Blog From Your Desktop
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I am not a patient person. Perhaps you’ve picked that up by now? I’m particularly impatient first thing in the morning, which is when I do most of my blogging.
My mornings used to go something like this:
- Wake up with great entry idea that will revolutionize blogging and make us all millionaires.
- Hurry to my desk, flip open my laptop and click on the admin page for one of my blogs.
- Wait.
- Drill to the “Write” screen. Click “Write Post”.
- Wait.
- Notice that I’m now out of coffee. Run upstairs for refill.
- Return to laptop and find that I have completely lost my brilliant idea.
- Curse. A lot.
- Resign self to living modestly.
Then about four months ago my friend Slobokan at The Alligator Pit created Stuffr, a desktop blogging client that works with WordPress and MovableType as well as Tumblr TumbleLogs. No more waiting for admin pages to load. No more drilling. No more losing my great entry ideas.
Unfortunately, I haven’t actually had a great entry idea that will revolutionize blogging and make us all millionaires since starting to use Stuffr, but I rather like knowing that if I finally do get another one I’ll be able to post it immediately.
One thing to note: if your host has locked down the xmlrpc.php file (and many do for security reasons), you may have problems getting Stuffr setup at first. The solution is rather simple: go into your cPanel and rename your xmlrpc.php file. Use the new file name during the Stuffr installation and — voila! — you’re up and blogging from your desktop.
Post from: Blogging For The Money
Blog Maintenance And Pursuit of PageRank
There was a time, way back when, that I had no idea what PageRank meant. Much like my days of chastity, effortlessly slim thighs and an all-night bladder, I can barely recall that time.
Fact is, if you’re Blogging For The Money, PageRank matters. Yes, in theory PR represents Google’s opinion of your site — as they successfully argued to a federal court in San Jose, California in KinderStart.com v. Google.
In practice, that opinion seems to be based on four factors, which essentially boil down to context relevance for both incoming and outgoing links.
What does this mean for those of us blogging for the money? It means exactly what today’s Morning Must Read suggests: the race for rank never ends.
In other words, if you’re truly serious about earning money with your blog, you need to maintain your blog regularly, but that’s just the easy part.
The hard part is writing quality content. Regularly. Religiously. And that’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. Look, for instance, what a simple web search on “What is quality content?” generates: a slew of ad-riddled smarmy sites hoping to lure you into believing theirs is the best way to go (and, regardless of whether you agree, hoping to hook you into clicking on their AdSense ads).
There are only two ways to provide quality content, people: write timeless stuff and, if you can’t write something that’s timeless, write something that’s relevant right now. You’ll either catch the long tail in the long run, or the short one will whip your blog profile higher than it’s ever been.
Chase PageRank, yes. But first chase immortality through your blog.
Post from: Blogging For The Money
Blog Maintenance And Pursuit of PageRank
WordPress Made Easy
Although I’m not a site designer, I do tend to tinker with my templates on a regular basis. Unfortunately, I also mess up my templates on a regular basis, too. Same goes for my entire WordPress install, although I have far fewer problems with that these days thanks to Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s book WordPress for Dummies.
I’m also having far fewer problems tinkering with my templates these days, thanks to this Morning’s Must Read from WPCandy, the WordPress Help Sheet.
Post from: Blogging For The Money
Google To Offer Paid Reviews?
Those of us spanked by Google during the great PR slash of October 2007 found ourselves wondering why the big G targeted small “Mom and Pop” bloggers, rather than taking on the paid review companies more directly.
It turns out there may be a reason: there’s talk that Google may soon be offering paid reviews via AdSense, although as Jeremy Shoemaker points out it’s all speculation so far.
Between their huge advertiser client base and leverage with publishers, Shoe believes there are sound financial reasons for Google’s entry into the field. He also points out that such a move would be an excellent way for the company to police the paid review industry which it sought to destroy on the basis of passing PR juice.
I’m not so sure.
While Google has lambasted the paid review industry specifically for passing page rank via paid links, there’s also been a quality control aspect to their stance, too. Take, for example, Matt Cutts’ specific highlighting of poorly written paid reviews that muddy search results by not using the “nofollow” tag.
Google’s very size would make it particularly difficult for them to monitor reviews on the post-by-post basis as LinkWorth, PPP and SponsoredReviews all do.
As a result, any paid review program run by Google would most likely require advertisers themselves to handle the approval/rejection process. And, because Google couldn’t carve out an exception to its mandatory use of the “nofollow” tag without encountering legal problems (can you say, “monopoly”?), they’d essentially be reducing their function to acting as a mere middle man between advertisers and paid reviewers.
Meanwhile, since advertisers wouldn’t be buying PR juice, the only real benefit Google could offer to advertisers is review placement on high-traffic sites likely to reach their desired target markets. That’s already happening. Advertisers already contact reviewers directly to engage in private transactions, and those bloggers interested in protecting their PR are already insisting on use of the “nofollow” tag in such privately-contracted reviews.
So why would anyone bother?
Google’s made a fortune by making smart business moves, time and time again. Entering into the paid review industry wouldn’t be one. So don’t sprain your fingers keeping them crossed over this, folks.
Post from: Blogging For The Money
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