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Are you using a post calendar? I'd highly, highly recommend you have scheduled posts in place before you go anywhere. You might miss some immediate news but the site won't be stagnant and most people won't really notice. Along the same idea, you should be using something like Buffer to spread out and time your twitter posts, to achieve similar goals (and to "time" your audience, to hit your peak audiences instead of just posting whenever you're around and maybe missing peak audience).
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Feb 26, 2013 23:12
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Scotsman posted:I use different seo plugins on different sites. I'm not sold by any yet as a "must-use" website.com/category-name/this-is-a-post instead of website.com/untypablejibberishnonsense13123?=iisrel=?34234morewords.php
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Feb 26, 2013 23:33
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mcsuede posted:website.com/category-name/this-is-a-post I know what pretty/non-pretty URLs are. I mean where are you seeing those on the site?
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Feb 27, 2013 00:15
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Scotsman posted:I know what pretty/non-pretty URLs are. I mean where are you seeing those on the site? http://www.betnhl.ca/tonights-tips/february-26th-2013-nhl-betting-tips.php Now, that's not terrible, but there's no reason to have a file extension in a url anymore.
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Feb 27, 2013 03:04
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mcsuede posted:http://www.betnhl.ca/tonights-tips/february-26th-2013-nhl-betting-tips.php Nah it's fine. I had issues previously with /%category%/%postname%/ in regard to the SERPs and GWT was bringing up errors about seeing the posts as a category base. I added the extension and it sorted everything out. Now that was years ago and obviously isn't an issue these days, but it's a personal preference that doesn't affect anything positively or negatively.
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Feb 27, 2013 05:07
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mcsuede posted:Are you using a post calendar? I'd highly, highly recommend you have scheduled posts in place before you go anywhere. You might miss some immediate news but the site won't be stagnant and most people won't really notice. Which is what I will be doing when I get A) more followers and B) more time to set things up. Lucky for me: 1) a bunch of people have agreed to write the odd article for their own areas of interest from the GBS spaceflight thread, 2) I now have a small but growing list of people who have signed up for a weekly digest email. Speaking of, does anyone here have any experience with Mailchimp? Im trying to import my RSS feed for said weekly email, but all I'm getting is the the title and short text of each post, without the featured image.
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Feb 28, 2013 15:26
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I'd been using a Wordpress.com blog for a while, and I plan to keep using that for my freelance writing portfolio (as small as it's been lately). Yesterday, I started up a general advice/bettering yourself/positive thinking blog, something I've been posting more of on my WordPress site. I'm currently using one of the default WP theme (Twenty eleven, I believe), and I don't really want to spend more money until I know I'm going to stick with that blog. At the same time, I'm considering opening up a second blog for a more niche topic, if I can think of one. What would you guys think is more important: Spit-balling ideas to see what sticks? Or focusing solely on one and see where it takes me?
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Feb 28, 2013 19:55
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Scotsman posted:Nah it's fine. I had issues previously with /%category%/%postname%/ in regard to the SERPs and GWT was bringing up errors about seeing the posts as a category base. I added the extension and it sorted everything out. Now that was years ago and obviously isn't an issue these days, but it's a personal preference that doesn't affect anything positively or negatively. SEO wise it doesn't, but UX wise it does. 
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Mar 1, 2013 21:46
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PrivateEyeball posted:I'd been using a Wordpress.com blog for a while, and I plan to keep using that for my freelance writing portfolio (as small as it's been lately). Yesterday, I started up a general advice/bettering yourself/positive thinking blog, something I've been posting more of on my WordPress site. I'm currently using one of the default WP theme (Twenty eleven, I believe), and I don't really want to spend more money until I know I'm going to stick with that blog. At the same time, I'm considering opening up a second blog for a more niche topic, if I can think of one. Both. One is a website that might be useful if you find audience (advice...but general advice is NOT going to get traction) while the other is personal branding / jobbing. The later won't get traction either but it helps control your personal SERPs if you're out there looking for work. They're completely different animals.
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Mar 1, 2013 21:48
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mcsuede posted:SEO wise it doesn't, but UX wise it does. We'll agree to disagree 
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Mar 1, 2013 22:53
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Scotsman posted:We'll agree to disagree Never! I'm so bored at work...
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Mar 1, 2013 23:08
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So I have an idea for a niche in mind. Most relevant keywords have a modest amount of local searches, and competition is listed as "medium". Is medium competition what I'm looking for or am I reading it wrong and is lower better? EDIT: Also, how important is the URL? Should I settle for something generic and boring or is it fine to go for something quirky and unique? PrivateEyeball fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 23:44
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The answer to both is: depends on the niche. Sometimes you want high competition because it indicates a hot audience, sometimes you want low because you really found something that can make profit off just a dozen visits a day. You need to go look at the SERPs and see which spot you can reasonably jump into for different keywords/long tails with X amount of work. Sometimes the SERPs are really weak and you can skip right to the top, despite high competition. Sometimes everything is super locked down by SEOs. Pull the top 7 results (without personalization) and run competitive analysis on each to find soft spots. URL means less now that EMD doesn't really confer a bonus, so use something that makes sense to you and fits your perception of the site. Either quirky or generic can work, depending on what's better for that audience. If you're doing FOREX, generic is fine. If you're affiliate linking capri pants for cats, quirky is probably a good call.
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Mar 2, 2013 16:50
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So a couple of people who follow my site have asked for merchandise.  Is Cafepress still the norm or is there a better alternative these days?
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Mar 4, 2013 14:47
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Zero Gravitas posted:So a couple of people who follow my site have asked for merchandise. I used teespring. 0 upfront cost.
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Mar 5, 2013 04:04
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So I got an email offering to advertise ads on my website and looking for what I would like in compensation for any of the five: 1) Their website url 2) Price per month for adding contexual link at the home page 3) Price per month for adding contexual link at the inner page (subject related) 4) Price per month for adding a page (with a unique content that I they will provide) with their link 5) Price per month for adding a small 125x125 banner at the home or inner page I have no idea what I should be charging or should ask for any of these. Anyone have ideas? This is the first time I have been approached about people advertising on my website and wanting to pay me for it.
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Mar 7, 2013 18:38
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Well, the first four violate the Google Laws of the Universe, but are still done frequently. #5 is the most innocuous but most annoying to visitors. #4 is a variation on "guest blogging" and is acceptable grey hat, while 1-3 are just straight up link buying which I would highly discourage. Prices are determined by your traffic, niche, and domain authority. They vary wildly. Aim high, they'll negotiate down. Basically, they're looking to buy a backlink off you to get some of your sweet sweet SEO juice. They don't really care about traffic from the link, just the juice. mcsuede fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 20:13
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mcsuede posted:Well, the first four violate the Google Laws of the Universe, but are still done frequently. #5 is the most innocuous but most annoying to visitors. #4 is a variation on "guest blogging" and is acceptable grey hat, while 1-3 are just straight up link buying which I would highly discourage. Thanks for the info, it definitely helps. What is considered high? To put in perspective, website gets roughly 1600 a month and has gone up to 3600 before. The sponsor is sports betting of some sort. It does relate with my content. Are there any guides or websites out there that explain how to price things properly?
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Mar 7, 2013 21:51
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^^^ Uh, for what it's worth, I'm still seeing the same error on your site that I posted about last page.
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Mar 7, 2013 22:01
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Sleepstupid posted:^^^ Uh, for what it's worth, I'm still seeing the same error on your site that I posted about last page. Thanks for the headsup! I will take a look! I completely missed your original post! Edit: I am trying to replicate that error in chrome and can't seem to find it. Are you somewhere different within the web page? Edit 2: NM, I see it. Thanks again! Mr.Trifecta fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 22:04
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Mr.Trifecta posted:Thanks for the info, it definitely helps. What is considered high? To put in perspective, website gets roughly 1600 a month and has gone up to 3600 before. The sponsor is sports betting of some sort. It does relate with my content. Are there any guides or websites out there that explain how to price things properly? As with any negotiation, try to make them name the price first.
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Mar 7, 2013 22:16
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I just earned my first Adsense revenue. I think it was my brother, because I asked his opinion on ad placements and such, but whatever. I'll take it. This is the beginning for a fun experience (and an excuse to write more).
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Mar 8, 2013 19:39
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I originally attempted to create a blog that had a good keyword but just wasn't that interesting to me. I had little success so decided to go ahead and just make a blog to write about random travel/credit card/points/money ideas or thoughts. It's been a hell of a lot easier to write entries and I've done 19 entries in the last 5 weeks and getting 10-25 hits per day right now. Want to see where continued effort goes but at least this is easier to write. Blog is: http://www.verskans.com
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Mar 8, 2013 21:00
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Waroen posted:I originally attempted to create a blog that had a good keyword but just wasn't that interesting to me. I had little success so decided to go ahead and just make a blog to write about random travel/credit card/points/money ideas or thoughts. It's been a hell of a lot easier to write entries and I've done 19 entries in the last 5 weeks and getting 10-25 hits per day right now. Want to see where continued effort goes but at least this is easier to write. Add a Read More link to the end of your excerpts on main page, kill the social share buttons after each excerpt (after/beside actual article is fine, I like Digg Digg with asynch turned on). Add a navigation menu up top. Kill the random post and tag cloud widgets, instead use a text widget to make a "Best Of" section with your best converting posts. Or, use nrelate popular posts to do it for you (and their related posts after content while you're at it). Kill the captcha before your comments (install akismet, antispam bee, cookies for comments). Kill the Powered By WordPress and Live Wire in your footer. It's a single-author blog, so noindex/nofollow your author page if you haven't already, and install caching if you haven't (assuming shared host, I like Hyper Cache).
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Mar 8, 2013 22:22
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Also I like the length of your posts, it's good, but avoid those galleries that take people off-page. Install something like jquery colorbox to avoid that, or better yet avoid galleries entirely and use a social hover plugin. Your call. Oh, the end of each post should have an Author Bio, which a Gravatar and a blurb with links to your social properties, using this as a way of embedding G+ Authorship (no follow it all though).
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Mar 8, 2013 22:32
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Thanks! I made a bunch of the changes so far. Going to do a gallery tomorrow. Still have to do the author blurb if you have any plugin recommendations. This definitely helps thanks for all that. edit: also having problems doing the read more button, might be a theme issue I'll have to look into.
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Mar 9, 2013 05:35
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Thanks again, made all those changes and more. How does it look now? (http://www.verskans.com) Read more was a pain, rather than trying to find a plugin to fix it I edited the functions tab adding this: http://wpmu.org/daily-tip-replace-default-wordpress-excerpt-ellipsis-with-read-more-link/
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Mar 10, 2013 00:57
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I've been feeling lately like my blog has been "stuck" at the same size as far as readership goes. It's definitely my fault as I've been too busy to regularly update it, but I've been sitting here trying to think of ways to make it "bigger" and I haven't really came up with anything. Any ideas guys?
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Mar 11, 2013 18:56
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invision posted:I've been feeling lately like my blog has been "stuck" at the same size as far as readership goes. It's definitely my fault as I've been too busy to regularly update it, but I've been sitting here trying to think of ways to make it "bigger" and I haven't really came up with anything. Any ideas guys? Why make it bigger when you don't have time for it now?
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Mar 11, 2013 19:18
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Waroen posted:Thanks again, made all those changes and more. How does it look now? (http://www.verskans.com) Looks a lot better. If you want to take advantage of Authorship change your G+ link in your author bio to include rel=author and add your blog to your Contributor To section of your G+ profile. You'll get a lot more conversions if you use an actual headshot instead of a logo for G+, though. Eye line should lead to the search result (so, looking right).
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Mar 14, 2013 18:33
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I added the picture and tested it out with Rich Snippet Tool, assume it will take a little while to actually start working in search results. Didn't add a face shot since I'm trying to be a little confidential because of the nature of my job but will take the slightly reduced conversion. Thanks for the recommendations, now the hard part is just waiting and continually adding content to see if my SEO pays off and get some good traffic.
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Mar 14, 2013 19:03
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A few more because I do audits when I'm slow at work: a) Brand your titles -- i.e. Room 77 Review for Room Concierge -> Room 77 Review for Room Concierge - Verskans.com b) Image optimization. First, don't serve scaled images (don't resize images with HTML). WordPress does this when you insert an image into a post. Create custom image thumbnails for the common image sizes you will be displaying in pages and insert those thumbnails instead. I.E. create a thumbnail that's full-width to your post content, etc. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-image-sizes/ Second, use lossless image compression on your images. This can be automated in WordPress using the WP Smush.it plugin, or better yet if you have server root access, the CW Optimizer plugin or smushykid. Doing these two steps will cut your image load down by more than 50% from what you have now. c) Minification. I see you're running supercache, but supercache doesn't minify, only cache. Install and use Better WP Minify. As I mentioned I prefer Hypercache to Supercache on shared hosts/low-resource hosts but YMMV. d) Facebook's .js is loading synchronously, make it asynchronous. I think that call is from Digg Digg and turning on asynchronous in Digg Digg is super easy. e) Take advantage of free CDNs. Sign up for a WordPress.com account, install Jetpack, turn off most of it's features but turn on Photon. Blam, free image CDN. Next, go get a free CloudFlare.com account, install (install the CF plugin for WP as well), blam, free security and caching CDN. f) Install Use Google Libraries. If it breaks your js, turn it back off (it shouldn't if your theme/plugins are coded properly using enqueue). g) It probably goes without saying, but if you do any affiliate stuff, make sure to mask and nofollow the links. Banner ads should also be nofollowed if you get into those. Now go write more content for your editorial post and social calendars  .
mcsuede fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 15, 2013 |
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Mar 15, 2013 19:23
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^^^Wow, that is some great info  Question about CloudFlare. Is there any downside to using that service? I'm helping my uncle put up a simple WordPress site for his restaurant but I'm not sure for something so small, with most likely so few visitors, that it's worth the effort, especially if there are any drawbacks.
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Mar 15, 2013 19:54
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The only drawback I've run into is if someone hits their security challenge and is actually legit, gets confused, and leaves...but I typically set the challenge threshold to low to prevent that. Otherwise I see a roughly 50% rate of content being served from CloudFlare cache instead of off the host, which is a massive speed increase. It also does DNS level analytics which is an interesting look hits your site is getting (as you'll see all the robot hits and such that google analytics doesn't report, as it's not actionable/useful/human visitors). On small business websites you aren't going to run into challenge issues much as most of your traffic will be localized (most challenges get thrown because the visitor is from a shady IP block in some tiny country known for spammers). I did have one client who's site passed some invisible threshold and CloudFlare told us we needed to start paying or leave, but she had a very, very image heavy blog and high traffic. edit: Oh, certain hosts can have an issue with Cloudflare but if they do, that means the host is terrible and you should get a better host :P. mcsuede fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Mar 15, 2013 |
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Mar 15, 2013 20:40
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I recently started a blog and while it's primary goal is not to earn money, I wouldn't mind earning a little from it. As of now it doesn't have any ads, but will before long. Any suggestions on how to generate additional traffic/better search engine results placement without altering the core content? The site is http://curvewriting.com
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Mar 21, 2013 01:51
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striking-wolf posted:I recently started a blog and while it's primary goal is not to earn money, I wouldn't mind earning a little from it. As of now it doesn't have any ads, but will before long. Any suggestions on how to generate additional traffic/better search engine results placement without altering the core content? The site is http://curvewriting.com It's really been answered over and over. Write good, keyword rich, content, and as long as it's worth while, it visitors will come.
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Mar 21, 2013 02:57
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I'm looking to make a little extra cash in my free time, something I can do from home, on the Internet. Well, my mom has always said I should write a blog. She loves reading blogs herself, and thinks I'm a great writer. I always blew her off. But maybe she was right. I'm not sure what I should write about. I think there are several topics I could write on, but I want to make sure to choose something that I know I can continue to contribute to, and will have a good chance of getting attention and making a little bank. So.. what do I know? Video games So much competition here. The only hope I could have would be to go specialized on a specific topic. This wouldn't be a good idea, though, because I have a real bad habit of quitting on a game. I don't finish many of the single-player games I start. With Minecraft, I go into a binge for a few months, and then I can't touch the game for another few months. A new patch or server comes around, and the vicious cycle begins anew. Not going to even bother with keyword research. Comic books AdWords research on this is promising. The overall competition for 'comic books' is Low, which I found to be surprising. Further in, there are a lot of Low and Medium competition phrases, and plenty with 1,000+ local searches. Most of them are under $1 CPC, with one exception. The entire catagory of 'book making' averages $1.50 CPC. Competition is low, and every phrase is over 1,000 local. This is also a topic that is important to me, as it is my dream to write graphic novels. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as well-versed on the topic as I'd like, but it could be a learning experience as I go, and help get going on the project. Finally, I imagine This is the most promising topic. Computers Another popular topic, I obviously would have to go specialized. There are many ways I could go. I work tech support for Dell, so I know troubleshooting, working with PC hardware. I have specific interests, like media centers and Windows tablets. Tied in with video games, I'm also into emulation. I don't feel like I have too much to say on any of this, though. Rollerblading Uh, I'm really good at rollerblading? All I can think of is reviewing rollerblading equipment. That would get expensive. LEGO I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO). Again, reviewing LEGO sets is expensive. Personal Whenever my mom said I should write a blog, I always assumed she was talking about personal blogs, reading about my life, what I'm doing, whatever. Not interested in this. I've got a few ideas for it, but to be able to make money off this, I'd have to rely on a following, and not so much search results.
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Mar 21, 2013 14:37
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Well, I decided to change my theme on my travel advice site. I haven't gotten all the kinks out yet and I need to change a few things but I am pretty happy with the change overall. I'm finally going to write some more content as I haven't touched the site in a long time. Let me know what you all think or if there is anything I should change. http://www.thesavvybackpacker.com
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Mar 22, 2013 01:36
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You've got broad subjects so drill down into them more, maybe. Maybe its wow nj meetups or tcgaholohics. Also just because someone is writing about something doesn't mean it can't be topped or have a different spin so if you see something you like then go for it.
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Mar 22, 2013 06:22
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Omits-Bagels posted:Well, I decided to change my theme on my travel advice site. I haven't gotten all the kinks out yet and I need to change a few things but I am pretty happy with the change overall. I'm finally going to write some more content as I haven't touched the site in a long time. Let me know what you all think or if there is anything I should change. I'm a big fan of the site in general. Lots of good info since I'm hoping to spend 6-8 months backpacking in the next year or two. My thoughts: 1) The image slider on your home page switches images way too fast. I can't even read the captions before it switches to the next image. 2) Do you have a mailing list? I couldn't find a signup form anywhere and I definitely would have opted in if you made one available. Depending on how much that Adsense ad in your sidebar is making you, it might be worth testing a version where that was replaced with an email opt-in form. Mailchimp has a free plan and Aweber is only $20/month. -RTB
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Mar 22, 2013 19:30
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