, I thought it would be a good idea to launch an advertising campaign at the same time that I would officially launch the blog. So I contacted John by email and booked an RSS spot for $200. Basically, you get a note in the RSS feed saying “This post was sponsored by PiggyBankPie…” You may say it’s a lot of money, true, but it really helped me to get respectable traffic rapidly.
When you become an advertiser on a blogger’s site, I think you naturally open a channel that other bloggers don’t have access to. Since then I emailed John a few times and always got a reply.
Lid: Can we include a portion of his reply?
PB: You know, John is quite a busy man (John Chow dot Com, The Tech Zone, TTZ Media), so his replies are often straight to the point:
Hi Patrick,
Thank you. I will post this tomorrow.
John
Lid: Would you consider John Chow to be your mentor?
PB: I could say that, but my journey in the blogosphere came to a turning point when I met Maki from Dosh Dosh. Not long after I discovered John Chow dot Com I stumbled on Dosh Dosh and became a frequent reader.
Today I would say that both John Chow and Maki are great sources of inspiration for me.
Filed under: Blogging, Small Business SEO | 6 Comments
Tags: Guest Blogging, John Chow, Patrick Bisaillon, Piggy Bank Pie
Photo credit: Moaan
Stroke Executive Ego: Do not try to work out what your users want, it’s secondary, and too difficult to determine. Instead, make the boss happy first – after all, he signs the checks. He likes pumpkins? A pumpkin theme it is!
Do Not Create a Web Site Plan: It’s unnecessary; a waste of time and money for something no one refers to anyway. Honestly, Web sites aren’t meant to have a point – and – since when could Web sites make money anyway?
Disregard Landing Pages: “Landing page” is just another buzz term. Clearly, the most important thing is to drive people to your site, it doesn’t matter where they land; you just want them to land somewhere. If they can’t find what they want when they get there, it is not your problem – after all, you went to all that trouble creating the site for them in the first place.
Consistency Is Overrated: Be creative. Use different fonts and colors on every page – and while you’re at it – why not create a different logo for each page too; make it more interesting!
Do Not Worry About Your Copy: Writing well should be a minor concern – dno’t yuo nkow thta het odrre fo orwds si uinmprtoatn? If your visitors want to know about you and what you do, they will make the effort.
Do Not Include Testimonials: You don’t want someone else’s logo on your site – give me a break - a link to someone else? Ridiculous! So what if Forbes said your company is the best thing next to sliced bread? It’s old news.
Use Many Graphics: The more the merrier, in fact, the larger the better. If it takes longer for the page to load, that’s just bad luck – the pictures are worth it.
Use Industry Jargon: It shows you know what’s going on in your field; that you care about staying up-to-date with the terminology. Your visitors will respect that and learn.
Include Abstract Language In Your Tagline/Motto: If your visitor needs to spend some time considering what you do, and who you are, there is a greater chance that they’ll remember you for a longer period of time – it’s directly proportional.
Turn It Into A Game: Change the navigation scheme on each page to spice things up. Visitors like to have fun; it breaks up the dreariness of Web surfing.
Don’t Waste Money On Professional Images: Take or make your own. So, they’re not as great as the professionals; you never claimed to be professional in that area – do it. Better yet, if you come across a great image online – grab it quick. The odds that the person who owns it will turn up at your site are practically zero.
Link Thumbnail Images: One way to be super useful – if you sell products – is to open up a new window for your visitor. It’s expected. However, rather than create a different or larger image (and confuse everyone), use the same thumbnail image – voila!
Demand Registration: It is imperative you have visitor information on hand. Of course they have to fill out the same information when they buy your product - they know this – it’s not a problem. Make them register, login, and provide details when purchasing your product/service – it’s a verification process – completely acceptable.
Use Forms To Get Visitor Information: Put every question you can think of in your forms. No, 150 questions are not unreasonable. In fact, a useful one that is often overlooked is “Are you left or right handed?”
Spend Your Entire Budget On SEO: It’s about getting thousands of visitor’s right? It doesn’t really matter what they see when they get to your site – they’re there!
Count Hits: Seriously, it’s the most important thing. Knowing you had 500 visitors is more important than knowing why they came, and why they left. And hey, you can’t please everyone anyway.
Once you’ve created your site – LEAVE IT ALONE: Do not do anything else. There is really no need to waste your precious time monitoring to see what visitors are doing. You’ve done your bit, created the perfect online space for them, they should be grateful.
This post is inspired by a great giggle I got from visiting ScriptingSite and reading “How to Design a Terrible Website” and the new book: Web Design for ROI: Turning browsers into buyers & Prospects into Leads.
Read the book if you want to increase ROI (free chapter on forms available online), check out How to Design a Terrible Website for a smile.
Filed under: Web Design | 9 Comments
Tags: , Web Design
(Photo Credit: Karagos)
Guy Kawasaki talks lessons learned, and numbers involved in creating Truemors last night at PARC.
The Numbers
0 - Number of business plan drafts
0 – Number of pitches made to venture capitalists
7.5 – Number of weeks from registering truemors.com to launching it
4,500 – Cost of software development by Electric Pulp
4,824.13 – Cost of legal fees to set up new company
399 – Cost of logo from LogoWorks
1115.05 – Cost of domain registration
55 – Total number of domains registered to “surround” truemors.com at Network Solutions
1.5 – number of full time employees
3 – Number of times Tech Crunch wrote about Truemors
261,214 – Number of page views first day
14,052 – Number of visitors on first day
0 – marketing budget
24 – Number of years spent to make $0 marketing budget possible
405 – Number of truemors posted on first day
218 – Number of truemors deleted as junk, spam, or inappropriate on first day
3 – Number of hours before the site was hacked
36 – Number of hours before Yahoo recommended that we do not use their hosting service
29.95 – Monthly Yahoo fee
150 – Monthly break even after switching from Yahoo
2 – Number of days before Truemors was labeled the “Worst Website Ever”
246,210 – Number of page views on the day Truemors was labeled the “Worst Website Ever”
150 – Number of Google hits the week before launch
350,000 – Number of Google hits after 11 days
The Lessons:
- The blogosphere is full of angry people
- $12K goes a long way these days
- You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away
- Life is good for entrepreneurs these days
Questions? Ask in the comments
Filed under: entrepreneurship | 2 Comments
Tags: Guy Kawasaki, PARC, silebrities, Truemors
WordPress for Dummies
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of talking with Lisa Sabin-Wilson, author of the new book, WordPress for Dummies, for Tech Talk Radio Australia.
Unfortunately my recording didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped :-( and the interview was cut down to about six minutes; my producer, Andrew McColm has promised to do another interview with Lisa in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, here’s a transcript of the interview:
Lid: WordPress for Dummies. Long time needed; now you’ve done it, what inspired you?
LSW: Very long time needed. It’s about time WordPress got into the dummies format for WordPress users everywhere. What inspired me to write it is my love for the product
I’ve been using WordPress since 2003 which is when it first came out. I was originally using Six Apart’s product, Movable Type, to blog with, and when WordPress came out I made the move and haven’t looked back since
Lid: So why is WordPress so great?
LSW: There are several reasons why WordPress is so great. It’s free; and that appeals to people everywhere, from all walks of life. The biggest reason – it is so easy to use.
The really great thing about WordPress is that is perfect for the beginner who doesn’t necessarily know anything about coding HTML, or PHP, or CSS, or any of those alphabet type names. It is perfect for the new user because they can just log in; start posting, publish, and they’re done; their blog is up and they’re speaking to the world.
But what is excellent about it is that the product is so flexible, and so sensible that advanced users who do know, and who are savvy with web development, CSS, theme development, and PHP can also extend the product to fit and suit their needs as well. So it kind of covers all walks of life from a technology standpoint.
Lid: It also doesn’t dump advertising generally on your site
LSW: No it doesn’t advertise at all on your site
Lid: Tell me about the different flavors because this is where a lot of confusion stems from: dot com, dot org and MU.
LSW: There are the three different versions which are covered in the book; it gives a version of WordPress for everybody. So if you start with WordPress in its basic, simplest form, you’re talking about WordPress.com which is the hosted version of WordPress.
And what’s really nice about WordPress.com is that anybody can set up a WordPress powered blog within five minutes. They don’t have to install any software, or configure anything, or pay for Web hosting because it is all free, and the WordPress.com folk take care of all of that for you. It’s all right there and you don’t have to do a thing.
The next step from there is the WordPress.org software which is considered self hosted. What you need for that, is you do need a Web hosting account, you do need to have a domain name, and you will have to install the software on your own server, so WordPress.org does require a bit of technical knowledge and ability, whereas WordPress.com doesn’t require that at all.
And then WordPress MU – MU stands for multi user, and you will find sites like James Farmer – who is down there with WordCamp [Melbourne] this week, using it for his very, very successful place at edublogs.
WordPress MU is actually the software that WordPress.com runs on, and it allows you the ability to run several blogs on one domain. So you can have users signing up with just their user name and they could have a blog on like lidija.wordpress.com, and it allows you to have several hundred, up to thousands of blogs, within one network. So, it’s really good for blog communities and blog networks; people that want to really go in that direction.
So WordPress covers all genres of bloggers out there, which is a whole other thing that makes them really great.
Lid: With MU – is there a cost involved with that?
LSW: No, as with everything else with WordPress, MU is free. WordPress.com, WordPress.org, WordPress MU – it’s all free, open source software and anybody can use it.
Lid: What about spam – how do they deal with that?
LSW: Spam is a problem with any blogging platform, it doesn’t matter what you’re using whether WordPress, Movable Type. The folk at Automattic, which are Matt Mullenweg and the guys who are behind the WordPress development, developed a plugin for combating spam called Akismet.
It is a very popular plugin for WordPress, that kind that stops spam in its tracks. It checks the comments and trackbacks that are coming into the blog, runs it through several different spam filters, and makes a determination on whether or not it is a legitimate comment or if it is spam.
When Akismet hit the market it really made a huge – tremendous – difference with the amount of spam bloggers were getting on a daily basis, because we get upwards of several hundred, several thousand comments per day and it gets a little hairy.
Lid: Should users delete it, or mark it as spam?
LSW: Akismet learns, it learns with user input, so if everybody is marking these comments as spam, it allows Akismet to recognize these types of comments, either from their IP, or different headers they are sending to the server, so that they can filter them as spam in the future. Hopefully at some point they’ll be able to catch all the spammers – which would be really nice.
Lid: How does WordPress compare to the other products – Movable Type, Blogger, TypePad
LSW: To be fair to the other products out there, and I do want to be fair, each provides a different type of service depending on what you want to do for your blog; I’ve worked with probably all of the blogging platforms available out there and what I’m finding is that WordPress is easy to use.
I set up Web sites and develop Web sites for my clients. My goal is to create and set up sites that my clients are able to manage and maintain themselves – not have to pay me to maintain them for them.
[Lid: Lisa’s business is E.Webscapes]
Lid: Wall Street Journal, New York Times: Who else is using WordPress?
LSW: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Le monde in France, Harvard University, CNN, and lots of celebrities are using it. Rosie O’Donnell is using it to power her blog.
WordPress exploded; it really exploded. It is a very popular software and I still believe the reason for that is because it is so easy to use. And that it’s free. These companies are able to pay, but they choose wordpress because they find it to be easier for them and the people that work for them to use and update and maintain their websites
Lid: So who is blogging – why do people blog, and what types of people blog?
LSW: Types of people range from people who want to post pictures of their cats and dogs, to people who are running businesses large and small. Personal bloggers use WordPress and blog on the Internet to keep in touch with friends kind of as a hobby to do, but you’ve also got businesses who are using blogs to reach their consumers and reach their client base interact with their client base and create more of a presence the Internet, which is really, by the way, important for businesses these days – to have that Internet presence. And to have a blog really allows you to do that, because not only are you present on the Internet, but you’re interacting and there is feedback back and forth between you and your consumer base, which consumers are expecting more and more of.
Lid: Tell me a little about plugins and themes and tricky things
LSW: With WordPress.com you’re not able to use plugins. You’re not able to install them and you can only use the themes that they have available to you. So, what we’re really talking about when we talk about using WordPress plugins is the WordPress.org self hosted software.
So you have your hosting account, you’ve installed WordPress, and now you’re able to expand your blog and your site through the use of WordPress plugins. And there are literally thousands of them available out there. You can find them by searching Google, but you can also find them at the WordPress.org website. [WordPress Plugins]
These plugin developers create plugins that allow you to do things like give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your blog via e-mail. If you subscribe to my blog via e-mail then you would get an e-mail every single time I made a new post to my blog. So if you were that interested in what I had to say that would be great.
But that is not something WordPress does out of the box. That would be an example of a plugin or if you want to think of it as an add-on.
There are literally thousands of possibilities of what you can do in terms of managing comments, managing your posts, creating image galleries, using a lot of the social media sites, like Digg, Technorati, or Netscape.com. You can do anything from provide a better experience for your readers, increase publicity on your site, and even revenue – make money with your site. A lot of big bloggers are making some decent cash running WordPress blogs.
The themes, same as the plugins, there are thousands of WordPress themes out there. There is one website, themes.wordpress.net. There, users can find thousands of themes that they can just download, install on their blogs and activate with just a click of a button. It allows you to have a different theme, or find a theme that you like, or change your theme every day if you really wanted to; I mean the possibilities are really endless. And again, all; of this stuff is free.
Recently Matt Mullenweg who is kind of the head honcho over there, came in and took over the theme site a few moths ago, and cleaned it up, and made sure that the themes there were decent working themes and good representations of WordPress. That would be the best bet for people looking for free wordpress themes
Lid: He pulled out stuff that had ads embedded in it didn’t he
LSW: There was a strange trend going on for the last year. We were speaking of spammers, comment spammers, and the same genre of people found out that it is not that difficult to get a link to their site by creating WordPress themes and putting their links, in essence, in the footer of the site. So all of a sudden at the WordPress theme site, you saw hundreds of themes going up with gobs of advertising links at the bottom. Same type of stuff you see in your comment spam box – Viagra, porn sites, pharmaceutical companies – all in the footer of these WordPress themes. It kind of left a bad taste in the mouth for a lot of people in the WordPress community.
Lid: What are your 3 favorite plugins?
LSW: There is a plugin Alex King made called Share This. Once you’ve installed it on your blog, it puts a little icon on every singe post you make that allows users to submit your post to the various bookmark sites Digg, Technorati, Netscape.
Before Alex’s plugin, you would have seen a lot of blogs with all of those different social bookmarking icons underneath the post – so you could have anywhere from 5-12 icons mucking up the look of the post. That I love, my clients love that. It cleans everything up and it makes it very simple.
He’s got his WordPress projects listed on his site, and he’s developed several very useful [plugins]. He’s actually one of the original developers of WordPress. I don’t think he’s working with them anymore but he is very involved in the WordPress community through providing great plugins and again, free.
Lester Chan. He is a student, and he uses his WordPress plugins to put forward as he is going through school. People make donations to him because his work is fabulous. He’s got a couple of plugins that are just fabulous and one is called WordPress Print, and once you’ve installed it, it allows you and your readers to click an icon in your post, and it creates a beautifully formatted post that you can print
WordPress Database Manager, which is not a plugin that provides much value for your readers but it is a good plug in for you, the person that is managing the website because it allows you to manage your database, which is your mySQL database, that stores all of the data from your blog; all of your posts, comments, trackbacks, all settings, links categories – everything.
And it allows you to make a very nice back up. If I can just say a word about back ups – any WordPress users, it is really essential and extremely important to keep that database backed up because should anything happen to it; you lose everything you’ve worked for.
Lid: Business blogging - where is that going?
LSW: Business blogging has yet to reach its potential. I think that over the last couple of years there has been a real surge in business blogging and business are trying to make their way, and muddle through, and find their niche in the blogging market.
I think that as time goes by, people that are consumers of Internet technology are really learning and discovering the potentials are there. You’re seeing the emergence of social networking, you know like Facebook and My Space and Twitter, and all of these different types of social networking sites that are changing the face of PR and Marketing. I think we’re going to see some more refined emergence of business blogging out there as people really fine tune what they’re doing. Using blogs for business is really a great tool, really a super tool for reaching consumers, client base, colleagues, and networking.
Lid: Future of Web publishing?
LSW: Interesting. You talk to people and think, what is the next great thing, what is the next new thing? And blogging really hit the Internet 2004 ish, 2003 – when it really became the big thing, and as I said, it is going to become more refined now as people are using it more as community rather than individual blogs.
We’ll start seeing communities of niche areas and niche markets when it comes to businesses and when it comes to personal blogging your going to a see a lot more communities revolving around different interests. It already is becoming more of a group effort as people contribute to the discussion and conversation regarding several different topics of interest – you can find a blog on about just about anything; and if there is a blog about it there is a group about it; changing the conversation and changing the discussion on the Internet. It’s very exciting to watch and experience.
Lid: Blogs – the word blog – had this awful stigma attached – that’s changed a lot recently
LSW: I have been doing it since about 1998. In terms of Internet years, I’m just ancient. Then, you didn’t even want to admit you even had a blog because it was so ridiculous and it had that stigma attached to it you know, “Internet blog” but it has really gained a lot of street cred; credibility because people are seeing it as a really viable tool.
We talked about business, but aside from business blogs, in the area of politics, at least in this country, in the United States, blogs have a real strong voice here and politicians in our government, from 2004 have really recognized the power of what they call the citizen journalist; the power of the voice, and blogs really started giving the average Joe a voice in what is going on in this country. I think that blogs now are recognized by media, by government, by business, as a real solid strong force to be reckoned with
Lid: Your website, Just a girl in the world, how did you get the name?
LSW: So many people ask me that, and it is such an easy question. It is the name of a song by a group called No Doubt, and a singer by the name of Gwen Stefani. I like that song because it just says, tongue in cheek, I’m just a girl – what could you expect form me? The feeling behind it is, don’t underestimate me just because I’m a girl.
In the tech field, not so much now, because we are becoming more aware, but back when I first started in technology, women were a rare presence and so I became the token geek girl in my professional circle. I’ve had the domain for about 5–6 years now. Just a girl in the world
Lid: If anyone wants to know more about your book, they can just go visit your site at just a girl in the world – links form there I take it?
LSW: I do post regular updates – I have been writing this book since January 2007 and so though all that if anybody is interested, they can read my archives. Sort of read the path and journey that I’ve been on with this book during this past year.
Lid: Give us a brief overview of how it all came to be?
LSW: I was approached. It came about from a speaking engagement that I had in 2006. I spoke at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, an annual conference held in Texas every year. I was a panel speaker there on the topic of Web design and blog design, and of course using WordPress as an example of what you can do with blogs and how you can make them look nice.
Through that I made several contacts from the industry and one of them was with an author who had authored several Wiley books in the past, and she had approached me with a publisher, one of the acquisition editors from Wiley Publishing, whether or not I would be interested in publishing, co-authoring a WordPress for Dummies book at the time. And I thought I can co-author, that is not a big deal, I can write a few chapters on WordPress and what I know about WordPress.
And that worked. As long as I’m sharing the blame with somebody, and that was in March 2006. I really didn’t hear anything for the rest of the year until December 2006 when the editor from Wiley contacted me and said, “You know, we thought you’d like to be the co-author, but how would you like to be the lead and only author of the book because the other person we have in mind just can’t.”
I like WordPress, I love WordPress. I’ve used it so much and the opportunity to share my knowledge and to share my passion about the product really inspired me to say, yeah I’ll take a chance, and jump off that cliff and write a book. My English teacher would be laughing right now.
I started in January of 2007 and finished officially in September of 2007 and it was quite a ride because between those months, WordPress released 3 or 4 different versions of the software.
Every time I got one of those e-mail updates, “We’re anticipating the release of the new version of WordPress,” I’m going ‘NOOOO – stop” but, WordPress is a very progressive platform and the developers are aggressively trying to make it the best it could possibly be, so I can’t fault them for that – and I couldn’t ask them to slow down just because I was writing the book.
Lid: Google likes WordPress; they seem to get into results very quickly.
LSW: WordPress blogs do that. It has a lot to do with how permalinks are structured in WordPress. If you’re using the custom permalink option you can set your permalink to whatever you’d like, but if you do a post called WordPress for Dummies, those words are actually in the URL and search engines love that.
There are some SEO or search optimization tips for WordPress in the book as well.
SEO, a lot of it is common sense if you start to understand how the search engines work, and what they are looking for. And really, anyone can do SEO on their own site by doing a little bit of research and using WordPress.
Lid: If you had to recommend three really great sites for bloggers to get reputable information from, what would they be?
LSW: To blog well, as business and to make money, Pro Blogger. He runs an extremely successful, very popular site and it is that way because he provides very useful content; brilliant content.
Weblog Tools Collection. That is a site that provides you with all sorts of information about blogging, but they have a special focus on WordPress. You will find weekly updates about new WordPress plugins, new WordPress themes, new that you can do with WordPress to make your blog better, or make more money, or that type of thing
The final place that I would recommend for bloggers that are looking for information on WordPress is Blog Herald
Lid: Lorelle is writing there now isn’t she?
LSW: She blogs at lorelle.wordpress.com, you can also find her at Blog Herald. She recently wrote and published a new book called Blogging Tips: What bloggers won’t tell you about blogging, and I have read, I haven’t gotten myself a copy yet, but I do have it on order, but I have read extremely good reviews about that book where she provides information to bloggers about content, about keeping readers engaged and she is just a vessel of knowledge when it comes to blogging and when it comes to WordPress. She has got an amazing knowledge about WordPress; I believe she is one of the main contributors to the wordpress codex.
Lid: She is. She spoke at WordCamp here in San Francisco and gave a book to everyone who attended.
Lid: If you’re a WordPress user, Google WordPress for Dummies, go to amazon.com, buy the book, and then you should do a review because people like to see what others think.
LSW: Yes, the reviews are very, very helpful, and I would be interested to hear feedback from readers of the book. It is something to work on a project for an entire year, but it is really nice to get feedback on it, and to know that your hard work really resulted in helping people find their way
Lid: Lisa thank you so much for your time.
LSW: Thank you Lidija, it’s been a lot of fun
Filed under: All things WordPress, Interviews | 5 Comments
Tags: Blogging, Lisa Sabin-Wilson, WordPress, WordPress for Dummies
In this always on, 24/7 world, anyone working on the Web knows that time is an extremely elusive element – it seems our brains go at a hundred miles an hour. Boy I wish there was another one of me…
In an attempt to make my life easier, I keep – no further than a click away – resources on the Web that make my life easier. Here are 10 of my favorite sites – bookmark them:
Although I don’t use this daily, it is one of my most useful tools. Let’s say you visit a site, come across something useful, bookmark it and forget about it. Three months later, you’re researching for a post, and you remember that useful comment on somewhereoutthere.com? You go back, and alas, it is gone. Error 404: I hate that. Well, this is where the Way Back Machine comes in beautifully to save the day. Just go to the site, type in the URL and bang! It offers up, by date, a list of archived dates for that site. Click on the month you were there and voila – instant access. There are in excess of 85 billion Web pages archived since 1996 for your viewing pleasure.
Browsershots lets you test how your site looks in different browsers; Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, running on different operating systems; Linux, Windows, Mac. Just visit the site, type in the URL of the site you want tested, and your request will be placed in a queue. Processing time is dependent on the number of requests at the time, but I’ve never had to wait more than an hour.
You upload a file and Media Convert will convert it to another file format. Works with most formats of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video and audio. It’s fantastic for inserting a PDF into your Web page by converting it to an SWF Flash file, or converting WMV into MOV. Hundreds of formats are supported. Media Convert also lists mobile phones and the type of formats each supports for easy reference.
I Love Jack Daniels – Cheat Sheets
Dave Child provides the best in cheat sheets, particularly useful for developers, but more and more becoming important for bloggers. His cheat sheets include quick references for: RGB HEX Color Chart, PHP, CSS, MySQL, mod_rewrite, JavaScript, HTML, HTML Character codes, ASP/VBScript, and more.
Google Advanced Operator Cheat Sheet
The Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference for experienced users, novices, and everyone in between. Visit the site and learn if you need to, but at a minimum, keep the Google advanced operator cheat sheet close to hand.
Rex Swain wrote his HTTP Viewer to see exactly what an HTTP request returns to a browser; it lets you see your site as search engines do.
To use this free tool, type in your URL and voila!
Website Grader measures your site’s marketing effectiveness. It gives you a score that incorporates information from Alexa, PageRank, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and offers information about the health of your site (how many links in, from where, etc). It will generate a report and offer basic advice on how you can improve your site from a marketing POV.
This is one of the greatest sites to get color inspiration for your site. With thousands of color palettes to choose from, it is useful when you need the hex or RGB codes for specific and unusual colors.
Easily create a loading or waiting animated click by selecting the indicator you want from a choice of 40 (ish), selecting a background and foreground color, and pressing “Generate.” Free, easy, very Web 2.0.
Validator and Link Checker at W3C
The W3C mainly produces specifications, but also provides some useful tools for folks of the Web. All are easy to use, usually all you do is type in a URL and you will be given a list of issues with your site; then it’s up to you to fix them.
Link Checker (helps you find broken links)
Plus: One cool tip!
Fellow Aussie, Darren Rowse has a simple, yet really useful link on his contact page that takes you to the World Time Server, so you can tell what time it is in Melbourne before you ring him. If you want to have conversations with people from around the world, consider setting up a link to your location on your contact page. It’s just a nice thing to do.
Filed under: Blogging Tools, Useful Tools | 8 Comments
Tags: , Blogging, free tools
LOVE what Chris Anderson did with his post Sorry PR people: you’re blocked!
Here’s why: It’s making people think – and talk – and it’s about time someone started this conversation.
If you are involved in the media industry and you only have rudimentary Web skills, you better learn fast, because most of the conversation is happening online, and if you’re not participating, you might as well toss your computer out the window; you are missing out on vital stuff.
In his post, Chris published a massive list of e-mail addresses, those he decided to block from contacting him, and BOOM – complaints started pouring in; apologies started pouring in, and all I can think is Go Chris! This guy was getting 300 e-mails a day; all of them wanting something from him. What’s a bet no one thought about offering up something for him?
Seth, in his post PR and the first amendment and keeping your job, points out:
So, the smart PR folks (the successful ones) struggle to make their lists smaller and smaller.
You really should listen. By making your list smaller, you are creating your own niche network of people that you trust, and who trust you. The online world is a place where people help each other, not annoy each other; it’s worth thinking about. Incidentally, if you haven’t read Unleashing the Ideavirus, now would be a good time.
The bottom line is, if you’re trying to influence the influencers, you better know exactly how they like to be approached, otherwise that great press release/photo/article/video you spent weeks working on, will go directly to junk mail.
Regardless of whether you want to send your press release to mainstream media or the blogosphere, try to find the person that would most likely be interested in your news; then send it to him or her. Unfortunately, as with all research, it takes time.
Work smart – and hard - forget buying that e-mail list, and start creating your own.
Interesting posts around the Web that talk about the etiquette of Social Media:
What PR people should know about social media, at Like it Matters
The proper way to stalk a journalist, from John Jantsch, author, Duct Tape Marketing
How to influence powerful social media users for traffic and attention by Maki MakiHow to pitch bloggers by ProBlogger, Darren Rowse
Guidelines and Contacts – at least read them…
Wall Street Journal Contact Details
The New York Times contact details
Guidelines for submissions to the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle Address Book
Oh, and if you really are interested in how Chris likes to be contacted, try reading his interview on PRNewser: My tastes are arcane and geeky.
I leave my comments open if people want to approach me, and I do my best to answer each. What about you?
How do you like to be approached?
Filed under: Online Marketing, Small Business SEO, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment
Thank you Tad Chef
Just did my first guest post ever!
And to do it at SEO 2.0!
Too excited to say anything except for a humungous
Thank You
to Tad
Filed under: Blog SEO, Writing for the Web | 3 Comments
There are five days left until the bloggers challenge runs out at DonorsChoose (October 31, 2007), so if you haven’t donated through the blogosphere – hurry!
If you haven’t heard about DonorsChoose, it’s a non-profit Web site, where teachers post what they need for their classroom (including costs), and donors choose what they would like to fund. It can be a little or a lot, but it all helps and it is all tax deductible.
If you are a teacher and need something for your classroom, visit the DonorsChoose Teacher FAQ’s
If you want to donate, visit the DonorsChoose Donor FAQ’s
The 25 top earning blogs so far for the LitLiberation (my fave) section are:
1. Internet Lifestyle $10,297
2. SimplyHired.com $7,003
3. Lifehacker $4,655
4. Metroblogging $4,365
5. Matt Mullenweg $3,926
6. 4-Hour Workweek $3,525
7. Silicon Valley Watcher $2,529
8. Elance $1,652
9. Kiva $1,552
10. LevelFiveMedia $1,304
11. ProBlogger $1,284
12. MJ Kim $1,200
13. 500 Hats $1,000
14. Pronet Advertising $1,000
15. Scobleizer $1,000
16. Blogging Expertise $917
17. Influential Marketing Blog $607
18. Quizlet Queries for Quid! $550
19. Seth Godin $500
20. Education is the Key to Change $356
21. The 8Asians $100
22. Web Design for ROI $90
23. Marketing CT $50
24. Go Green Mountains!Champlain Professor $40
25. Quotations Page $25
Filed under: Blogroll | Leave a Comment
