SBT Setup

Now You Too Can Subscribe to Comments

For the longest time I’ve been trying to find a plug-in that would allow readers to receive notification of a new comment on a post.

Today I found it!  Finally!  I just installed the plug-in “Subscribe to Comments” by Mark Jaquith (don’t ask why it took so long for me to find – clearly it should have been pretty obvious since the name of the plug-in actually describes the functionality I was looking for).

So what does it do you ask?  I does exactly what the name implies.  You leave a comment here, check the “notify me…” box under the captcha code and when the next person comments below you, an e-mail will be sent alerting you of the fact.

Hopefully the next comment will be a reply to you from me where I tell you that your comment was witty and charming and I thank you for reading SuperBlogTime!

Personally, I really like to find out when someone has replied to a comment that I wrote.  The problem I have is remembering where I left comments and going back to them later.  With e-mail notification, I don’t have to worry about it; I receive an e-mail everytime someone leaves a comment.  And now, SBT has the same system in place!  Sweet.

As I was looking for the plug-in, I came across a great post by Ms. Ileane about keeping the conversation going in your comment section.  One of the people commented saying that although subscribing to comments by e-mail is a good idea, your in-box can quickly fill up if you do it too often or on a very popular site.

That can be a problem, but one thing I might do to get around it is to create a new e-mail address just for comments.  That’s a really good idea if I do say so myself.  Genius, really.

What do you think?  Do you like e-mail notifications?  Is it too much for your in-box or does it keep the conversation going as Ms. Ileane said.

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Pic by osde8info

Do You Ever Feel Overwhelmed?

Sometimes I do!

I’ve been blogging for a few months now and sometimes I feel like there is so much that I want and need to do that I sort of freeze.

I stare at the screen, hoping something will magically happen.  Or I ignore the blog entirely hoping it will just vanish.

The biggest problem for me is that there is just so much information out there that it freaks me out.  A blog needs to be  SEO optimized, content needs to be added daily, marketing needs to be done in certain way to get traffic, ads needs to be placed correctly to be most effective, ads are absolutely forbidden on a blog (huh?), list posts are lame, list posts are great etc.

So here’s the deal.  No more stress about the blog.  My goal this week is to just relax and have fun.  The first month of SBT was great fun and I’m going to try and get back in that frame of mind.  I’m not going to worry about ads, seo, marketing, or proper content for now.  I’m just going to write and have a good time.

Whew.  Just saying that makes me feel better.

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Pic by Greg Westfall

Absent

As you can tell, SuperBlogTime has not been updated much in the last few days.  The reason for that is that I have been attending a seminar here in San Francisco about cancer causation in minority populations.

In my ‘About’ page, I talk a little about my background in public health which would explain my attendance at the seminar.

Then why am I writing a blog about blogging you ask?  Good question.

I’ve always been fascinated by the interwebs and hugely impressed by anyone who has managed to make a business with it.  Blogs are just one of the latest innovations to pop up on the web that allows for a new business model.  So I thought I’d take a stab at it myself.

I created SBT as a training ground for me to learn how to set up a blog.  My eventual goal is to have a few blogs on some different topics that I am interested in.  And, to bring it back to the seminar I’m attending, a blog about a public health topic is a very distinct possibility.

So I apologize for the lack of content this week but at least now you know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.

I’ll double my efforts next week to make up for it!

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Pic by 96dpi

What is the PageRank for SBT?

The other day I changed SuperBlogTime so that it is now a Do Follow blog.  I wrote about it here (and explained a little about what Do Follow means).

This morning, I wanted to add SBT to a directory that highlight Do Follow blogs hoping to increase my site traffic.  The first directory I found was at WhyDoWork.com.  They have a list of 66 sites that are all Do Follow and they have a submission button to add your own URL to the list.  Perfect!

Well almost perfect.

I read the rules and it turns out they only accept sites that have a page rank greater than zero.

What is PageRank?

PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to weigh the relevance of a website.  Interestingly it has nothing to do with a search results “page” or anything like that.  It was developed by Larry Page and hence the name PageRank.  A PageRank of ten is the best, and zero is the worst.  Here’s a link to Wikipedia with more information if you’re interested.

Well, I had no idea what PageRank SBT was so I thought I would check it out.

The results are in and …

Drum roll please…

PageRank for SBT is ZERO, Zip, Nada

They were nice enough to provide a nice button that I could use on the site though.

Here’s a free PageRank checker that you can use for your blog.  What’s your score?

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Image by Robert Vega

SBT is Now Do Follow

Just a quick update. I installed the WordPress plugin Do Follow (found here) that removes the No Follow attribute from links found in the SBT comment section.

Now that I’ve made the change, I should ask the question, “Why isn’t that the default setting for WordPress?”  There seems to be a clear advantage for anyone who leaves a comment.  Google (and others) will follow the links in the comment section back to their blog which increases the total number of inbound links and that leads to higher page rank.  Right?

What’s the downside?  I’m pretty sure I’m missing something here.

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Pic by Niffty

My Blog Needs a Facelift!

SuperBlogTime has been around for a little over a month now and I think it might be time for some serious actual site design.  When I started the blog, I literally spent 30 seconds looking and WordPress themes before choosing the theme you see before you.  It’s called the HeatMapTheme and it has served me well so far.

However.

My friend started a blog last week called Omnivoreworld and he clearly spent a little more time than I did picking his theme.  Go ahead, take a look at his site and then come back here.  What do you think?  You can tell me, it won’t hurt my feelings….’cause I already know the answer.

It’s Time for a New Theme!

This time I’m not just going to pick the first theme I come across and hope for the best.  I’m going to do some serious research and get the best one I can find.  I’m even willing to purchase a theme if it’s good enough.

Thesis

One of the premium themes I’ve been hearing a lot about lately is called Thesis and it’s available at DIYThemes.  I have to say that it looks really great.  The Thesis theme showcase is here if you want to see some examples.

The cost is pretty steep, especially for someone like me who has yet to make a buck off my super fabulous blog but it might be worth the investment.  I also read that Thesis 2.0 is coming soon and the cost will be going up so maybe now is the time to get it.

Advice Please

Anyone know of a good theme I should try?  Should I go with Thesis?

If you don’t have a blog yet, check out some of the themes at WordPress and let me know which ones you like.

Full Post or No? Using the “more” Tag.

I purchased WordPress for Dummies a few days ago and one of the first things I learned was how to use the <!–More–> tag. It is used to your blog post into two parts. The first part shows a quick summary of your post and at the bottom it adds a link that says “Read More”. I’m not sure if I should use it with every post but it will be really good for longer entries like my explanation of RSS and the FireFox browser.  Given that SuperBlogTime is designed to make me mega bucks off the interwebs (and to teach you how as well), I wonder if there is a way to arrange my ad space to take advantage of clicking the “Read More” link.  OMG – so much to learn about blogging!

What do you think?  Would you prefer to see the entire post on the front page of SuperBlogTime or is it better to give you a quick summary and make you click on the “Read More” link.  I need advice people!

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Picture by Mykl Roventine

AdSense on the Blog

Adsense went up last night.  It doesn’t look too bad as far as placement is concerned but there is a problem with the wording.  It doesn’t seem to fit in the widget space that I have from my WordPress theme.

Any ideas how I can fix it?

Update 4/28:  I posted this question to the bloggeries forum and got an answer from the author of blogetize.org.  The ads were just too big for the space provided with the WordPress theme I’m using.  I changed the size of the ads (part of the basic set-up process over at AdSense) and it now looks much better.

Attracta.com – Attracatamate my blog please

I just submitted SuperBlogTime to Attracta.  Honestly I don’t really know what that means.  The site says that it will increase blog traffic immediately!  Now!  They create an XML thingy to make the site more attractive and desirable to search engines.  Maybe it’s like making your blog go to the gym for a few months.  Ok, whatever.  It’s free.

Update:  Hmm.  Attracta wants me to upload something to the root directory.  Apparently this is more complicated than I thought.

Update 5:08 am:  I couldn’t sleep so I thought I would try to sort out the XML file from Attracta.  After creating the file, Attracta sent me an e-mail saying that it needed to be uploaded to the root directory of my website.  After much heartburn and irritation, I found a help file at GoDaddy.com that shows how to upload files with an FTP client.  The web based FTP client at GoDaddy didn’t work for some reason so I used FileZilla instead.  After some issues with username, host, and password I was able to log in and transfer the XML file to the root directory.  Whew.  I’m such a noob.

From what I understand, the file created by Attracta will help the search engines index a site better and the practice of using an XML site map is recommended by Google.  Attracta’s business model is to provide the file free and then convince you that their service is needed to continue submitting the file to the search engines over time.  For my particular site, Attracta suggested a $19/month plan.  Um, no thanks.  Maybe when I make lots and lots of money from the blog I’ll consider it.

Anyone out there use Attracta? Opinions?

There’s Hope!

SuperBlogTime is 6 days old today.  Tomorrow will mark our one week anniversary together and there will absolutely need to be some sort of celebration.  Nothing over the top mind you, just a small recognition ceremony.  Maybe I’ll take the blog out for coffee.  It’s kind of like when you’ve been seeing someone for a month and you want to recognize the fact without going over the top and making yourself look needy and clingy thus driving them away and ending the relationship before it could really get started.  Not that I have any experience with that myself you see…never…really.  What?

Anyway, after one whole week I have yet to make money from the blog yet.  Where’s the instant gratification?  Jeez.  There is hope though.  Last week I was talking to a friend of mine and she told me something that made me happy.  She mentioned SuperBlogTime to another friend and it turns out that he runs a blog too.  Not only does he run a blog, but my friend found out that the guy made a little over a hundred dollars on Wednesday from his site.  How cool is that?  I can’t post the site here since I don’t know the guy and haven’t asked permission to disclose financial info but this is the first time I had ever met (almost) someone who made money from blogging.  Ha!  It can be done.

Cough it up interwebs!  You still owe me.

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Picture by AMagill