When is a post not a post? When it’s a page! So what’s the difference and how do you create one in WordPress? With the latest version of WordPress a blog can have the same structure as a classic HTML web site with a selection of easily navigable pages.

These stand free and proud of the blog aspects (i.e. posts) of your site. I explain more in today’s audio and the first video tutorial takes you through the process of building your own page, the first of many I’m sure ( how about a Privacy Policy? Google loves those)!

I’ve created a separate video for making your Home page a static page over here…

Got a question about any of the info above? Let us know in the Comments section below….

WordPress, being in blog format, shows posts in the ‘most recent first’ format. Which makes sense right?

The idea being that when anyone visits your site they are seeing the freshest content first. There are ways around this ( for example using pages and having a Static Home Page) but, ‘out of the box’, that’s the way WordPress works.

It’s important to get into a posting routine too. I’m not talking here about how regularly you post ( that’s another topic we’ll discuss) but rather I mean making sure you complete all the steps to not only get your post on your site, or schedule it to appear at a later date, but also make sure it’s done in a well optimized fashion for good navigation, visitor friendliness and Google juice!

Life’s too short for constantly returning to edit your posts! Get it right first time by taking a little extra time!

So in this video I take you through my posting routine and offer some pointers on writing a better post.

Relevant links/Plugins for this tutorial:

• All In One SEO Plugin ( totally vital plugin if you are serious about ranking well in Search Engines!)
• Wordcount copy and paste your post into the box if you want to check how many words
• Lettercount just copy and paste your post’s title (should be 60-65 characters) and description (150) to be optimised for Google search

Glossary/Explanation of Techy Terms used in this tutorial:

• Categories: If you have a generic fishing blog your Categories might be Fly Fishing / Trout Fishing / Deep Sea Fishing / etc. What’s cool is that you can dictate sub categories too e.g. Trout Fishing > Scotland, Trout Fishing > Ireland. Apart from the fact that this keeps you and your blog organised it makes it easier for visitors to explore your site – hurrah!
• Tags: Kind of like mini, mini categories: a one or two word phrase (or multiple phrases) that sum up what a post might be about. For example a post titled ‘My Recent Fishing Trip To Killarney’ might be Categorised under Trout Fishing > Ireland but the tags might be: Holidays,Ireland,Guinness,Trout Fishing,Getting Arrested. If somebody was only interested in your Guinness tagged posts therefore they could click on that particular tag to find more Guinness related posts. It’s all about navigatory options folks!

Got a question about any of the info above? Let us know in the Comments section below….

Bonus: here’s a video from Dr Antony re using Market Samurai for adding content effectively:

So why is the WordPress feature of allowing your visitors to comment on your blog’s posts or pages a good thing? Because when they do they add content to your site!

Google likes to see pages being updated with new content so inviting your visitors to comment on site is a must – every time a new comment appears and Googlebot re-visits the page it takes note of that and your page will go up in its estimation.

Posts I wrote over 2 years ago still get comments so the page stays ‘fresh’ which is great – but there are other reasons too, for example:

• Interactivity – a good post with lots of comments and ‘comments on comments’ is like a conversation and promotes return visits (see recommended plugins below).
• Now that comments can show peoples gravatars, if they have one, this personalises the comments even more.
• They allow you to build relationships with your visitors.

I, as a rule,  ‘moderate’ my comments. In other words when somebody posts a comment they get a ‘Your comment is awaiting approval’ or similar. I will then be e-mailed by the blog to ask me to approve it or not.

That’s not because I have a problem with comments attacking me or the post (far from it, that’s what make conversations interesting!)

But it helps me weed out spam comments that get past the Akismet plugin.

Of course you should be ‘commenting’ on blogs in your niche or market yourself to become a ‘voice’ in your area of expertise and to get those back links to your site. But do as you would be done by:

• Read/skim the post so that your comment is relevant and genuine
• Don’t blatantly ‘plug’ your own site other than putting your web site url in the box provided
• Use your name in the ‘Name’ box – Yes you could use your keyword but even a good comment with a keyword as your name runs the risk of not being approved.

Here’s a link to a page full of clickable links to good PR sites that have ‘Do Follow’  + a bunch of Forums too! :
[private_pro]
Here’s the link to the Google Document with those sites and Forums.
[private_pro]
Re the Forums. They are included because it means that when you register and fill in your profile and enter your details + your http:// address on any of those forums then that will be a ‘Do Follow’ link so some ‘juice’ from the Forum site will be passed to yours.

Related Plugins to attract more comments:

NB: I personally use the first plugin but have stopped worrying about the others and the ‘Do Follow’ issue these days but I do use the high PR Do Follow list above.

• Subscribe to Comments – I use this on nearly all my sites. When somebody leaves a comment they are given an option as to whether they want to be informed when new comments are made. If I leave a contentious comment on a blog I certainly want to know about the feedback! Great way to get return visitors.
• Comment Luv – I have used this in the past and it is a clever plugin in that it will show a link to the Commenter’s last post on his or her blog. Big incentive for commenters!
• Top Commentator – Another incentive to get regular visitors to comment more often by acknowledging them on your blog in the sidebar.
• Follow My Links – This plugin removes the automatic ‘do not follow’ code that WordPress adds to new posts but will not effect older posts.

OK this is Blog Briefing wearing it’s ‘grey(ish)’ hat as opposed to our normal white one!

What I mean by that is that while I hope you are going to create at least one unique, authoritative blog which addresses and helps a certain group of people ( and of course making some money along the way).

You’ll be doing that by targeting your content at popular search terms that people are typing into their search engine of choice and monetizing your posts accordingly. But I would be a poor mentor if I didn’t discuss  and explore the ways to generate content for your blogs FAST – and/or to generate lots of relevant back links.

This is for those of you who are here to find out how to throw up a quick blog, or blog content, to generate some cash via Adsense or Affiliate revenue and, once done, throw up another to generate some more. You’re not necessarily looking at getting subscribers or repeat visitors.

Now $25 a month with Adsense from a blog doesn’t sound much but if you have 20-50 blogs earning that amount the monthly return it looks a bit more healthy right? Plus if your also promoting an affiliate product that generates, say, $25 per sale we could be talking a significant amount of change. Or you could auction any one of those blogs at, on average, 12 x monthly earnings.

I’ll talk about auctioning sites, and the back linking benefits of being able to create fast content, in other posts but here it’s about actual blog posts for your blog(s). But you need to create dozens, hundreds of pages/posts to go this route. Simply impossible for one person to do would you agree? This post itself IS unique, i.e. all my own work, but it’s a bit longer than usual as I wanted to make it as complete as I could anyway…

Let’s see what people who don’t know any better do…

1) There are loads of article sites ( e.g. ezinearticles.com) out there where you can find articles about virtually any topic and you’re allowed to use those in your blog as long as you post them in their entirety i.e. including the author’s attribution and link at the bottom of the article…

Problem! Duplicate content Alert! Google knows that your post is not original and so while your page may be indexed it won’t be ranked well – the author gets a nice back link but you ain’t really going to benefit much as the original post will always rank higher in Google than your copy of it. In fact you may even be penalised by Google as being a copycat!

2) Using PLR ( Private Label Rights) e-books/articles/reports – Find, borrow or buy some PLR content relating to your blog’s target audience and breaking it up into posts ( it’s yours so you wont have to add a link or reference to the original author).

Problem! Duplicate content Alert! Google knows that your post is not original and so while your page may be indexed it won’t be ranked well if at all ( being on page 37 of Google’s search results is not going to do you any good). There are probably a ton of other people using that content too.

Here what some slightly smarter (craftier) people do…

3) They get content as in #1 and #2 above but write or re-write the opening and closing paragraphs, don’t add the original author’s attribution or link to make the article appear unique to search engines.

Problem! That takes time and again Google is smart and getting smarter every day ( think SkyNet from The Terminator!) and while this may have worked once ( as, way back when, did #1 and #2) it’s highly unlikely that Google is fooled by this.

4) They ‘outsource’ their article writing to somebody else for $3-$10 via a site such as GetAFreelancer.com

Potential problem. 100′s of articles is quite a cash outlay and it can be difficult and time consuming to check ( using a site like Copyscape.com) to be sure that your outsourcer is not doing #1, #2 or #3

Here’s what the even smarter people do…

5) Use Automated software to search the web for relevant content for the search phrase they want to rank for – but from loads of different sources to create something pretty unique.

6) Take the resulting content and run it through a Spinning program which, with very little work, adds alternate words (synonyms) or phrases all through that content to make it even more unique ( more unique? Less unique? Doesn’t really make sense but you know what I mean) then the software ‘spins’ that one unique post into dozens  of other variants of the original.

BUT! And This Is A BIG BUT by the way: Add something of value!

Google itself says it has no problem with duplicate content as long as there’s something extra e.g. Value Added Content! So if you, say, spin an article on ‘How To Groom a Dog’ add a paragraph ( maybe top and bottom) of original, useful content that adds more value to the page.

Sounds like extra work? Well yes it is but then you aren’t a scammer/spammer are you? You could even quote an Ezine Article in full ( complete with Author attribution etc.) and remain kosher!

7) If they don’t have time to do this themselves they give their outsourcer access to those two bits of software to massively boost their production and reduce costs.

Here are the two bits of software I use, and therefore promote, if this is the way that you want to create original content for your blogs fast.

Instant Article Wizard Pro and The Best Spinner are both creations of Jonathan Leger whose software  I have been using for some time and by crikey the time and money I’ve saved as a result has been quite impressive.

In the following video Jon talks about, first, Instant Article Wizard Pro ( which in itself is a great research tool for writing articles anyway) and secondly about the, just released, Best Spinner. Each of these are available for a weeks trial for just $7 so give one or the other a go. I mostly use The Best Spinner to turn the PLR content I own into more original content for posts on my quick blogs – BUT ALWAYS ADD EXTRA VALUE!

Can you appreciate the power and speed of combining both of Jon’s programs and being legit by ‘adding value’?

Products and links mentioned in this post:

• Ezine Articles
• Copyscape
• Instant Article Wizard Pro
• The Best Spinner
• 1 Way Links?
• GetAFreelancer

Bonus: here’s a video from Dr Antony re using Market Samurai for adding content effectively:

You definitely need a ‘Contact’ page on your blog not only because it makes sense but also because Google will know if you have one (or not) and Google likes the fact that you are ‘contactable‘.

BUT you don’t want to simply type your email address as a clickable link on a page of your blog as it will eventually be found by an evil Spam Bot and, next thing you know, your getting tons of Spammy emails to your Inbox – Aaaagh! So let’s use a Contact Form plugin instead – but a good one!

I’ve used many different Contact Form plugins over the last couple of years but many have either broken my blog on newer versions of  WordPress or have no flexibility in how to embed the forms into a blog. So I currently like this one from Dagon Design ( not least because it will allow me to have multiple Feedback Forms on different pages and posts on my blog if I so choose)…

Blimey! The amount of times I’ve heard the ‘Content Is King!‘ assertion. But coming up with consistently good content is. There’s a neat online application that can help.

OK here’s the thing! There are many ways you can approach the compiling and publishing of your blog’s content and some are more kosher than others. I’m not being  judgmental here, it’s entirely up to you which Content Road you decide to follow but here are the options available to you as I see them:

Now, these are not listed in order of preference OK? Just in the order that they occurred to me….

1) Do It Yourself: You spend hours drafting, redrafting, editing and eventually publishing a  chunk of text (500 words+) that is original, well written, pertinent to your blog’s target audience and typo free.

Not only that but you’ll have relevant, pertinent or possibly just amusing, image(s) in your post. You might also link to your references, or relevant places on the web to promote your post’s premise. You may even have an audio or video embedded to amplify your post’s main points.

Pros: If you post to your blog daily ( or at least regularly) this is perceived to be the optimal way to blog. Your visitors are getting fresh, unique content – probably every day – and Google will be going orgasmic especially if your visitors stay on your site long enough to read your post or, even better, leave a comment!

Cons: Unless you are in the very happy position of just owning ONE blog ( and I’m kind of SO jealous if you are!) then daily blog posts ain’t going to be given this kind of love. Don’t let my ‘attitude’ put you off if this is what you are currently doing, or aim to do. Long term this is your best way forward to become perceived as an Authority Blogger in your market.

2) Get somebody else to write original stuff for you! And nothing wrong with that! Maybe get your GetAFreelancer.com writer to create 10 posts every month and drip feed theme into your WordPress blog(s) via its ‘Scheduled Posts’ facility

You can outsource your content and pay anything from $3-$20 per article/post, depending on what kind of professionalism you are looking for. Personally I’ve had ‘great’ articles written for $3 that needed minimal, if any, editing.

Once your blog becomes popular you will find it easy to get Guest Contributors, people who will write a great post for you in exchange for a credit with a link to their own site, no cash involved. Maybe invite people interested in your topic who don’t necessarily have a blog themselves but would like to get their point of view ‘out there’.

3) Find some articles on sites like EzineArticles or similar (see my list of the best article sites in the sidebar to the right). Find, say, 3 or 4 articles and take parts of them to create a brand new article – either re-write or use a spinner program. Don’t just copy somebody else’s article outright because, even if you credit them with their link ( and you should) it’s still unoriginal i.e. not unique content and Google will know that and not rank it well.

4) Get some PLR Content ( the type where you have full rights to it i.e. name yourself as the author, give it away etc.) and re-write it yourself, or use something like The Best Spinner to turn it into fresh content perceived by Google as unique – or outsource that too.

5) Every once in a while ( maybe once a week) you could post a summary of cool stuff you’ve on the Web for example:

• If you’ve found a blog post you like elsewhere you could write a short introductory paragraph as to why it hits the spot – quote the first paragraph and then link to the original post via a  ‘read more‘ link to the original post. That way your crediting the original author, and giving them a link too. Maybe do that for, say, four posts from four separate blogs. With your take on each one – that’s good relevant content for your blog in my book.

You are ‘following’ other blogs in your niche via their RSS Feeds and saving them into your Google Reader right?

• If you’re using Google Alerts you can get a selection of blog posts (or anything) delivered to your Inbox. You just set the keyword phrase you want to get the Alerts for and how many results you want and often you want Google to mail you the results (see below). You can tweak your search terms over time to fine tune the info you receive….

6) For posting stuff to you blog ‘on the fly’ try ClipMarks – it’s free. Check it out in my video below:

Categories help keep your posts organized and give your visitors another way of searching your content. This is a good thing!

Let’s say your blog/site will be about travel and holidays. You might therefore have categories such as:

Family Holidays
Cruising
Spa Holidays
Travel Arrangements
Working Holidays
Travel Accessories

Over time each of those Categories might be broken down into sub-categories e.g. Cruising might have the sub-categories:

• Caribbean Cruises
• Mediterranean Cruises
• Canal Cruises

and so on.

As I explain in the video below I like to get, at least, my main Categories in place before I start adding content to keep me focused.

I like to use at least one image in every page and post. Needs to be relevant too, or in a vague or amusing way….

In this video tutorial I take you through the basics and let you watch over my shoulder as I add imagery to a post in our test blog ( with the release of WordPress 2.9 it’s meant to have got easier too). Today’s audio is about using imagery generally as in “Can I get sued?”

PS: Video below is longer than usual (about 24 minutes)

Useful Links

istockphoto Library
Works out at about a dollar or a Euro for a small sized image ( fine for most blogging needs) but be CAREFUL as the default is set to LARGE which will cost you 15 and not 1 euro or buck! Sneaky, and they should really stop doing that!

compfight.com – This is a way of searching the online photo library Flickr. You want to make sure that you only use photos that are set to ‘Attribution’ or ‘Share-a-like’ copyright settings. You can set your search settings to do that which saves time and potential legal issues.

Gimp (free image editing/manipulation program). This software is the next best thing to having Adobe Photoshop ( which costs a fortune!)

Or try editing your images online at PhotoShop.com which is pretty cool and free.

LATEST: The Good News is that, since the release of WordPress 2.9, you can do simple editing ( re-size and crop) in your WordPress Dashboard once you’ve uploaded an image.

Bad News is that the internal WordPress image editing widget doesn’t seem to be working so great ( as you see in the video). In the meantime use one of the photo editing options above.

]]> http://www.blogbriefing.com/2852/adding-images-to-wordpress/feed/ 7