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WordPress Blogging Tip: Use your index.php page to tell Google what your site is about

Despite the fact that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp seem to think that Google is dangerous, I’ve come to the conclusion that the evidence suggests otherwise.

In fact, despite personally getting a real butt-whipping over the last month or so, I think the evidence shows that, objectively, Google ultimately wants to fight trash and reward art.

So, my new operating principle going forward is to clean-house by throwing away the trash. And instead, focus on building art. In the short term, I’m taking a major financial hit. But if I’m right about Google’s long term plans, then my decision should be a massively successful investment over the next 24 months.

That leads me to the content of this post. It occurred to me recently that a WordPress blog is not well-suited out of the box for giving the search user, via Google SERPS, a clear, lasting, authoritative description of your site.

For example, let’s do a search on Wisdump. What does Google pull up for the SERP description?

I’m here to take over Wisdump, get it back on its feet for real, and then taking it up a notch. From now on you can expect regular posts on design and other …

AS you can see, Google pulled up content from a recent post at Wisdump. But honestly, this doesn’t tell the search user much about Wisdump. What is Wisdump? Why should I visit Wisdump?

I noticed the same issue with my own site, TV Crunch. To me this seems like a significant defect: giving the user a strong and clear description of your site is critical to branding. And branding is the key to monetizing art.

To solve the issue, I placed the following code in the footer of the site:


TV Crunch offers the latest television news and gossip profiling the best new tv shows and most popular television stars.

So what does this code do? Well, it places a permanent, authoritative, descriptive sentence about TV Crunch exclusively on the front page of the blog. It tells Google, and more importantly, search users, what TV Crunch is about.

Whereas a search on TV Crunch used to bring up irrelevant nonsense, cut from a recent headline, it now brings up exactly what I wanted it to bring up.

Some people might argue that this move is insignificant or will have minimal effect. But I beg to differ. If I’m right, and branding is the key to long term online success, then it’s crucial that both the search engines and the search users know what your site is about. And this is one important step that will help you strengthen your blog’s brand.

Interview with Christopher Hogg from Digital Journal

You know a business by its people, and when I encountered Christopher Hogg, I knew Digital Journal was something special.

A couple days ago I put up a Rajbait at College Startup. It was entitled 15 Successful Entrepreneurs Who Didn’t Need College and I thought it was a rock solid article. Apparently, so did the cool kids over at Digg.

But much to my dismay, a search on the title of that linkbait turned up a citizen journalists article over at Digital Journal as the top result in Google. Even to this day, College Startup’s original doesn’t show up anywhere on the front page of the Google SERPS. I visited the article, and though College Startup was mentioned, the link was not directed back to my site.

Initially, as you might guess, this disappointed me. Though I was happy that the article was noticed, I was not happy that Google had identified DJ as the source. So, I contacted Digital Journal, not expecting a response (I rarely get responses from online publishers). Much to my surprise, an extremely pleasant Christopher Hogg responded with the following message:

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for the note. This was written by a citizen journalist and I’ve taken a look at the post and there is mention of College-Startup with a link at the beginning saying the list was created by you.

We take these issues very seriously, so I have updated the link to the one you provided, as we want to ensure proper attribution is there.

If you take a look at the article now, does it reference you in a way that you feel gives proper credit?

Please let me know.

Best regards,

Chris

Because of this great response, I knew immediately that Digital Journal was a rare breed as far as Internet sites go. So I decided to ask Chris for an interview. Here it is:

1. Tell us a little about your vision for Digital Journal. What are you trying to accomplish?

As a news hub, DigitalJournal.com aims to be an online resource for readers looking to discover the top news items of the day from a perspective that is different than that of the mainstream media’s. News published on DigitalJournal.com is a collection of breaking news, current events, Op-Ed and interesting news items written by citizen journalists.

While our approach is fact-based, as we believe all news media should be, our readers appreciate the diverse set of beliefs and mixed editorial range that only an open forum is capable of creating. Citizen journalists tie in personal anecdote, they are often in places around the world where mainstream media has no access, and the debate and conversation that comes from citizen journalist reports is engaging, lively and refreshing.

Our goal is to continue to provide a forum in which citizen journalists can be part of the news-gathering process so they can question facts, report on issues important to them and engage in a community of like-minded people. Everyone has a story. Everyone has an opinion. DigitalJournal.com is the hub in which anyone can contribute those ideas.

2. How is Digital Journal differentiating itself from other citizen journalist sites like Newsvine?

DigitalJournal.com takes a different approach than other social-bookmarking, or user-generated sites, in that, our goal is to produce and host content rather than link to it.

The Web has fantastic sites such as Digg or Newsvine that provide news-hungry readers with links to content on other websites, but the goal with DigitalJournal.com is to create a community and a website at which readers can come to read, debate and discuss news. While linking to outside facts or resources does play a vital role in collecting and reporting information on DigitalJournal.com, our primary goal is to minimize the clicks needed to get quality reading and news coverage.

3. What sort of person are you looking for to participate at Digital Journal? What’s your target audience?

The best part of a social news community like DigitalJournal.com is that anyone can be part of it. We do have a screening process in place whereby aspiring citizen journalists and bloggers must submit a sample of writing that must be approved, but the fantastic thing about DigitalJournal.com is that you do not need to be a professional writer or accredited journalist –- you just have to show a passion for writing and news. Our membership is comprised of everyone from 14 to 70 years old, and that diversity is what makes conversation, debate and reporting news interesting, as it appeals to a wide demographic and the opinions are an incredible mix-bag of unpredictability.

4. Why would a person want to write for your publication? What incentives do you provide?

DigitalJournal.com has a system in place whereby all citizen journalists are paid for their contributions. We take a portion of all advertising revenue generated on the site and split it up among all users. While we don’t disclose the exact mechanics of our formula, we do pay users based on how much exposure and activity their articles receive. The more a citizen journalist contributes, the more he or she can earn.

The most amazing thing we find, is that so many people flock to DigitalJournal.com because of the financial incentive. However, we find most people stay for the community, debate and alternative approach to news. That is a very unique aspect of DigitalJournal.com and something for which we are very proud and humbled.

5. How do you determine which sites get featured on the front page?

DigitalJournal.com is entirely by the people, for the people. All articles that appear on the site have a ‘Vote It Up’ button at the bottom. Readers are encouraged to vote for articles they find newsworthy and our entire site, including our front page is generated by what people want to read.

6. Can you tell us a little about your plans to monetize Digital Journal?

Like all media organizations, DigitalJournal.com is financed by advertising revenue.

7. What’s been your biggest challenge in launching and running Digital Journal?

Digital Journal began as an online publication in the late 1990s and evolved into a very successful printed publication in 2001. We focused solely on technology and digital lifestyle and distributed a glossy magazine coast-to-coast across North America for five years. However, as reading habits and interests changed, we went back to our Web roots in 2006 and expanded our focus from technology to include all beats and we opened DigitalJournal.com to citizen journalists and bloggers.

Over the last year we have evolved and grown a lot. Given that citizen journalism is still such a young field, we have focused a lot of our energy on creating a credible venue and we are constantly working to prove that the mainstream media is not the only source of information.

Habits have changed a lot over the last little while, as well, and a lot of people have shown they gravitate toward an open forum like ours that encourages the questioning of facts and pursuit of truth.

All of our work has focused on creating a viable business from a segment of the population that is too often talked at, rather than included.

8. Who do you see as your main competitors at the moment?

Citizen journalism is a very unique field because most people in this business are supportive of competition and growth of this nascent news concept.

There are sites such as Newsvine or NowPublic that offer a citizen approach to media and news, and while they would literally be classed as competition to DigitalJournal.com, we see them more as informal partners in a rapidly growing industry. We’re supporters and advocates of anyone who helps further the cause of citizen media.

9. I noticed that you have a TV domain. Tell us a little about your goals with video media.

Digital Journal TV was a natural evolution for our company, as we have a great deal of history in all forms of media. As I mentioned, we used to run a printed publication devoted entirely to technology so we wanted to continue that coverage through Digital Journal TV.

Also, we are increasingly in very high demand by TV networks, so we decided to start producing the content ourselves. We have now appeared on major TV networks hundreds of times and digitaljournal.tv is the place online where we pursue timely tech issues. DigitalJournal.com’s staff is mostly comprised of tech lovers who are also broadcast journalists, so it was a natural move.

Our goal is to continue exploring topical technology stories and bringing viewers a side they have not seen, and a side with no PR spin. Too often in technology, people in marketing over-hype a product with false promises and exaggeration. Our goal is to tell it like it is, no matter who it offends in the process.

10. What’s your favorite social media site? Digg, Stumble, Reddit, Propeller, Delicious? If you don’t have a favorite, then which one do you spend the most time using?

I am a hardcore Net junkie so pegging a favourite social media site for me is nearly impossible. I have been a Digg user for quite some time and I love the site, but I also do my best to scour off the beaten path into the blogosphere as often as possible.

Redbook Theme

Redbook theme for WordPress preview image The latest classic Performancing theme for WordPress, Redbook represents balance, structure and symmetry.

Created in collaboration with Brian Gardner, Redbook lives up to its name by incorporating what we think to be salient aspects of a physical book with the modern feel of a sophisticated website (hence “red book”). Viewing a blog powered by the Redbook WordPress theme, one would feel as if unfolding an actual hard-bound book, with the left and right sidebars “folding” out, and red and grey liners reminiscent of a book’s cover and leaves.

Redbook is a three-column theme with a sidebar on each side. The main column is mainly white-on-black, which is excellent for readability and adds to that book-like feel. The presentation of the sidebars is organized, with dark grey lines that separate each major heading. This theme is ideal for professional or personal bloggers who wish to convey a sense of organization and structure.

Download the Redbook Theme or…

Click here for a live preview

Update: Redbook has been updated for compatibility with WordPress 2.7 and up. Download the latest version here.

Performancing’s November WordPress Theme: Redbook

Performancing is pleased to announce it’s latest monthly WordPress theme release entitled Redbook.

Designed by Brian Gardner, of Revolution fame, this theme uses a subtle mix of reds and greys to achieve a sleek, sophisticated and professional look. Redbook includes three columns, with the content column sandwiched between two equally sized sidebars. This layout maximizes your above-the-fold real estate and gives you three nicely-sized regions to capture the reader’s attention.

Redbook is perfect for professional websites but also has the simple flair necessary for edgier magazine style web publications.

The Redbook theme was made possible by Life Insurance Canada .

Download the Redbook Theme or…

Click here for a live preview

Performancing’s 2 Year Anniversary Treasure Hunt

This week marks the 2nd anniversary of Performancing’s launch. To celebrate, we’re running a massive online treasure hunt and giving away lots of prizes (a growing list). We hope you can participate because this should be a lot of fun!

The basic idea is this. We’ve selected a phrase that’s essential for online success. This phrase has 6 words. The ultimate goal is to identify this phrase and be the first to notify Ryan of the correct answer in a private message.

The Details

A ‘jumbled phrase’ treasure hunt. One sentence, 6 words, no order given. Here’s how it works:

1) 1 word per day, starting Thursday November 8th (the 2 year anniversary date)

2) Every word has a clue attached to it. On each day, you’ll be given that clue (an uncommon sentence) on Performancing.com (8 am EST). During the day, you need to find blog posts that have used this clue.

3) That blog post will have an outgoing link (inside the post text) – that site’s first letter is one of the letters of that day’s word.

For example, let’s say that the clue for Saturday is ‘exploding dell laptops in Cambodia’. During the day, you’ll use various search engines and blog search engines to track this phrase and find out who has used it. Suppose that you find two blogs using this phrase, and both have single links going out to http://www.wisdump.com and http://www.ebay.com.

If you take the first letter of each url, you’d get ‘w’ and ‘e’. Now it’s easy to make a word out of that particular combination, but in the actual treasure hunt you’ll have longer words and it’ll be harder.

To prevent the chance of sabotage, you can send a private message to Ryan to confirm that you’ve found the correct URLs.

4) Once you’ve received all 6 clues, you should be able to decipher the words and piece them together to make the final phrase (there will be more than one possible variation, but we’ll be accepting just one of them).

5) The first one to send it in via PM to Ryan wins all of the prizes.

6) Everyone else who’s able to send the answer in within the allotted time period (November 15th, 11:59 PM Eastern) will be entered in a prize drawing for one of each prize.

Treasure Hunt Prizes

1 hour free consultation with Chris Garret (value $150)
Free custom logo from Randa Clay (value $350)
1-year free Professional MegaEdition subscription to PMetrics (value $99)
Professional linkbait service – 1 linkbait plus promotion (value $2,000)
Blog Reboot – a step-by-step report on how to improve your blog (value $500)
SEO Reboot – free keyword research report + SERPS analysis (value $350)
Custom tweak / install of Brian Gardner’s Revolution theme (value $500)

Note: If you’d like to sponsor a prize, please leave a comment or contact me.

Bloggers Make Great Sales People

Bloggers and selling. You probably don’t put those two words together, but I think they fit well.

Now I’m talking about established bloggers – bloggers with a good amount of traffic and steady stream of RSS subscribers. If you’re one of these bloggers, you can greatly increase your income by selling.

I’m not talking about selling advertising or text links. The problem with advertising is that you’re not selling to most of your readership. In most niches, only a very small percentage of your readers will be interested in buying advertising. These are readers with websites that want traffic or better search engine rankings.

But what about the rest of your readers? How will you monetize them? Sure, you can use AdSense and similar cost per click programs, but don’t neglect selling products to your readership. You can keep the AdSense while testing selling. Oftentimes you’ll find that selling products is more profitable than AdSense.

A Quick Disclaimer

Obviously selling is easier in product driven niches like real estate and travel. Travel is a good example. There is always something to sell in the travel niche. You can sell plane tickets, luggage, books, hotels reservations, cruises, and even travel insurance. However, with some creativity, you can create products in niches that are not product driven. These niches include entertainment, politics, sports, and spirituality. These niches are content driven. If you’re in these niches, don’t be afraid to charge for some of your content. People will pay for excellent content. Here are some ideas: create a membership program, record a video or audio product, or write an ebook.

Why Bloggers Make Great Sales People

Back to bloggers and selling. Why do established bloggers make great sales people? Here are two reasons.

First, these bloggers are trusted. They have a good reputation within their niche. Because of their trustworthy reputation, they can sell much more effectively. Internet users are more likely to buy from people they trust. It’s human nature.

Blogging is the personal medium, and I’ve found that as I keep up with bloggers for a couple of months, I feel like I know them even though I’ve never met them. If they recommend a product, I will check out the product and buy it if I need it. But with bloggers I don’t know about, I probably won’t check out their recommendations.

This works offline too. I have a friend who’s a car salesman. If I need a car, guess who I’m buying it from?

Second, bloggers are good at getting repeat visitors. RSS subscriptions and fresh, new, timely content drives visitors back to blogs. Also, some bloggers have email lists, which brings in even more repeat visitors. Repeat visitors is a key to getting sales. It usually takes a person a couple of exposures of a product before they buy it.

For example, let’s say you have a banner ad where you sell an affiliate product. A visitor clicks through and checks out the product. They probably won’t buy right away even if they’re interested. But if they like your content, they’ll keep coming back to your blog. And they’ll keep seeing the banner ad. Each time they see it, they’ll move closer to buying the product.

Here’s another example. I’ve been following Brian Clark’s Copyblogger for a couple of months. He’s written a lot of great content, so I trusted him. He recently started a membership site. I didn’t join right away. He posted about it multiple times. He didn’t spam. He just connected his membership site to his posts in a relevant way. Each mention made me consider joining. After a couple mentions, I joined.

Conclusion

Sell.

It may be hard for you to think of yourself as a sales person, but realize that bloggers make good sales people. They have great characteristics: they’re trusted and they get repeat visitors.

How-To Write E-Mails That Build Your Professional Network

You want to build a personal network and you are doing this via the different social services like Facebook or StumbleUpon. You try to make people your friends and you are writing personal introductions.

Don’t hesitate to contact people but do it right!

The following example was in my Facebook inbox this morning. The mail is nice but it will not work as expected even if this guy is a friend of mine on Facebook already:

Hi Markus,

I am actively looking to meet new people at the moment. My business is my passion and I am now ready for market.

My business is media production – our company’s first project is centered on music and built around the artist Xyz. It is an incredibly exciting time to be in this business!

I am looking for introductions to people who do business in this area, particularly Europeans.

I would be delighted to reciprocate,

With very best wishes

N.
—————-
Now playing on iTunes:…

Let’s do a little text analysis and strip that mail down:

1st pararaph: I am, My business, my passion, I am
2nd paragraph: My business, our company, incredibly exciting
3rd paragraph: I am, particularly Europeans
4th paragraph: I would

What am I supposed to do? I am confused.

Is this guy talking to me???

How-To contact people you never met

A contact mail has to have an attractive story telling title. In this example the title was “N. Introduction…”. Make it personal and appeal to my curiosity.

Hi Markus, now that we are friends on Facebook…

Start with a personal message or a question which might be answered by the recipient with ‘Yes’. Repeat the title and give more information aimed at the recipient.

Hi Markus, being friends on Facebook now (Thanks for your confirmation!) I would like to give you some informations which you won’t find on my Facebook profile. Please tell me if this useful for you (or not!). Maybe you can help me in the future?

The 2nd paragraph should give some short (!) personal background info like age, family status, link to personal website and other network links (i.e. p.com blog). Always remember that you are talking to a stranger!

The 3rd paragraph can introduce your business activity. BUT you must explain why you think that your business activity is interesting for the recipient. If you can’t explain it then only add a link to your business site to make it easier for the recipient (!) to get more info about your business. Don’t be pushy! Better be patient and wait for future chances to introduce you business.

At the end it is a must to be personal. “I would be delighted to reciprocate, “. For what? To ‘reciprocate’ for what?

It was a great help for me to read your p.com article about building a nice Facebook profile. Let’s have some fun and exchange ideas. What do you think?

If you use a signature it is allowed to contain business information. Like a ‘PS:’ a signature can have very strong impact. Some direct marketing people say that the ‘PS:’ is the strongest signal at all. Don’t give that chance away!

A last tip: Using the internal messaging system is fine but if you have a personal email address use standard email and not the internal messaging system! Most recipients will have a personal workflow for their mail inbox but not for the different internal messaging services.

PS: Don’t emphasize on facts which can be seen on a first glance at your profile page.

$1000 A Month: How I did it

Yesterday Amy Derby gave us a peek into how she earns $1,000 a month on a blog receiving very little traffic. I sometimes earn that much on a blog receiving fairly decent traffic, but I don’t earn that much every month and I’m sure I can earn more. Still, for a writing blog it’s pretty good. You see, writing blogs are difficult to monetize.

Here’s how I do it:

Adsense – Adsense is still my biggest money maker. Though I’m still playing around with other forms of income, I have success with this and I’m not parting with it any time soon. For the end of October and beginning of November, my Adsense revenue is way down however, so I need to keep finding methods to monetize my biggest money-making blog.

Amazon – I have some luck selling books using Amazon but the bulk of my earnings with this affiliate is through the search box during the holidays. While I do earn a little using this throughout the year, during the holidays I can count on it for a few hundred bucks from people looking to do holiday shopping from home.

Kontera – I was hesitant to use Kontera at first, I’m not a big fan of context links ads but this was recommended and I’m so far pleased with the results. It’s good for a couple of hundred dollars each month.

Buy me a cup of coffee – This is something else I struggled with. A couple of years ago members of my community asked where they could make donations. I tried one of Paypal’s “donate” buttons and received a couple of dollars here and there. When I made the switch to WordPress I installed a “Buy Me a Cup of Coffee” plugin and couldn’t believe the amount of people who wanted to purchase my next White Chocolate Mocha. Actually most of my earnings for Freelance Writing Jobs is used pay the two people who help out – Jodee, who researches job leads for me and Ajay, who handles the techie stuff.

What didn’t work for me

I tried affiliate programs such as Commission Junction and so far no combination of affiliate ads or buttons have worked. I also had Auction Ads up for the better part of the year and while the beginning of the year wasn’t bad, the last few months have been a complete zero. I took auction ads out yesterday. I’m not saying these programs won’t work well for others, however.

Still Experimenting

I’m still experimenting with other affiliate programs for writers. I followed Amy’s advice and installed an Indeed ad box. I feel this program will be beneficial to my regulars. I’m also looking into affiliates for writing magazines and stores.

I think the lesson here is that you can’t just throw a few ads on your blog and forget about it. You’re constantly playing with new formulas and sources of revenue. I know a couple of people who have hinted that now that I have some help maintaining FWJ I can sort of sit back and collect profits. That’s far from the truth. Finding a way to keep the profits rolling in takes time and patience. I doubt I’ll ever get to the point where I’ll stop experimenting.

What formulas work for you?

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