And the story continues…

Alright folks I’m back from the dead.  It has been FOREVER since my last post.  I promise I’ll fill you in with everything at some point tomorrow.  I’m simply too exhausted to do anything but sleep (and watch The Office).  It seems like I haven’t had 5 seconds to spare since 1987…

 Let me relax, catch my breath and I promise we’ll get caught up tomorrow!

7 Steps to Optimizing Wordpress (from the GetGo)

So you’ve freshly installed wordpress to your kick butt domain and you’re ready to put in the time and effort to make it a huge success.  A few small steps will go a very long way for the long term success of your new site.  Gathered from a variety of sources, here are the steps I now follow to optimize a fresh wordpress install:

1) SEO Friendly URLs
Go into the Options > Permalinks in the WP-Admin section.  Under “Common Options” select “Custom” and in the text field type “%category%/%postname%” without the quotes.  Scroll to the bottom of the page and copy the entire text in the area starting with <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>.  Create a new file in the root of your blog named “.htaccess”, paste this text and save it to your host.

This will give your permalinks a more search engine friendly structure such as http://www.myblog.com/baseball/the-yankees-are-great for a post titled “The Yankees Are Great” in your baseball section.

2) Post Names as Titles
By default, most Wordpress Themes use the name of your blog as the Page Title.  This doesn’t tell the search engines ANYthing about each specific page.  We’ll be a lot better off by making each Page Title the name of the Post from that page.

Open up the header.php file in the theme you plan on using.  Find everything between <title> and </title>.  Delete it.  Now paste this between those tags:

<?php if (is_home () ) { bloginfo(’name’); } elseif ( is_category() ) { single_cat_title(); echo ” - “; bloginfo(’name’); } elseif (is_single() || is_page() ) { single_post_title(); } elseif (is_search() ) { bloginfo(’name’); echo ” search results: “; echo wp_specialchars($s); } else { wp_title(”,true); } ?>

There you go.  Now each page title will be the name of your specific post title or category title depending on the specific page your user is on.  Search Engines will adore you.

3) Install All Your Plugins
You’ll want to have a folder on your local computer with all your favorite plugins.  It will make the job easier in the future.  Simply highlight all the plugins you want to use in your FTP browser and copy them over to the plugins directory of your wordpress install.  Here is a list I made of 10 Cool Wordpress Plugins.

4) Be Amish
That’s right.  Break out a pencil and some paper.  Map out your homepage including the navigation, names of specific categories and pages and anything else you can think of.  This will help you decide where and when to use categories or pages, help you decide additional plugins you may need to get the job done and make your overall job easier in general.  It’s much easier to make your mistakes on paper then realize all your work will need to be redone because of one simple flaw.  While you’re mapping this out, think about your site from both a usability standpoint and an SEO standpoint.

5) Preload Content Before Launching
Write a couple dozen articles before you do anything to promote your new site.  Fill out the meat and bones so people have a site to browse and the search engines have links and content to navigate. We know you’re excited to get your great idea out there, but don’t put the cart before the horse.  Get some nice content on there first and you’ll thank yourself in the future.

6) Setup Your Pings
Wordpress has a built in feature where you can list pinging services that Wordpress will ping (contact) letting them know you’ve written a new blog post or have a new entry.  Fabulous!  I tried to create a ping list several times and it was a pain in the butt.  I got so many annoying errors I simply gave up.  Then I found pingoat.  Simply type in the URL of your blog and select from a long list of pinging services.  One click and it will contact all of them for you.  When it finishes pinging each service, bookmark the site and save the bookmark as MyBlogName.com Pingoat.  Now all you have to do is visit the bookmark for that site when you make new post and it will auto ping those services just as it did the first time.

7) Make Timestamp Posts
Just as you did when you preloaded content before launching, write a ton of content.  As many articles as you can.  Get amish again and break out that paper and pencil.  Each time you write a post, before you publish it, go to “post timestamp” in the right hand column.  Edit the timestamp to display tomorrow at 6am.  Record the date on your amish pad so you don’t forget.  Write your next post.  Set the timestamp to two days from now at 6am. Record the date.  Write your next article…

If you can spend a few days just working on content, you could have a blog full of content that is set to post a new article for each day for several months to come.  It’s on auto-pilot.  You will however, have to visit pingoat once each day to remind it you’ve written new content.  Perhaps you can put pingoat in your Wordpress Ping list and it will do all this for you… let me know on that.

That should give you a good start on every new Wordpress Blog you create!  Want to add any tips, tricks or techniques that you have found successful?  Leave a comment and let us know!

Quotes and Comments

Two reasons I love visiting the blogs of fellow internet marketers are (1) Ideas, and (2) Inspiration.  Motivational quotes can go a long way.  I’ll be adding a “quotations” widget to the sidebar of this blog but rather than using famous and historical quotes I’ll be using quotes from YOU - our fellow internet marketing co-workers.

Quotes will show at random and display a picture selected by the author and a link back to their internet marketing related blog or website.  You can leave a comment here with your quote and contact info, contact me personally or send me a pm on WickedFire.

I think this could be a lot of fun and bring you all some free traffic.  I’m not going the John Chow route of asking you to post a review of my blog - this isn’t about increasing my technorati ranking or anything like that - but all links back are greatly appreciated!

Let the games begin!
(PS - I’ll have the widget up in the next day or two)

If Content is King, I am Hamlet

Sorry for the Shakespeare reference but I hate this whole content thing.  The real problem is that I love writing but it’s a Catch 22.  You need lots of content all the time, every day over the long hault to drive traffic.  But, I take pride in my writing and spend an hour or two writing articles for specific blogs or sites that should only take a few minutes.  So either I’m putting out sub par quality writing which I don’t want, or I’m not updating daily which isn’t good for traffic - whether search or returning visitors.

Recently I spoke about timestamps and how they would help me get the content needed much more quickly and efficiently.  To switch around a common saying, the idea is real and it’s been good but it hasn’t been real good.

I only have a certain amount of time in my day.  I try to spend as much of my free time doing web related stuff as possible.  But, I have other things to do as well.  For example, this past weekend, I went out to happy hour on Friday and stayed out.  I woke up on Saturday and went to the library briefly but then had to help my friend move into his new house.  Woke up Sunday and my father and sister came to Baltimore, which was fun, but I didn’t get home until about 5pm.  So the whole weekend passed and then I had about 5 or 6 hours to do laundry and clean the place up before the work week starts again.

I recently read a post by Diorex on WickedFire titled “Online Marketing Is Not Easy“.  It really pissed me off.  But it was true.  I want to stick with my theme of overusing literary cliches and say something like, “It’s a double edged sword.”  But that wouldn’t make sense.  It’s more like a mace… a heavy mace with super sharp spikes yielded by the world’s strongest man.  And it’s like that mace striking you where the sun doesn’t shine.

He says, “if you are looking for a way to work 1-2 hours a day and retire from your job” that you’re out of luck.  I’m not a cry baby who wants the spoils without putting in the sweat.  So I’m going to start locking myself inside to do all the work that time doesn’t usually permit.  Sorry family.  Sorry friends.  Sorry bartenders.  I’m putting everything on hold.  I’ve got limited time and right now I have to give it to myself.

Maybe I’m selfish… but I need to make this work as soon as possible.  In a year from now I want to be homeless by choice.  Working on my sites in local cafes with wireless internet, visiting friends across the world that can spare a pillow and cot/couch for a week or two.  Hell, if you’re not a killer, maybe I’ll be in your neck of the woods and you can meet me at my cafe du jour.  But if there are two facts, here they are: (1) I’m going to get ‘there’, and (2) Content is going to get me there.

Bring on the content baby… bring on the content…