My Top 5 WordPress Plugins 2007-08-09 06:57:46 This is a post taking off from where David left off on his blog titled Top 5 essential WordPress plugins. Before I list my Top 5 plugins, let me thank David for introducing me to a wonderful plugin called cforms for creating contact forms in your blog. cforms does not find a mention on my list since I’ve just started using it. If I do this post again in a few months from now, it would surely be on the list!
Here goes my Top 5 WordPress Plugins
in no particular order:
#1 Popularity Contest
This is the easiest way to determine Your “Top 10 Posts” to add to the sidebar! Its highly customizable and easy to use. Use it along with the sidebar widget for it.
#2 WordPress Automatic Upgrade
It doesn’t get any easier than this to upgrade your blog to the latest version of WordPress. A couple of clicks and you’re done! The Online Presence Blog is running on WordPress 2.2.2 and the upgrade was done using this plugin. It takes backups for your data to ensure that if in
Improving popularity of your blog 2007-08-08 00:35:50
So you’ve started a blog. You’re writing good content…But it does not seem like anyone is reading it besides you!!
How do you get traffic to your site? How do you improve its popularity? There are several ways to do so…
1. Good Layout: You might be writing good content, but you also need to ensure that you’ve got a good site layout which is uncluttered and easy to navigate. This will ensure that your readers find the relevant content quickly. Also, if you do intend on using a free theme, do customize it a bit so that it stands out from the crowd.
2. SEO Friendly: Ensure you have your site optimized for search engines. Getting your posts indexed periodically by search engines like Google and Yahoo! is absolutely essential. Ensure you add a sitemap to your site. If you’re using a self-hosted blog running on WordPress there is a plugin available which automates the entire task. All you need to do is to submit it once to Google and your posts will be
The ProBlogger Effect 2007-08-07 02:13:53
We all know about the Digg Effect. Now let me tell you about the ProBlogger Effect!
Darren Rowse is the ProBlogger who runs a blog by the same name amongst a wide range of other blogs. ProBlogger has over 27,000+ RSS subscribers and the blog is one amongst the Top 100 Blogs listed on Technorati.
Imagine what happens if ProBlogger gives a reference to an article on your blog. You’ll get a large inflow of traffic just like making it on the front page of Digg. The ratio’s might be different but the traffic is quite considerable nonetheless.
Two of my articles in the past have made it to ProBlogger articles, the latest of which is Get your own Blog Theme! See the traffic chart for the last 7 days:
Darren, thanks for the inflow of traffic. This is a great way to help me promote my blog. There has been a small inch upwards in the number of RSS subscribers as well. Every drop counts in building an ocean. This is a small step forward for the Online Presence Blog.So remember the t
Advertise your site for free using adgridwork 2007-08-07 00:15:25
adgridwork provides free advertising services for websites & blogs. Unlike AdWords, where you need to pay for your banners to be displayed, adgridwork provides a large network of websites with which you can ‘exchange’ advertisements. You will need to integrate their script to your site, so that free advertisements related to the same theme can be displayed on your site. In exchange, the site you submitted will be displayed as an advertisement on sites in their network.
adgridwork has been launched by the same guys that started ReviewBack.
The more times people click on advertisements on your site, that much more will your advertisement be shown on other sites. If you want to have a look at some ‘live’ advertisments from adgridwork, check out TechNotes and Travelogue.
The submission process is straightforward and you can get on their system in less than 2 minutes! All advertisements supported currently are text based. No image based advertisements are suppor Read more:Advertise
10.5% Average CTR on PayPerPost Sponsored Posts 2007-08-03 02:14:59 PayPerPost
recently concluded a study on the average CTR (Click-Thru-Rate) on PayPerPost sponsored posts.
CTR as defined by Wikipedia is:
Click-through rate or CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions). For example, if your banner ad was delivered 100 times (impressions delivered) and 1 person clicked on it (clicks recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1%.
The result claims an average ctr of just over 10.5%. The study was done with 40,000 blogs and 8,000 advertisers on the PPP network.
This is one of the highest CTRs you can get for any form on online advertising medium. This goes on to prove that sponsored reviews or posts is a great way to draw attention to your products and draw traffic to the site.
It surely is not a replacement for other forms of online advertising, but is a form that is catching on and Read more:Average
Get your own Blog Theme! 2007-08-02 02:00:54
How many times have you visited a blog just to be put off by their theme?
What was wrong with their theme?
Oh! Its the same old theme I’ve seen on so many other websites. Yes! Isn’t this true. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of free WordPress themes available for download. Many of them are really awesome, but the better they look, the more they are being used by other bloggers as well.
I realized this very early on when I started this blog. Infact, the current theme that I’m using is the 4th on this blog. The first three were ‘free’ themes that were good, but soon enough I realized there were enough and more blogs out there that used the same theme.
If you’re serious about building a reader base, you will need to differentiate your blog, not only by the content you offer, but by its visual appeal as well.
Either come up with your own theme or hire someone who can come up with one. I’m sure my theme is not the best one around, but at leas Read more:Theme
Analytics for your Blog 2007-08-17 06:22:24 Web Analytics
as defined at Wikipedia is the study of the behaviour of website visitors. In a commercial context, web analytics especially refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.
Data collected almost always includes web traffic reports. It may also include e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign data, sales and lead information, user performance data such as click heat mapping, or other custom metrics as needed. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign’s audience response.
The simplest way to analyze the traffic patterns is by looking at your web server logs. This can be a fairly tedious task though. There are various tools available that can simplify this task. Most of them require you to embed a small piece of JavaScrip
AuctionAds get a makeover 2007-08-28 07:30:11 AuctionAds has been given a makeover. The AuctionAds blog post by Peter Galvin mentions the following:
New “Web 2.0? Ad Creative’s: Login to your account and go to the “Get Code” page. You will notice a sleek new ad design with multiple color schemes to choose from that we think will increase click-through rates to your ads (which will result in you earning more money).
Optimized Ad Images: Our ad code is now optimized so that the auction images are no longer stretched or distorted. This makes for a cleaner ad appearance and should also improve clicks.
Better Ad Network Performance: We have doubled the size of our hardware infrastructure and optimized it to ensure near 100% uptime of ad serving (and to make sure your ads are served lighting fast).
AuctionAds.com has a Brand New Look!
The site design has been given a slight uplift even though its basically the same. The part that interested me was the new Ad layouts and the improved server infrastructure.
Lets hope t Read more:AuctionAds
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