Cymeradwyo.net » Blogging

Disqus Comments

Graham — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:05:50 +0000

This evening I have installed “Disqus Comments” onto this blog, so at the end of this post you should see a new type of comment box. Please leave a comment so that I know it is working!

Although you can enter your details as usual, you can also use a Disqus account or your Twitter or Facebook login to validate yourself. This not only helps me prevent spam in the comments, but makes it easier for you as a reader because you can stay logged in (through a cookie) and don’t have to enter your details every time you visit.

Also, if you visit other Disqus sites then they should recognise you as well without the need to enter your information.

Is that a problem for you? Is it OK to link up blogs in this way? Please let me know!

Is this blog loading faster?

Graham — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:50:03 +0000

Does this blog appear to be loading faster to you?

It should be, because I moved it from a hosted webspace onto a virtual server this week.

I was practising for my main blogs, which will be moving shortly. These were originally setup on hosted webspace and have now outgrown it, making them slower.

Whilst I will probably leave the smaller blogs there for the moment along with any static pages, I obviously want my main projects to load as quickly as possible, and having had the server running now for several months for newer things, the time has come to move the older ones across.

How to add a lightbox form to WordPress

Graham — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:21:10 +0000

Here are the steps that I took to create the lightbox subscription form used on this site:

1. Download “Lightbox gone Wild” from this page.

2. Unpack the following files and save them to the “lightbox” directory on your site:

scripts\lightbox.js
scripts\prototype.js
css\lightbox.css

3. Save the HTML code for the lightbox as a file in the lightbox directory, eg. as form.html

4. To make the lightbox load automatically, make the changes listed on this page, but don’t add the last line of HTML to anything just yet.

5. Return to the Lightbox gone Wild site and search for a comment from “preaxz”. Make the changes listed, so that the lightbox disappears when you press Escape or click in the shadowed area.

6. Create the following files within your WordPress theme directory:

– lightbox-cookies.php –

– lightbox-header.php –


<link rel="stylesheet" href="/lightbox/css/lightbox.css" media="screen,projection"
type="text/css" />

– lightbox-activate.php –

";
};
?>

7. Within the WordPress theme file header.php, add the following lines:

On the very first line (yes, before the DocType!) add:

Before the tag add:

After the tag add:

8. Now upload the 4 files in the theme directory and the lightbox directory to your site!

Blog Masters Club

Graham — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:15:18 +0000

I took a brave step in my blogging career yesterday: I joined David Risley’s Blog Masters Club.

Why did I do it? Well, after blogging for 3 years I am definitely more than covering my costs, but I would like to increase the amount that our main blogs earn.

I do not want to start new blogs and definitely don’t want to start blogging about making money. This post should really be the exception!

So after deliberating for quite some time, I decided that I wanted to see what David had to offer. Since I can theoretically cancel my subscription within 60 days, I guessed it was worth taking a look at just how much the members really do help each other and how good the quality of the learning materials are.

It is going to cost me $97 per month for the next 6 months, but a real incentive is being able to use the resources after that as well. That’s about 69EUR for me each month. I hope it is money well spent.

Social Bookmarking Strategy And Nine Additional Ways To Get Traffic

Guest Blogger — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:04:55 +0000

Blogs are popular ways to make an online presence for both personal and even business purposes. You can easily create a free personal or business blog and begin placing your content on it right away. But, you will have done this in vain if no one is reading it. This is a list of ten steps you can take to start to bring in the website visitors your blog needs in order to survive online.

Of all the successful blogs Online, many more have kicked the bucket. Running a blog should be treated as if managing a business Site. Unless you are more that willing to put in your share of work and take it seriously, you can’t plan to be blogging for any long period of time.

This is not to say that all of the past failed bloggers were not serious about their blogging. Most of the time, people who are new at blogging aren’t aware or properly prepared for the work demand that is required for them to see their blog become a success. Just making the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you. You must pursue the audience and give them a reason to want to listen to you. So here is “Social Bookmarking Strategy and 9 other ways to boost your Traffic”.

1. Give Them Fresh Content – nobody wants to visit a blog everyday and see the same posts. Create and post new blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write a handful of posts ahead of time for uploading on a future date.

2. Market Some Article Content – the niche you’ve decided on for your site is one that interests you. Write content you can post to both you blog, and that can also be sent to article directories (An Article Marketing Strategy Software will greatly speed up this process). Place a link in the resource box of the Article so people will find your blog.

3. Social Network – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections.

4. Viral Marketing – viral marketing is spreading the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even people you just met. Giving out business cards with your URL on them is another great option.

5. Use Your RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” visitors can subscribe to your RSS feed and get notified by email when new content is posted. This is an easy way for visitors to keep in tune with your blog.

6. Submit Your Site to Search Engines – submitting your Website tells Search Engines to rank your blog.. Submitting your blog doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You have to do more work for that. Regardless, be sure you Submit Website to Google.

7. Joining Forums – right now you are a budding entrepreneur. You must start off by marketing yourself to find traffic before you can make any profit. Join in on business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. Be sure to add a link to your site in the signature line so others can find your Website.

8. Visit Similar Blogs – you can show appreciation to those who visit your blog by posting comments on their blogs. Be sure to add a link to your blog in your comment.

9. SEO Marketing – no matter what you are writing, be sure to use relevant keywords. A Keyword density between 3 and 10 % will help with rankings. Base your site Keywords on whatever the most popular words used in search engines for your niche are.

10. Social Bookmark – make a Social Bookmarking Strategy and submit your blog and blog posts to Social Bookmarking sites. This is a great way for people to discover you.

Putting to use these things will start traffic heading in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.