Recently in 101 Steps to Better Blogging Category

Steps 19 through 31 in the 101 Steps to Better Blogging all specifically pertain to Wordpress plugins which of course I don't use. There are several substitutions that I am using or can deal with as explained below.

19. Akismet to eliminate comment and trackback spam. I am already using MT-Akismet, a Movabletype plugin that uses Akismet. You do have to have a free Wordpress account because you need the Akismet key to set this up.

20. Optimal Title. This is a plug-in that optimizes your post titles for search engines to help gain more traffic. Wordpress as far as I understand it uses the weird entry links with page numbers rather than the URL being the name of the post itself. With MT I don't have to worry about that, it's already set up that way.

21. Ultimate Tag Warrior is a tagging plugin for WP. I have just recently started using the movable type editor (although I am not using it for this entry for some reason) and using the tag system that is built-in to MT 4.0 Unfortunately if I want to use Technorati tags I have to manually add them or use my external editor which I am right now.

22. Google Sitemap Generator. This is a plugin that will automatically generate a Google sitemap. You can do the same thing with MT, without having to resort to a plugin. Just set up a new index template in the Movabletype interface, call it Google Sitemap or whatever the hell you want to call it, and have the output file be sitemap.xml. You need to have it get published when rebuilding index templates and the contents of the template should be as follow:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84">
<url>
<loc><$MTBlogURL encode_xml="1"$></loc>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
<MTEntries lastn="9999">
<url>
<loc><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1"$></loc>
<lastmod><$MTEntryModifiedDate utc="1" format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ"$></lastmod>
</url>
</MTEntries>
</urlset>

23. Show Top Commentators. I have seen this on several different sites and it presupposes that you have registration set up on your site. I haven't found a way to do the top commentators with Movabletype yet and even if I did, I allow anonymous commenting at least to the point that you don't have to register.

24. Related Posts. This plugin finds related posts and puts a link at the end of your entry. I did find one for Shadowscope last year and found that it pretty much sucked. It's been awhile and it's functionality may have improved. In the meantime I have added Feedburner feedflare to the end of my posts and you will see Sphere Related posts. Of course the point of a related posts plugin is to increase the length of time spent at your site, so maybe that's not a great idea.

25. Super Archive. Don't know anything about it, but Movabletype 4.0 seems to have improved the archive system greatly and I am liking it thus far.

26. WP-Cache. Caching the system improves the speed of the site. I still want to try and implement FastCGI here but have been afraid to try it since MT 4 is currently unsupported by my host right now.

27. WP-Contactform allows for a quick and easy way to contact the blog author. I may try and implement something along these lines. Shouldn't be too difficult.

28. Popularity Contest determines which of your posts is the most popular and then puts them in the sidebar. Pretty good idea and I could probably work something like that up on my next two days off.

29. Adsense deluxe. This plugin optimizes your WP blog for Google AdSense. I am using AdSense and I have read all kinds of optimization articles on it, but just think it is fine where it's currently at. Perhaps on Miles Business Blog I will work on doing something else with it soon.

30. Sociable puts those links to the different social networking sites at the end of your post. Currently I am using FeedFlare and that has added the only links I am interested in having.

31. Feedburner Feed Replacement to replace all links to your feed so that you have better accounting of it. I will eventually get rid of the links to my RSS and go strictly with Feedburner but right now I am leaving it as is.

There are several of the above items that are for Wordpress that I would be interested in implementing with my sites so I will spend the next week or so working on them.

Technorati : 101 Steps, Better Blogging, Movabletype, Social Bookmarking

Step #16 in the 101 Steps to Better Blogging is to add a link in every entry to your RSS feed. That was actually pretty easy. I did so on all three of my sites just a little while ago. It has the benefit that if someone likes something that I have written, the link is right there at the bottom of my post so that they see it and don't have to go searching for that big old button in the sidebar. It's a gentle reminder.

Step #18 is to add social bookmarking to your posts. I used to have links in each post to several social bookmarking sites but took them out quite some time ago as they didn't get used and the way I had them implemented it just didn't look right. I have added back a link to Digg at the bottom of my post. With Movabletype you need to use the following code to add it into the footer (or anywhere else in the entry for that matter).

If you are running a version of Movabletype prior to 4.0 you need to add  it to your main index, category index and individual entry archive templates. If you are running MT 4+ just add it in to the Entry Metadata module template. You can look at my links below for an example in how I have it implemented. I would like to say I came up with this slick solution to not having to use any kind of plugin but it was actually Don Loper. Thanks dude.

Rather than adding each of these posts to the blogging category I have created a new one entitled, amazingly enough, 101 Steps to Better Blogging and once I find all of the posts and migrate them there you will be able to find them in a centralized location.



Step #12 in 101 steps to better blogging is to get involved in the blogosphere. Being a blogger is about being part of a community. Leave comments on other blogs and get to know your favorite bloggers.

I thoroughly enjoy being part of the blogging community. I have personally met several bloggers and have only met a couple that I didn'tlike. The feeling was probably mutual. Something about snakes in their heads. Hell, I don't remember.

Sometimes I get so wrapped up on my sites and looking for things to post and worried about making money off of it that I forget the part about commenting. I have read some really kick ass posts but I will get over there and believe it or not, I am wordless. The only thing I have to say is something lame like 'that was cool'. I can work on getting better at that but the part about being involved is very true.

Step #13 which I am including here is about giving your blog it's own voice. I'm there dude, most of the time anyway.

Step #14 is to spend 99% of your time focused on creating quality unique content. I don't know shit about quality but I can certainly come up with the occasional unique post :)

This one is particularly important. Step #11 in 101 Steps to Better Blogging is to use trackbacks. Trackbacks are a very useful tool in that if you find a post somewhere that rings a bell, or you just have to post about, link to them and send a reciprocal ping. It lets the original author know that someone liked what was written, and sometimes the link shows up in their entry as well.

I also use open track-backs quite often as well. There are several different sites and blogrolls that are involved in Open Track-backs. Basically it is set up so that all of the blogs that ping your site are displayed in that entry with a link to that site and no-follow disabled. Anytime you see that I have posted an 'Open Trackback' post, such as this one, it gives anyone the right to track-back that post, even with an unrelated post to show off your writing. I do still go through and if it looks like trackback spam I delete it. Most of us prefer that you use a ping site such as Linkfest Haven Deluxe but I will still accept direct pings as long as they aren't spam.

This IS my Open Tack-Back post for Thursday August 9th. Feel free to send a track-back to this post and your link will show up at the bottom of the entry for folks over here to come check out your site.


Trackposted to Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, Right Truth, Inside the Northwest Territory, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Stuck On Stupid, Webloggin, Wyvern dreams, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, High Desert Wanderer, Adeline and Hazel, Conservative Thoughts, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Step #10 is all about submitting your site to RSS feeds and web directories. The post is up at TheAppDotNet.

Due to the fact that if you join this social networking community and then post about it they kick your ass off I will refrain from actually posting what it is. I have joined and posted an article, we will see if that drives any traffic or not. Doesn't seem like it will do much, but I suppose with 101 steps it's all of the little things that count.

Where is #5? Oh, #5 is to make sure that you have an "About Me" page. I already do so I am skipping that step on this site, although I have changed "About Me" to "About Richard"

Next up is Step #7, Submit Your Blog To NewsNow. I will return later with details.

Technorati : 101 Steps, Better Blogging

This is #4. Optimize your blog for the search engines. This looks to be a bit more work than the other ones particularly since I run three sites, but let's give it a whirl.

The first thing I am supposed to do is go read How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines by Darren Rowse (Problogger.com). OK, I'm going right now...

There are several points to Darren's article but they are summed up in most of my posts on SEO that I have done in the past, whether they were paid or just stuff I was writing for myself. Looking for traffic. Where does traffic come from? Good quality back-links on search engines as well as other sites. What qualifies as a quality back-link?

1. they are from higher ranked sites than your own
2. they are relevant to the topic you are writing about
3. they link to you using relevant keywords to your page

OK, that stuff makes sense, but how do you get these kick-butt links to your site? Several different ways...

1. Quality Content. I am already screwed :( One man's quality is another man's quantity I always say...We're talking about blogging, OK? That makes sense. If someone puts up a post that I find interesting I link to it. Very simple. I can't force that to happen, it's a natural progression of events. I've linked to other sites and had them link to me.

2. Notify Relevant Bloggers of Your Content. There are different ways to do this I suppose. You could email them and say "hey! I liked your article and linked to it, go check out mine on the same subject." I don't think I could do that but it is one way. Track-backs are good for this, particularly if you participate in open track-backs and the links show up in the post as I do.

3. Use Directories. I don't do this a bunch but I am listed in some of the blog directories. Darren links to Ari Paparo's big list of blog search engines as a starting point. As soon as I am finished posting this I will go and submit all three sites to the ones that I have not used yet.

4. Inter-Link Your Blogs. I am part of several loosely bound blog networks and blogrolls, and I also have all three of my sites hosted on the same server and regularly interlink them, but that's about it.

5. Buy Links - I have not tried anything like text-link ads, although I do get a few out-clicks on the ones that I host here. I am still on the fence as to whether it is worth it or not. Back at the end of May I spent $100 of the money I earned online and bought some reviews through Payperpost. I posted about the experience here. I think that if I were to do it again, I would use PPP Direct and choose the bloggers that I would want to post a review because it was most definitely not worth the money. Another example would be some of the reviews that I posted about my brother's book earlier in the year. He also used PPP at one point and had several posts on the Internet and with the exception of people coming from my site and maybe one or two others he also felt that it was a waste of his money.

6. Swap Links - I have done some of this as well. I don't do it all of the time as my blogrolls are particularly long and I generally only like to link to people whose blogs I like when I read them. With millions of blogs around, I like quite a few of them.

The article has quite a bit more useful information that I am not going to repeat here but you should go check it out. Darren at Problogger is a gifted writer and very good at what he does.

Technorati : 101 steps

Step #3 from 101 Steps to Become a Better Blogger is "Post at least once per day".

Boy have I got that one covered all over the place at this site. If I posted once per day I have enough to get me through next May just from last months posts :)

Actually on my Tech and Business sites I don't always post daily, so I will have to start doing that. In addition I think I will change "Post Once A Day" to "Post Something Intelligent or Thoughtful Once a Day". That might be a challenge some days...but it is exactly what I am going to try and do.

As I mentioned in the last one I am posting these on all three sites, so if you have been over at one of them you may have already seen this.

Step #2 in the 101 steps to becoming a better blogger is to add your blog feed to Feedburner. I actually am on feedburner but I couldn't remember which blogs I had already added or even my account login :(

...so I did what was necessary and found a cool RSS icon. I like the one that Marcus has but I want a regular one, just bigger. Found this one floating around several places on the net...

I don't think Helen Keller could miss that one floating in my sidebar at 128x128. It definitely stands out quite a bit. Once I am finished with the post I will stick it in my sidebar.

I already has (what's up with my typing tonight?) have Shadowscope and TheAppDotNet set up with Feedburner feeds so I added Miles Business Blog as well. Marcus has a bunch of screenshots up on his post so if you want to see the steps in living color go over there and check it out.

OK, so what's next? Stick the big old button in the sidebar, that's what!! Oh yeah, and here are the feeds as well,

http://feeds.feedburner.com/theappdotnet
http://feeds.feedburner.com/shadowscope
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MilesBusinessBlog

Three times the useless drivel.

After having run across that post on Karen's site I dropped in on Marcus and started checking out his posts on 101 ways to become a better blogger. Hell, I want to be a better blogger. I would also like to learn how to write a coherent entertaining sentence but that is probably beyond the means of this project. Anyway, I am going to participate in this project along with him and I will attempt to do it on all three of my blogs at the same time. There are several things I need to get in order on them anyway, so this will probably take care of them...

The first step is to Go to Popuri and check your page rank, alexa rank, and technorati rank. make a note of these so you'll have something compare them to next summer.

So here are the results for my three sites:

Shadowscope

Google PageRank: 5
Alexa Rank: 62,365
Compete Rank: 363,408
Quantcast Rank: 71,180
Google BackLinks: 560
Yahoo BackLinks: 16,495
Live Search BackLinks: 1
Technorati Links: 3,216
del.icio.us Bookmarks: 1
Bloglines subscribers: 9

TheAppDotNet

Google PageRank: 4
Alexa Rank: 214,827
Compete Rank: 0
Quantcast Rank: 0
Google BackLinks: 71
Yahoo BackLinks: 1,875
Live Search BackLinks: 1
Technorati Links: 237
del.icio.us Bookmarks: 1
Bloglines subscribers: 0

Miles Business Blog

Google PageRank: 3
Alexa Rank: 309,724
Compete Rank: 0
Quantcast Rank: 0
Google BackLinks: 36
Yahoo BackLinks: 288
Live Search BackLinks: 0
Technorati Links: 249
del.icio.us Bookmarks: 0
Bloglines subscribers: 0

The first step actually assumes that you run Wordpress and that you know how to set it up to ping some sites when you update your blog. I don't run Wordpress but I do know how to have it ping and have it set to do so.