So go ahead and ask me a question. Anything. I’ll do my best to answer it and if I can’t I’ll let you know why.
Also, you may want to check a growing list of blog topics that I’ll be covering here before you post, titled “How to Build a Blog from Scratch!”
So go ahead and ask!
John,
You use great pictures, quantitative data, and humor in your posts to drive home the message. What’s the key for you to story telling in blog posts?
that’s a great question dewitt.
Honestly, i don’t have much of a formula. i just want to be the most authentic “ME” as possible. i would hope that when i meet people they see exactly the same thing as they do online!
i also don’t take life too seriously…
Hi John,
Whats your opinion on using adsense?
What ways do you monetize from your blog.
Trying to build my tent here..
http://churchcrunch.com/why-adsense-devalues-your-blog/
i wrote that a while ago.
i’m open to trying it, but only very strategically. gotta be careful with stuff like that!
yeh, i tried using it and a bunch psychic stuff and Greek gods ads were popping up. lol. Had to take it out.. still a noob to adsense :/
we’ll definitely dive into this.
I think most of my questions will be answered in the upcoming posts. Looks like you will be covering a lot about the dynamics and tools.
I think what a lot of people will want to know is how to increase traffic as well.
good point. we’ll have a lot of those types of posts.
My questions might be basic, but what’s the best place to buy domain names? Also, what’s the best way to announce or publicize a new blog endeavor?
we’ll be covering this very soon!
Hey John, from what I understand, TentBloggers are bloggers that supplement their income through blogging in a more casual way than pro bloggers, right? If so, what do you do for a living?
well, technically i’d be considered a professional blogger at this point… but i spent most of my time as a tentblogger.
right now i blog and build web apps.
and hang out with my family and mentor a bunch of 9th graders!
Okay turns out I do have a question. I previously had perm links on my blog set with the year and month in the URL (example: http://www.danieldecker.net/2010/06/how-to-build-an-author-platform/ ) but have recently changed the perm link structure to remove any date reference (example: http://www.danieldecker.net/how-to-build-an-author-platform/ )… now the first link type does not work. Just goes to a 404 error page. Any way to make my old links, such as http://www.danieldecker.net/2010/06/how-to-build-an-author-platform/, redirect to the new format?
Am I making sense? I have people who linked to posts in the old link structure and don’t want to loose that traffic.
Thanks!
can you show me your permalink structure in wordpress? shoot an image file in the next comment.
Sure thing. Here ya go: http://www.danieldecker.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/permlinks-dd.jpg
and your .htaccess file was updated correctly? i’ve changed mine before without it breaking.
try this just in case.
http://www.deanlee.cn/wordpress/permalinks-migration-plugin/
I didn’t update anything with the .htaccess file. Should I have? I’ll slap in this plugin right now. Thanks.
Yay. That plugin worked. Yummie goodness. Thank you.
Yay this helped me
got me WP going.
sweet! that’s great news.
how on earth do you get so many comments?
I’ld trade all my page views for 10 decent comments – for both my blogs http://synapticlight.com/ and http://synapticheart.com/
That to me is the greatest measure of success, and you are very successful – kudos John.
ah. it’s not a trick or science. i had a big community before i started this.
but, i think i’ve also chosen a very “hot” topic and niche interest. we’ll see if it sustains! i’m only into my fourth week…!
How do you cultivate a community of people who are interested in not just reading your posts and moving on, but actively participating in the discussion you are having? I’m having a really difficult time getting comments.
you have to have a “hook”… something that’s too good not to respond. also, creating unique incentives is something that i’ve studied extensively.
the human experience is something fascinating and connecting to it is a powerful catalyst for engagement.
Hi John!
How about SEO? I know you mentioned that your specific WordPress theme has some great SEO built in. But what if we already have a blog set up…what can we do then to increase our chances of showing up in searches, etc?
I am so enjoying this blog. A huge help as we try to move forward and execute ideas.
definitely going to be talking a lot about this. thanks for the gentle nudge….!
Hi John,
Why you prefer Vimeo over Youtube? well do you?
design customization. looks better. and i like it better.
ahh ok, gots to look into that.
it’s pretty sweet.
Simple question, what plugin are you using for your archives page? I don’t have the option of showing categories with mine.
What is the benefit of showing categories or is that just a personal preference?
Thanks!
it’s built right in to standard theme!
Wait, what? Where is this archive page option? On the standard theme dashboard?
it’s built in at the page level:
http://cl.ly/ba688cc37547a82a7cfd
See on the right? Page templates!
Holy Cow. That’s awesome. Thanks so much
sure sure!
Would be interested in a JV?
not sure what a jv is.
I was wondering if you could do a post on tags and getting the most out of them. I don’t fully understand them and I put like 15 tags in each post. Are they suppose to be tied to our links? Are they suppose to be words in our posts? I have no idea how to use them. Would love a crash course in tags and how to get the most out of them.
Thanks for all you do.
yes. noted. will do that!
awesome
Hey John!
Question:
I am currently using Standard Theme. When I tried to upgrade to WordPress 3.0, it crashed my sight. So, I’m afraid to upgrade again, what do I need to do?
I also have Standard 2.0, and when I go to preview it, it looks like it’s going to crash as well.
Any ideas why?
Any help would be great!
I love what you’re doing, it’s making a huge difference! Keep it up!
Thanks brother!
Bubba Smith
Hey Bubba,
Do you have a support license? that would be the best thing to check out. You can give all the deets on your system, software, etc.
Sounds great… Thanks man!
sure sure.
Hey John, how did you get the Cute Profiles plug all the way up in the header area?
that’s built into standardtheme.
oh
ok. will look for it
Can we still ask questions here?
Two…
1. Non blog. What do you use to backup your computer data?
2. Seems I’ve seen you use a few different WP Backup solutions. Which are you using currently?
Thanks!
this is a great blog post idea (the second question). can i do that?
the 1st is time machine and a combination of cloud stuff (amazon, google, and dropbox).
Sounds great. Thanks! Yeah, a post on the backup would be supersonic. (the S is for Super, the U is for Unique).
i’m wearing a sonic the hedgehog tshirt today.
Daniel,
John mentioned Time Machine, this is great if you are a Mac user however for us Windows Users, Genie Time Line is a great option. I’ve tried many different back up software platforms for windows and IMHO this is the best.
oh cool! thanks matt.
i have since wrote a post:
http://tentblogger.com/backup-wordpress/
BTW… I love this blog and the community interaction. Good stuff.
thanks!
what did you think about the domain naming suggestions… and using your name (as you do)?
Agreed 100%. I use my name for MY blog and MY thoughts on random things relating to leadership, perspective, etc but I’m developing niche and targeted properties for “business” things. Things with URL’s that are specific to what the blog is. Staying on topic (which is not what I do very well on my personal blog but I’m not really trying to monetize my personal blog).
sweet. can’t wait to hear more!
Post on your average day. What you do. How long you spend blogging. How many posts you write on average. Your goals for the day. Etc.
great idea. i WILL post about this.
I’ve seen that in comments when people type in a company that you are affiliated with it automatically turns into a referral link.
Do you do that manually for every comment or is there a plugin that you use?
I’m curious on that one too.
blog post coming with that.
Yay! I was trying to figure that one too!
John, your insane! your tent is like made out of Gold.
hah. not yet…….
One thing that I still haven’t been able to finalize yet it setting up a backup system. I opened an account with amazon s3 (spelling?), but there was some info in the wordpress plugin that I wasn’t sure where to connect? It wanted some id numbers or something. So anyhow….not sure if you’ll ever do a walk through of those or not. But it’s a question I have.
Cheers.
i believe I have:
http://churchit.com/worry-free-upgrade-update-and-backup-process-for-wordpress/
Have you tried Link text ? Its awesome.
? backup buddy?
i like vaultpress the best. for sure!
http://tentblogger.com/backup-wordpress/
Yeah, I meant backup buddy but forgot to enter the link text. Sorry about that, I’ve heard of vault press and am going to look into it further.
it’s the jam. without question.
What are your Best/Favorite/Top/Recommended WordPress plugins?
i will walk through all of the ones that i use. yes. stay tuned!
Would you recommend hosting pictures on the blogs server, or on something like picasaweb/flickr?
i use flickr for a few professional public shots.
i use picasa for personal storage and backup (and sharing with family).
everything else, as related to blog content, i put here on the actual system.
great question!
How about a list of all the tentblogger so we can all follow and greet each other.
I think that would be a good idea!
agreed.
where? on twitter? or here on the blog? how do you think this would be done best?
John,
This would work really well if you made it a post on your fan page: “Post Your Twitter Username so others in the Tent Blogger Community Can Connect with you” This will grow the community as well as keep the page stick as people will keep coming back to see who to follow. What do you think?
do you mean on facebook?
i added a discussion board. hm.
Hey John,
Here’s a couple questions I have that could be future topics.
1. What does it really mean to “optimize my WordPress Databases”? How do I know if I need to? And if I need to, how do I do that?
2. I’m on shared hosting (godaddy) and using W3 total cache. I’m wondering if I should add CDN for more speed? How do you decide when it’s time for that step? Do you base it on total daily visitors and once you cross a certain level then it’s a good idea to add CDN? What CDN do you use/recommend?
I think that’s actually more than 2 questions
Thanks for all you do here!
tom,
these are great. i’ll post about this one, since it’s a good topic. and your second question is great too since i have first-hand experience with CDN’s (we use one here too).
EXCELLENT. will do this.
John will go into much more detail, but in short, optimizing the database (at least in the W3-Total-Cache plugin) cuts down the overhead in the DB. It does some more, but that’s the biggest thing you’ll notice…
CDN: Check out Amazon S3 (5GB free for a year starting in November!), MaxCDN (8-Bit uses these guys), and Rackspace Cloudfiles. Those are some to check out. John can answer the rest
Always a pleasure! I love to help where I can.
Kevin – Thanks for the reply. I ended up going with MaxCDN based on your recommendation. Everything is setup and so far so good. I did break my site and CSS somehow when I first tried to deploy the CDN, but a quick restore of the default settings in W3 Total Cache and I was back up and running. I’m just using all default settings for now, so I’ll keep my eye out for the pending post from John to get any tweakin’ details.
Thanks!
Awesome! Max’s 1TB of bandwidth for $40 ain’t bad! Good luck! If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to ask.
kevin, thanks for all your help!
great! maxcdn is awesome. we love it, and we use it here on TentBlogger too!
Could you explain bounce rate?
i definitely can do that. but you could probably do that faster via a google search, right?
I did Google it…I’m just not sure I understand the whole idea. To be sure I got it, it’s the percentage of people who left your site from the initial landing page?
definitely can talk about that more on a post.
I got something i have been wondering about lately.
What is the optimal time to post?
What about doing 2 post a day? One in morning and afternoon?
that’s a great post topic.
honestly, this one depends as well. i’m almost certain that you can make anything work for you… as long as your consistent.
Agreed. I just wonder with not having very many RSS subscribers and trying to capitalize on my twitter what is an ideal time to post and then send to twitter?
you need to convert your twitter followers into subscribers. that’s your first step bro.
and I guess the best way to do that is to ask them to subscribe.
I asked this previously but can’t seem to find the solution. The ‘twitter + feedburner’ widget on your main page…where is that? You said to check the Widgets under Appearances in my WordPress dashboard, but I’m not seeing it. I’m using Standard Theme. What am I missing or doing wrong?
http://cl.ly/9babec453f7d559e8e95
Exactly what I would expect, but ‘Standard Theme – Follower Count’ is not showing up in my available widgets. I’m using WP 3.0.1….am I needing to upgrade Standard Theme?
oh. yes. you need to upgrade your version of standard.
Thanks John….huge difference….unfortunately the upgrade wasn’t all that smooth tho. Had to go back and reset several images and most of my links and analytics and feeds….but I love the new STWP settings page…nice.
sweet. this was a SIGNIFICANT upgrade… so, that doesn’t surprise me.
This is a really random question but what apps do you keep on your dock?
karl, that’s a great question. i’m systematically going through all of them!
will share in time!
John,
I love the feature you put at the top bar of your site to clip to Evernote. Could you share how you did that? I use Standard Theme and Evernote…and would love to give people the option of clipping to Evernote from the menu bar.
Thanks!
That’s easy!
Create the button here:
http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/sitememory/
and then put it in your theme!
You can do that in the socialnetworking.php file found in the folder “lib”.
Awesome…thanks John! Would it be possible to put it in the sidebar sharer, under either the RT button, the FB share, or the Add This button?
sure you could!
I’d like to know an easy way to change the meta data in search engines.
done. post already queued…! i’ve got this coverd!
Haha cool beans. Thanks
So, are you also a designer/coder for hire? I ask because I am looking to modify our existing wordpress site (http://TransformGrace.org) to also serve as our church website. Currently, it is a stand alone blog. We’ve got budget… Our church is http://gcc.org.
If you’re not for hire, maybe you could be so kind as to point me in an awesome direction please good sir?
sent an email. :0
Hi..Love your site. I currently have a blog on blogger and I also have a wordpress.com blog im considering making wordpress my standalone blog but there arent any nice themes. I know nothing about codes so what advice do you have
why not try some of the ones i have here? http://tentblogger.com/wordpress/ ?
I didnt know I could use it for .com I thought it was only for the .org blogs But I will try it. Thanx
i’m sorry. all of those need wordpress.org
John, which WordPress plugin do you use to allow commenters to subscribe to future comments in a post by e-mail?
currently i use “subscribe to comments” plugin… but i’m developing my own, which I will release soon.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
John,
Do you ever blog about (or in your archives) brand equity metrics? I am familiar with Google Analytics; but I am referring to measuring various Social Influence Marketing (SIM) platforms. As you build your brand equity, how would you measure your brand equity across platforms like blogging, FB, and twitter. Do you have a simple method that is easy to track and would give you a quick and workable dashboard view of where you stand with your brand? How is your brand growing? How fast? Which platform of your brand equity is impacting you the most? Thanks.
alvin,
there are tons of paid services out there that you can use but I haven’t had need for them outside of some very basic tools.
How do you generate the t.co links when you tweet your blog posts?
i’m using twitter’s native retweet service.
John,
I’m not even sure how to ask this question but…..
In setting up my website I’m been contemplating whether I should “connect” my personal info (fb, Twitter) to my website. I’ve noticed Tentblogger has a separate fb page which doesn’t seem to have any ties to your personal fb. Additionally, you’ve got a separate Twitter account for Tentblogger, distinct from Human 3rror.
All that being said, what is your philosophy/thought process behind the segmentation? That question may not even make sense…please let me know if I need to be more specific.
One more question if you have time…did you set up a “dummy” account for your Tentblogger fb page or is it a page created through your personal account?
you can create new pages via your personal fb account. that’s what i did.
also, i wanted to target better by creating tentblogger’s own twitter account… and also do some test in organic growth.
tentblogger is a strong brand and I want to segment it strategically for long-term use.
I’m just getting in to blogging and occasionally my blog will take forever to load, only to display either a 500 internal server error, a 503 error, or a service temporarily unavailable page after it loads. But, for whatever reason, this seems to be getting more and more frequent. Any ideas why this is happening?
That could be a lot of things. It could be the server’s lack of RAM, or it could be a mis-configuration somewhere.
I’d talk to your hosting provider to see what’s going on.
agreed. ask your provider.
Thanks! I contacted support and got it all sorted out.
Hey there!
OMG I seriously LOVE everything you do. You’re such an isnpiration! You have helped me a lot with my blogging, so thank you very much for this.
Okay, I have a question. Actually, a couple of questions:
1. I’m using one of your themes. You can check it out here: http://www.pinkbubu.com
2. I would like to ask you a couple of questions about editing the theme. Can we have an email correspondence?! Is that possible? Or should I just ask them here?
Cheers,
Begüm
p.s. I made a new post about my new theme and talked about you!!! You should read it, it’ll make you smile. (I hope)
Cheers,
B.
i did! thanks so much!
you can ask them here. i may not have time to help with everything! enjoy!
Okay, I basically figured it all out except for one thing. Is there an automatic setting for posts? Everytime I put a picture in my post, it automatically adjusts the size, no matter what size setting I do. How can I fix that?
Also, I can’t put any spaces between the pictures and sentences. Everytime i try to put a in between, it acts as if I never did.
Heeelllpppp pleaseeee!!!!
B.
Hi Begum,
The Standard Theme forum board (www.standardtheme.com) is a great place to get good help with specific stuff. I can give it a whirl, though, if I’m understanding your issue.
1. In the backend of wordpress you can select the size of the pic. You can scale it to a certain size, or have it crop it for you. In standard theme, the width of a regular post is 570pixels, I believe.
2. I’m not sure about the spacing issue exactly. I don’t have this issue. But I did have issues with some old blog posts of mine that I brought over from Blogger. I found this bit of html code below that I can put where I want a space to be. It’s worked well for me. Cheers.
Okay, I think the 570 pixels is my issue. I will definetely try to figure it out. I’ll also check the forums. God, thank you VERY much!!! I hope I can fix it
I can’t seem to see your code. Is it not on the message somehow?
Cheers.
oops! Let me try again:
That should do it.
So weird….i’m copying and pasting it but it’s not appearing when I publish it. Let me manually try to type it in:
ok, i give up. I assume the commenting system on here deletes html looking stuff automatically. On the ST forums boards, though, search for title “adding space between paragraphs” and look at the last post in which I share the code that’s been working for me.
yeah, it’s probably eating your comments…
please answer, please please please… I’m having a very hard time fixing this problem
I used to use that theme. I don’t remember exactly where it was, but check Functions.php, Single.php, and page.php. It might be somewhere in there.
Will do. Thanks!
Thanx a lot for the very helpful info, spent a lot of time on your sites these last few days! I’d be interested in your view on SEO as there seems to be a lot of discussion about the tactics involved.
rachel,
definitely! i will spend a good deal of time covering those things…!
Ok, thats what i thought. I would love it if you would do post for .comers lol I’m not as advanced as you but i do love wordpress compared to others so any advice would be great!!! Thanx
i’m sorry, about what specifically? you mentioned themes….
Yes, themes and how to make the most out of .com since it does not offer as much as .org it
Yes themes, but mainly how to proper utilize and get the most out of .com
my 2 cents on using .com is to simply build content first. find a theme that works for you and then just start writing!
Advice on themes and how to make the most out of a .com blog.
I love how you have a section at the end of each post that is another chance for them to go to your subscribe page. (“Was This Post Helpful to You? Consider Subscribing!”)
How could I get that on mine?
that was part of the theme, standard theme, and then i customized it slightly.
http://tentblogger.com/thinking-strategically-about-the-placements-of-your-calls-to-action/
Videos embedded from YouTube into my blog posts don’t show up in emails delivered via Feedburner. I’ve seen this same issue on other blogs I follow, not just my own.
It seems like there should be an elegant solution for this issue, but I haven’t found one yet.
Any ideas?
are you using a plugin to insert?
i just use wordpress native system.
No plugin, I just copy the html embed code into my post to insert a video. This works fine for viewing the video within the post on my site, but it doesn’t show up in the email delivered by Feedburner.
I subscribe to Tentblogger via email, and noticed the same thing here. For example, this post http://tentblogger.com/how-to-swap-twitter-user-names/ has a video in it, but in the email I received, there’s no mention of the video. If I only read the post in email and don’t click through, then it’s easy to miss the video.
interesting. i will investigate.
I have encountered this problem with my blog too. I used a video in my blog for the first time last week and the email sent out just had a big red X where the video was supposed to be. In digging deeper, I see that the email had a flash object embedded to display the video. My email client is apparently blocking the object from running. If I open the email in a browser window, all is good.
I also took a deeper look at some Michael Hyatt blog emails where he has used videos. The emails don’t have the video embedded; instead they have a picture with a link to the blog article. It looks like this might be something that FeedBlitz does automatically.
Did you ever figure anything out? Do you know if FeedBurner can do anything like this?
Thanks!
Steven
i’ll take a look. i might create a plugin that handles this elegantly.
I envy you developer people. I wish I could write plugins! …but seriously, I’m thankful for you guys too
Cool. I would love to offer my help; but, alas, I haven’t yet dug into development for WordPress
John,
Can you recommend reading/research/info on brand equity – defining, creating, building, maintaining, protecting, measuring?
Google’s brand equity = $100 billion; McDonald’s = $66 billion. Great!!!
But I want to address the small biz owners (1 – 20 employees) about brand equity and I am finding little information about how they can build brand equity quickly via social media. Most research is done for the giant organizations. And the small biz owners – like you and me – have limited resoruces.
Thanx. – AWW
there are a lot of blogs out there that can probably offer more help than I can. but what I do when I coach and consult others is to define first the core message that you’re trying to communicate and then find the tools that will deliver that the best.
Thanks, John.
John,
When logging into Media Temple today, I noticed that their ProCDN is now available. Since you also use MT, I was curious if you were very familiar with this and how it stacks up versus other CDN’s?
Thanks!
i just saw this too and i don’t have any experience. i use maxcdn, just for reference.
hmmm. looks interesting!
Hi John,
Found you from a Twitter re-tweet. I think your message and blog are great (were you adopted, since your last name’s not Asian? I have 5 adopted Korean kiddos).
I’m at a re-think point about all my online activities, so your “how-to-do-it and make money” is right where I need to start.
Thanks for the inspiration and sharing the know-how.
i am adopted…! i got to meet my birth mom 2 years ago and i blogged the entire trip… if interested, you should start here….. http://human3rror.com/help-me-meet-my-mother/ … i got the help of the online community… it was awesome.
Do you use a plugin to get excerpts of your posts on your homepage?
no, that’s actually built-in native to wordpress! just use the “more” button in your editor!
Hi Jon…question/problem re: the ‘twitter + feedburner’ widget.
The problem I’m having is that it grabs my twitter count but not my feedburner count. The number consistently only matches my current twitter followers number. I’ve tried both putting both the name only ‘AndyAllenMusic’ and the full web address of my Feedburner ‘Feed Address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndyAllenMusic‘ into the widget….neither is working. I feel like I’m overlooking something elementary but can’t seem to figure it out.
My numbers aren’t huge, but they’re consistently growing as I’m growing my blog. Currently I have 237 Twitter Followers and 14 Subscribers on Feedburner.
Any help/thoughts???
That’s interesting…and I’ve had a similar problem before. My issue ended up being my caching plugin…if you’re using one, clear your cache. AndyAllenMusic should work, so that’s unusual…to be sure, you aren’t including the quotes in the widget settings, correct (it’s the small things sometimes!)?
I’m just using the AndyAllenMusic as the Feedburner name, never used quotes.
I had WP Super-Cache installed (not sure why, maybe it was suggested when I first set things up.) I have uninstalled it and deleted all of it’s files. Still not able to get my T+F number to show anything other than just the twitter followers total. I’ve re-saved the T+F widget w/ the clear cache box checked several times too…nothing changing.
:/
Help?!
hmmmmmmmm. show me screenshots of your widget.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.19.12%20PM.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.19.55%20PM.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.20.41%20PM.png
Here are my screenshots:
1- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.19.12%20PM.png
2- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.19.55%20PM.png
3- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17631940/Screen%20shot%202011-02-02%20at%207.20.41%20PM.png
ah.
you’re feed isn’t enabled to be read!
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~fc/AndyAllenMusic
you’ll have to enable it in feedburner:
http://cl.ly/430P1E0d0b1B3V3b3S1Y
YAY…..FINALLY!!!
I know it’s unimportant in the scheme of life…but this one has been bugging me…yeah, I let the little things get to me.
Thanks John…that was the trick!
I have a 2 questions. Hope this is the right place to post it.
Im shifting some properties around so that http://danielmosley.com becomes my personal landing page (your suggestion). I’ll direct visitors from there to my ministry, photography, and personal blogs. After weighing the options, I plan to keep “Daniel Mosley” as the “brand”.
Question 1: Do you suggest domain structures such as danielmosley.photography.com, danielmosley.blog.com, etc? Perhaps the other way around (blog.danielmosley.com). Is there a best option here?
Question 2: How would I move my blog property without losing Google post ranks? I’ve heard of 301 and 401 redirects but don’t know if this is the right thing or how to implement them?
Perhaps you’ve posted about this already. If so, link me. I couldnt find it.
Thanks John.
q1: no, unless there are some significant reasons i wouldn’t do that. too long and too hard to remember.
q2: you can easily re-direct at the server level which is safe or add an .htaccess call to 301 the global domain.
let me know as you proceed and i can offer some help.
1. Would you recommend creating an overarching network for blogs with different content (but all making up a bit of who you are)? Or would you only suggest a network in the case of different aspects of related content like you have with the 8Bit network?
2. At what stage would you say stop planning and get blogging? I.e. how much planning should you do before taking the leap and just getting things going?
taryn,
1 – that totally depends. for starters i suggest just blogging. just get started. get going. you can always break it into pieces later (that’s what i did).
2 – just GO!
read this ~~~~~~~~~~> http://tentblogger.com/execution/
Bahahaha… John, how do you know me so well already???
You hit the nail on the head! I’m a world class procrastinator – I should be awarded a PhD in the subject!
Although now that you’ve called me on it… I better start taking some simple steps towards executing this dream otherwise it will just fizzle out and die!
go for it!
Here’s my question: Do you use a blogging schedule? Do you post on a given topic on a certain day of the week? Or do you just list out your blog topics and go? If so, how do you make sure you cover all your categories sufficiently?
I have 5-6 categories, leadership, youth ministry, personal growth, bible study, and resources/inspiration. That’s enough to blog on each topic once a week, but I don’t have that kind of time right now. So I’ve been alternating weeks, for example leadership this Monday, youth ministry next Monday. But that seems like an awfully long time between posts on a given subject.
Any suggestions? I would appreciate any help you could throw my way. Thanks!
I have been trying to figure this one out too. I have 4 basic categories that I want to write about. My posting goal right now is twice a week – more than that would consume more time than I have available. Currently, I am creating posts based on the content that feels the most pressing at the moment – instead of trying to keep an exactly equal balance.
My biggest question, though, comes down to the readers…if my categories have the potential to attract different readers, what will it take to keep readers coming back if they are only interested in one category? And, then, does that indicate a need for a separate blog.
steven,
great questions. hopefully i can answer these in the blog post!
sure. i can definitely share some of my thoughts here. look for a blog post!
Hi Tentblogger! My question is about copyright. I see you have ©2011 Tentblogger on your pages, but i know you previously discussed not LLCing for this blog yet, so it’s you (person) still? How does this work -if I want to put a copyright on my pages in a name that’s not me, but also not yet a formal “entity”?
Anyway, Thanks – I’m learning so much from your blog. I started a blog at the beginning of the year & just added disclosure & comment policies mostly based on your good wording & information.
Karina,
I’ve shared more thoughts about changing a blog into a business here:
http://tentblogger.com/blog-business/
You can still put copyright on your blog because you are the author who created the content: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html
John, I’m thinking of trying some video blogs. But I’m not sure where to start. How to record. Vimeo or youtube? Etc. Thanks.
sweet! i’ll share some thoughts on this!
John, I’m confused about the best way to share my blog posts on twitter.
I’m using Standard Theme and have the ‘AddThis’ button available on each post for people to tweet. It uses the twitter t.co shortener. I also send the feed through twitterfeed which uses bit.ly to shorten the url. In addition, I somehow setup NetworkedBlogs which does the same thing through their own shortener.
Although some of my posts have been retweeted many times (say, from the bit.ly link), the count doesn’t show up on the addthis page button.
Is there a good way to consolidate all these tweets/retweets, or does it even matter too much?
Thanks!
you can use tweetmeme instead of twitter’s native shortener that’ll capture bit.ly links i believe.
otherwise, honestly, i don’t care much for the counters… it looks nice but they’re not completely accurate.
When it comes to requiring a name and email for comments, what’s your thoughts on that? I know it helps control comment moderation and spam but do you think it might turn away anyone?
i don’t think so. and if they are really interested in having a conversation they’d add it.
I am going to be setting up a website/blogsite for my church men’s group and one of the things I need to incorporate is a calendar. Can I do this using the Standard Theme? Is there a plugin or database I need to incorporate?
I haven’t completely done this before, so I will be heavily relying on your series about starting a blog and may be peeking in now and then for hints/tips.
Thanks.
why not use google calendars embed?
Another question I’ve got is about finding appropriate images for a post. I can write a post really quickly but sometimes take forever to find a suitable Creative Comments Licensed image off Flickr, etc.
Have you got any tips for finding (and hopefully importing) images to a post?
jon, this is a great post idea and I’ve got it written down as a topic to discuss. thanks for the reminder!
Ipseity theme is giving several installation errors with the latest version of WordPress. Could you fix this? I would like to try out this theme.
ah. doh! can you send a screenshot? i don’t actively support this one though…
John I use standard theme for my blog (http://tunpb.com). Here’s my problem. My Categories and copyright info are colliding. Which page in the editor do I need to update to shorten the copyright. I looked in the footer.php
first, that has to do with your title of your blog, which is long. you can shorten it or change it in your theme directly. also, your affiliate link to standard theme is incorrect.
just put the directly link “http://…” and not include the
a href stuff…
Thanks. That fixed everything.
We’d also be willing to help you fix this or come up with an alternate layout in your footer (navigation on one line and copyright on another line) in the support forum, if you have a Support License. And if you don’t have a Support License, you can always upgrade here: https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?c=cart&i=STUP&cl=64302&ejc=2
wah wah.
Do you plan to write another good free plugin for sharing ?
I found an amazing infinite carousel that display the featured contents, it’ll reduce the bounce rate and increase page view.
You can take a look here
http://www.awesem.com/zillapress/
I think they use the source code below
http://jqueryfordesigners.com/jquery-infinite-carousel/
I check the whole wordpress plugin but just can’t find a good one like this. If you don’t plan to create a free plugin like this, i don’t mind to pay you for this, a mods for standard theme 2.6 or plugin, that’s all i need.
Thank you.
i’ll have to take a look.
I found a similar one, but no more update
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/featured-posts-slideshow/
I’ll keep searching
sweet, thanks!
This one look even better
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/related-posts-slider/screenshots/
Do you prefer Minify or gzip? ..or both? I’ve tried both, but have no idea which is a preferred method.
i use both.
Do you have your comments set up to where I can receive an email when one of my comments is replied to on your site without having to subscribe to the entire comment stream? I know in Disqus, this is possible, but it would make it is easier (and help me to remember) to be notified if someone replied to my comment without having to check back myself.
Maybe I need to change my settings somehow? Thanks.
perhaps you do.. there might be a few plugins that do that.
Hello John,
I’m wondering if you’d be willing to do a product review on a wordpress product for me?
If so, please email me and let me know.
Thanks,
Matt
matt,
got your email, thanks. not sure about it at this time.
OK.
I would like to offer downloadable PDF’s of articles, charts, forms – what ever.
How do I do that on WordPress? I use Standard Theme. Is there a plug-in?
why can’t you use just a wordpress page with the information and cool graphics for links?
Sure but – where do I upload the pdf file? Where do I store it? Then link to that URL, right?
Sorry, I’m sure this is a dumb question ….
yeah. you can upload it directly into the post, just like you do an image. and then just use the link!
Duh,of course – ok thanks! :~)
You could also check out this plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/download-manager/
big plugin.
I was wondering if you could do a domain mapping tutorial like I believe you did for jonacuff.com?
can you be more specific?
With all of the Security changes you have spoken about in your Ultimate Guide to Launching WordPress, Would you also do a post on how to address the changes in a blog that is up and running?
I have managed to do some of them but things like changing the DB prefix scares me.
Maybe, a separate post about upgrading with folders that are now in different locations and have different names as well. That is an assumption on my part. Still hunting to see if it makes a difference when I run an update/upgrade.
david,
ah. good point. i could try to round up some changes into a form for current blogs.
John,
Where can I get the vertical sidebar plugin that appears when you click the title of a blog post? Including SU, Google, and Share feature.
That’s built into StandardTheme…you just have to activate it in the Standard–>Sharing Options. Twitter, Facebook, and AddThis are included out of the box but you can easily add the rest by inserting some code. Check the support forums.
thanks kevin! was about to add that.
Thanks Kevin!
John,
Four questions (that started out as two).
I’m thinking of doing a blog post series, and am wondering how you have structured your blog post series, for instance for the launch page, are you using a page or a post? Also how are you doing all of your internet linking, manually or with a plugin like SEO Smart Links? Thirdly, What are you using at the end of your posts to encourage people to subscribe and lastly what are you using in your comments to encourage people to subscribe (the text after the “submit comment button”
If you could answer these I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks,
Matt
matt,
you really need to search this blog before asking questions… save you tons of time!
i’ve written it all out here.
http://tentblogger.com/blog-series/
John,
Thanks, I’ll post my questions in the Google Custom Search Box before posting here.
all good!
John,
Which pagination plugin are you using for your website? Or is it built into the standard theme?
built into the standard theme.
Recently you merged all of your blogs posts from Church create, code, etc, into ChurchM.ag. I have a blog that I’m shutting down, however, I don’t want to lose the content, just move to another location. Will you write a post about how to migrate the posts as do this?
dewitt,
i will write something about this. thanks man!
ah. you know, this is very similar to my migration post here… does this help? or are you looking for more specifics?
http://tentblogger.com/migrate-wordpress-com-org/
I will try the import option. I’m moving the blog posts from one wordpress.org to another wordpress.org. Hopefully, the transition will work well.
i have some thoughts about how to combine blogs… i’ll post this soon.
Hi John. Question for ya. I’d like to embed a video into my WordPress site. I do not want to use Flash for iDevice reasons or YouTube or Vimeo because of their branding and related videos.
The question: what other options do I have? I thought I could use WordPress directly, but the max file upload is 8mb. My video is 80mb.
Any help is appreciated.
Daniel,
I hope John doesn’t mind me chiming in here on this question.
In order to change you maximum upload file size this has more to do with your host than with WordPress. For instance I host with Hostgator and can change the maximum upload file size in my php.ini file. If you contact your host they’ll be able to tell you about that. If you’re using a shared host the maximum file size is usually 64 mb. That being said, you really don’t want to host the videos’ on your servers anyway, it is just too expensive as the band width will end of costing you a lot of money. Plus then there is solving the issue of making videos viewable across multiple devices. There are basically three solutions for this, the one is to host your videos on Youtube, which a lot of people do not like to do. The second is to host your videos on You Tube and the third I’ll be writing about in a blog post on my blog within the next few days.
I’m sure John can and will comment further but I just wanted to offer some advice as well.
All the best.
Matt
Thanks for chiming in Matt. I appreciate the advice. A few things:
1) My host is GoDaddy and I have unlimited storage and bandwidth.
2) I was able to FTP the 80mb file to the server. However, I can’t figure out how to embed it.
3) Your options listed, 1 and 2, are the same. And could you just tell me option 3? I need to complete this project.
Thanks again.
hey bro
why not go with vimeo pro? you can kill all branding and don’t have to tax your server.
or, you could try http://videopress.com/ which is a wordpress product..
or you could honestly try to host your own by using this type of plugin:
http://www.channel-ai.com/blog/plugins/flv-embed/ for FLVs or
http://www.channel-ai.com/blog/plugins/quicktime-embed/
both i’ve used and work well.
do you have a dedicated or VPS service with godaddy? they might not let you up the size limit of uploads via php and wordpress.
Do you have an opinion on protecting the wp-admin folder?
I have seen so many ways yet most seem to have big drawbacks.
i could write a post on this.
Hey John,
I have two questions:
1. Are you going to re-launch your weekly Live Tentblogger sessions?
2. Will you write a post about how to install the Live Theme in the root directory to connect it to Standard Theme?
not sure yet on the first one… not sure i’ve got the time… right now.
and the 2nd question could probably be answered by the support team on the forums, right?
2nd question- yes. Michael has been very responsive.
hehe!
Did some digging. I figured out how to make it happen. http://promwall.com/live
you’re awesome!
Is the Ipseity Theme still available? If so, please provide link. I clicked throught the Worpress page via Human3rror, but can’t find it. I would like to use it for one of my domains.
it still is.
download it off this page. http://tentblogger.com/wordpress/
Thanks John. James Brooks hooked me up with the link earlier. I should have come back quickly to let you know.
Keep grinding!
trying!
Hey John thought I would reach out to you because I really value your opinion. I’m putting together an online store for a client and was wondering. What do feel is the best ECommerce plugin for WordPress? BTW Thank you for all that you do! Peace and Love
there are more than a few choices out there…
http://speckyboy.com/2010/06/16/the-ultimate-wordpress-shoppingecommerce-toolbox-plugins-and-themes/
try that right there…
John you da man!
God bless
ah, thanks man!
John, I am a native Portuguese speaker living in the US for 10 years. Not only I would like to blog (and generate content) in both languages, but I also have a passion for language learning and I would love to flesh this idea out through blogging. Here are the questions:
1. What are your thoughts on how to build a bilingual/multilingual blog?
2. I found qTranslate through your referral and it is really great. However, Is this the best WP plugin available to accomplish that?
3. Is it possible to do it in just one blog? I don’t like the idea of maintaining several blogs. Please help.
4. Is it a great idea for an in-depth post? :0)
Thanks.
marcelo,
this would be a great blog post but i’ll give it to you right here:
1. one blog would be great.
2. creating a unique design that highlights the ability to translate the content, via a plugin, would be the best and most ideal. this way you can create once and publish twice (in both languages).
3. as long as the UI and design is strucutred well you shouldn’t have a problem.
sounds like an awesome idea!
Hi John!
I’m curious what your thoughts are on using a pop-up to encourage people to sign up for a mailing list. Here’s what I’m trying out…
I’m an indie musician and worship leader. I write and record lots of stuff. If a person signs up for my list, I give them a free 8-song sampler with my favorite songs from my last several albums. I think it’s a pretty awesome deal – lots of value for signing up. Then I inform the user that I’ll email them no more than 2X per month when I release more music (and they’ll get it for free).
My initial thoughts are that pop-ups are annoying, but I really feel like I’m adding value with it. Thoughts? You can see it in action (for the time being) by clicking through to my site.
Thanks!
popup domination (and things like that) are fairly disagreeable… sure, you can get more signups and it works, but it’s annoying as hell.
i think it depends on the context of your blog and what you’re aiming to do. i think there are better ways as well.
Hey John,
This is an “anything else” question.
I have a fairly slow load speed on all of my websites (about 6-10 second load speed), and I suspect this is due to my web-host.
I’ve never done this before and I was wondering, how do I transfer my domains to a different web-host?
I know you’re big on Media Temple so I was thinking of trying them or maybe Dream Host.
I’m currently with Omnis.
Thanks!
sure! migrating servers can be an easy process but one that might “scare” a bunch of people. let me write a post for you… i just did this for someone a few days ago.
I’m not sure if you’ll have an answer for this, but I just added feedburner email subscriptions to my blog a few days ago, and none of my new posts have been emailed since then. I’ve looked online and it seems that many people have this problem. Unfortunately, no one seems to have a solution.
Thanks
Scratch that, it started working. Thanks!
sure thing!
Any initial thoughts on Google+ effects on the blogosphere?
i think it’s good. i’ve got a blog post showing some conversions… here’s a sneak, just for you……………
Wow! That’s a good peak!
John, are you using a plugin to add the “”Subscribe to this comment…” check button beneath the comment input field? If so, which one?
Or is this baked directly into Standard Theme?
i’m using http://txfx.net/wordpress-plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Time for a Tentblogger version of this plugin? I like my growing collection
And nice touch putting them all under one drop down.
thought about it… it’s such a good one though… let me think about it.
John, another question(s) for you regarding Google Analytics.
I have a primary domain of http://mosleyprophoto.com . That’s my photo site on WordPress.
I also have a subdomain of http://images.mosleyprophoto.com – That’s my portfolio on another server (Zenfolio).
I want to track both with Google analytics. I have the primary domain setup already. Can I set up the subdomain so that its reporting is included with the primary’s stats?
Question 2: Does Google look at this subdomain as a separate site? In other words, am I splitting my traffic, thus my page ranking with my setup?
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55524&from=55525&rd=1
this is for the old but it still has impact i believe. that’s how i’ve done it historically.
Hey John, I was wondering if there was any type of plugin or way I could integrate a forum thread in to Standard Theme? Would I be able to have a forum as a page where I could have discussions? This would be a separate page from my posts but under the same self hosted site. Any help or resources would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!
there are tons…! one that i really like right now is vanilla forum… check it out. it’s got integration with wordpress too.
bbpress is coming out officially and i can’t wait for it…!
Thanks John! I’ll check those out! I really appreciate!
you are most surely welcome.
John,
Can you address syndicating blog content to Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+? And what about multiple accounts? For example, Guy Kawasaki posts identical content to both facebook.com/guy (which is his page, not his personal profile) and facebook.com/enchantment. Just wondering how to decide when to do that, and when to let your brand have different “voices”.
Thanks for all you’re doing, John!
Bonnie
Hmmm, I guess I’m not the only one who has been thinking about when to let your brand have different “voices”.
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/never-cross-the-streams_b12108
this is a good perspective bonnie and it’s one that can obviously work! it’s just hard for me, personally, to manage so many different brands!
John,
Help, please. I finally changed my permalinks to the pretty custom structure – /%postname%/ – and installed your plugin. I was nervous to do so but had to in order to activate WP Super Cache and WPtouch Pro. I had to edit and clean up several permalinks because they were not translated properly (titles with nonstandard characters etc). Most everything seems to work now, and I guess it works using internal redirects. Well except for the following:
1. Google is giving me Not Found 404 errors (54 or them) on many of my PDF book files. Somehow, they are now looking indexing URL – http://hopefaithprayer.com/online-books/books/A_Garo_Jungle_Book_by_William_Carey.pdf . The ‘online books’ is the parent page and was added. It is not part of the path. The path is …/books/book-name.pdf. I don’t know why parent page paths were added to the permalink. And, I don’t know where they got this, as my XML Sitemaps plugin does not appear to include any PDF links. Where do I edit this?
2. My main site address is http://hopefaithprayer.com/ and two (of 11) of my main menu ‘no parent’ pages do not load. I get 404 errors.. One is http://hopefaithprayer.com/prayer/ but the permalink looks correct in page edit. I have re-edited it to ‘prayer’ and saved the page but to no avail. Help?
What is a good boy to do?? I will be forever grateful. I am growing quickly and my next step is to upgrade my theme to a professional one, like say, Standard Theme, and then get off the shared server that my host has me on. Great site thanks, Rex
PS To my previous question I want to add. I am also using your TentBlogger SEO Categories plugin.
http://tentblogger.com/broken-links/
and
http://tentblogger.com/404-errors/
should be all that you need.
Thanks but I have done both. All other links are correct. I edited the permalink to http://hopefaithprayer.com/prayer/ but it still brings up a 404.
Could there be an error to the database? Can I delete the page and create a new one with the same permalink?
i’m not hitting a 404…..
So, I run ST on my WP blog and I would like to add the G+ button that you have on the left “sare”. How would I go about doing that. PS – I’m not much with code.
share…I also cannot type.
do you have a support key? that junks the bomb!
Hit up the support forums…you have to modify StandardTheme.php
thanks kevin!
John, per our conversation on Twitter this morning, how did you make that cool “summary of posts” that you have at the end of some of your posts? It has five or so posts, including a small picture and the title.
Is it a plug-in? And how can I do it for my blog (GodAdopts.com)?
- Charles
thansk charles! i’m testing out nrelate plugin right now! customized it a bit. not sure i completely love it since it’s super heavy and slows stuff down a bit…. but there you go.
Hey John. I’ve got what may be a bit of a unique situation for most. I work for a missionary sending organization and I’m setting up a blog which will primarily feature the latest newsletters that our 260 missionaries send out monthly to their supports (PAOC.org/missions/globalview). Basically we will be copying and pasting the content into posts, giving one central location for supporters to get the latest info on the regions of ministry they’re interested in. My desire however is to post the newsletters as the missionary–that is, I want the missionary’s name to appear in the author box at the bottom of the post, with links to their own website, twitter, facebook, etc. to encourage the community connections. I have no plans to open up the WP back-end to let this many people contribute as authors on their own. So I need to post AS them. Can you recommend some author box plugins that maybe you have used on some client’s sites? Is using the author drop-down on the posts page Screen Options the best way to select authors on a post? I use Standard Theme on my personal blog, but went with PlatformPro for the missions site. Thanks for any insight.
yes…! you can create the authors themselves in wordpress and then just choose them in the post layer…!
Great. I guess knowing your philosophy of plug-ins and site speed, you would do what you can to make good use of the existing built-in theme author box, versus finding a 3rd party author box plugin to change the style?
i’d definitely try to use what is there already.
Another question… is there an easy way to create individual Feedburner category RSS feeds, other than to register each individual feed separately with Feedburner?
i beleive you have to do each one unfortunately.
I see you have a bunch of foreign domains, (ex. John.do) what company do you generally use to obtain those types of urls?
karl,
i use a bunch but one that does an ok job is http://www.101domain.com/
they aren’t perfect but it works…
My first PC had a casette tape as storage and I used punch cards for data at work. Took a while to switch from a keyboard to a mouse. Now I see the PC as obsolete, with cell phones and apps taking over. How will the tentblogger adapt to apps as the preferred method of communication, when html passes away?
now that’s an interesting question…! i think blogging software will continue to pace and evolve with culture. i’m not worried much.
Hi,
I have your theme, and also the floating share buttons like you on the left. When i share on twitter he only tweet the title, but not the link?? How can I fix this? Example: “Zes super plugins in één: “Jetpack” boost je blog naar nieuwe hoogtes | Hijblogt via @hijblogt” sorry for the dutch words
it’s built into my theme. http://tentblogger.com/standard-theme/
I fix it! I reset the data base and did a total new install. Now it works
I notice you have a meta description for your home page. Where in Standard theme do I edit that? Mine appears to be the same as the blog title. I want to have something longer for the MD.
Thanks in advance and I love the adsense series you are currently posting!
tomb,
You can add this manually if you’d like to your header.php file typically.
How do you create the “premium ad spot, after content and before comments, single post” ads? Any chance of offering that as an option via the Standard Theme admin panel?
i can take a look into offering these. let me ping my team…
About your seo sitemap plugin
http://tentblogger.com/seo-sitemap/
I’m not sure it is working fine but the sitemap was genreated and success submit to search engine ….. ??
“”"”"”"”
Last Successfully Executed: November 4, 2011 Your server is not configure to support file-write access. Please see this post for troubleshooting instructions.
- Sitemap successfully generated
- Sitemap submitted to Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
- Sitemap successfully gzipped.””””
“”"”"”"”
The date also not correct, it is early than my country time(correct time November 5), i think it follow the US time instead of my country time
File permission is set to 644 for both file
I also checked the mydomain.com/sitemap.xml, it seems working fine
show something like this
“”This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. XXXXX
Successfully submitted sitemap to Google on XXX Date Time Successfully submitted sitemap to Bing on XXX Date Time “””
So is it working fine ?
should be. i’ll take a look.
Just wanted to pass along a problem I had with a Tentblogger plugin.
I got an email from my webhost saying I had filled my alloted disk space. Turns out an error log suddenly ballooned to somewhere around 4.4GB.
My provider checked the error log and responded with this email:
Hi Bill,
It appears that TentBlogger is attempting to write a very large entry into your database and when the error occurs it is instead written to the error_log. The last full error before it got cut off starts and ends with the following lines:
[29-Oct-2011 05:34:08] WordPress database error Got a packet bigger than ‘max_allowed_packet’ bytes for query UPDATE `fbi_options` SET `option_value` =
WHERE `option_name` = ‘tentblogger-404-repair-slug’ made by require, require_once, include, get_header, locate_template, load_template, require_once, wp_head, do_action, call_user_func_array, TentBlogger_404_Repair->locate_404s, TentBlogger_404_Repair->log_bad_url, update_option
It looks like TentBlogger is trying to log a bad URL but the URL is over 1MB in size. By looking at the last few entries, each one appears to be bogus. This might have been a short lived attack on your website or it might be a conflict between plugins.
This problem appears to have started today, October 29, 2011. Have you recently installed a new plugin or updated any?
I’ve added the full error as an attachment so you can view the bad URL. I’ve removed the error_log from your account to free up disk space as well. I’ll be keeping an eye on this error_log today, if the problem starts again I will be removing the log periodically to ensure that your disk space remains healthy.
Warm Regards,
Elena
Service Administrator
(Me again) I’ve disabled the TB plugins (I have 11 of them!), and I’ll reactivate them and keep an eye to see if they cause any problems. Since they’ve been running fine for awhile, I don’t think the coding’s at fault, but I wanted to let you know in case you see anything that goes “ping.”
Thanks a lot. I appreciate your efforts very much and am considering buying your Standard Theme for my next site upgrade.
Cheers,
Bill Peschel
bill,
interesting. i’ll have to take a look.
John,
been at this blogging thing about a month now. fairly good local response, but know I will have to focus more. I also need to turn my attention to search results. But I am so totally ignorant about SEO – I mean a beginner’s beginner. Can you point me to the best posts or resources for an SEO rookie?
http://tentblogger.com/seo/ …
Thanks, Kevin!
Hi John. Quick question. I’m using the Pro Photo Theme, which has a floating share bar like you have here. By default it only has Twitter and FB. How can I add the other social sites you have included?
Thanks!
Scratch that. I found the answer in the 8bit support forum.
John, or anyone….help!
I’m in a bit of a panic this morning. I’m sure this is another one of my rookie questions. I had 109 subscribers on my new blog. But this morning when I checked the main feed page the number of subscribers says “2.” Well, that made my heart sink a bit. and on the analytics graph it shows it from going from 109 to 2. And, worst, I don’t see my subscribers listed where I used to check to see who had verified.
But I happen to think that yesterday I was slammed, and it was the first day I had not put up a new post. could this be the reason and/or why would the subscriber list be gone from the feedburner page? Any help with my panic attack is appreciated…..:)
i replied, right?
Very nice template you have. Too bad I cannot use it. I am on drupal
too bad.
John, i’m doing a facelift on my blog this month. thinking about making the logo a little more playful. But I want to find the right balance between business and casual. Any pointers on how to decide that, and do you have some recommendations for graphic artists for the cartoonish tips of graphics?
you can check my caricature art: http://tentblogger.com/caricature/
Hi,
Iam looking for a subscribe box under a single post like you on your blog. Iam using Standardtheme. But I cant find the box? You have an idea for me?
Thanks a lot and thanks for all your blogging input! It help me a lot!
check my wordpress plugins: http://tentblogger.com/wordpress/
Hi John,
Need an extra set of hands? For FREE. I’ve been following you since I started my blog (in Nov. 2010). Developing my content has been my Focus. Now I’m ready to expand and reach the world. Making a few bucks would be great, but my Real passion is to Inspire/Empower others to live a healthier lifestyle. I’m not very tech savvy so I was hoping to help you for free as a learning opportunity. I’m a decent writer.
Your thoughts?
http://www.HealthNutBlogger.com
let’s take a look.
Hey John
I’ve been finding all sorts of wonderfulness on your blog. Thank you! I’m trying to move over the wordpress now, and I’ve already followed your directions for moving content over. However, I was about to buy a domain and didn’t see anything specific on this. I was just going to buy it through wordpress to make it easier for me. But I see lots of references on your blog about hosting it on a domain you already own. Should I be buying it somewhere else instead? Or were those instructions just assuming someone already had their own? It appears that buying and hosting w/ wordpress would make life easier? Any reason not to?
Thanks so much for your help on this!
Amy
i’ve got some good posts on buying your own domain and starting there… take a look around here! it’s a better alternative!
John,
Question: I need to start sourcing the pictures I use in my blog posts in order to give credit where credit is due as my blog expands (fingers crossed). Your pictures look amazing with a professional border and content underneath when needed. Can you please share your secret to how you do this? BTW – I’m not very tech savvy.
sure. the first answer is this: http://tentblogger.com/images/
the second is that I use three apps that help create those cool effects in seconds:
- Acorn – http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/
- camera bag – http://nevercenter.com/camerabag/desktop/
- flare – http://flareapp.com/
I don’t think I’ve ever asked you before, but what are your thoughts on PubSubHubbub?
don’t really have one?
Hi John! I currently have a blog that I write in English, and my friends keep asking me to provide them a translated version of my posts (my native language is Portuguese).
I tested a few plugins, but I didn’t like any of them.
Have you ever worked with a blog that had two translations (not automatic translations)?
What do you suggest?
Thank you!
there are a few translation plugins that work… but perhaps there might be wisdom in creating two blogs? not sure… never had to do that myself before.
John, just so you know, I ended up choosing two separate blogs. In a few words, my main reasons were:
- I needed to install WordPress in Portuguese to get all messages (like the instructions in the comment field) to show in Portuguese. With the plugins that translated everything, the translation was terrible, it didn’t make sense. So I’d rather have the product installed in the language I wanted, which required two separate installations.
- Some posts from my English site didn’t make sense to Brazilians (they dealt with subjects specific to Americans), so I can now filter those out, and I can also add other posts in my Portuguese site that are specific to Brazilians.
- I had a translated version of my logo for my Portuguese site. I didn’t find any plugin that would allow for two different logos, depending on the language that the user selected. And I am not experienced with PHP or javascript to write a code to do that…
- I don’t have to worry about automatic tools translating the comments from readers (it could twist the meaning of their message). And I don’t have to worry about people not being able to understand comments written on a different language.
I had a little more work, but I think it was worth it in the end.
makes sense!
Hi John,
You mention here on TentBlogger that is it recommended to link blog posts together. One problem when starting a blog is that the number of posts to interlink is rather limited.
Once you have written and published a number of posts, would you recommend going and adding internal links to some of the older posts?
yes! definitely!
Hi John,
I’m a longtime reader and appreciate your writing a lot.
I’m curious in learning about how Google prepares text snippets in its results. For example, when looking for a recipe on a recipe site, the text snippets are “…lemons for this part… cool on a wire rack… Amazing Camera Giveaway…”
It turns out there is a plugin called “commentluv” on this site, and one of the commenters last posts was about a camera giveaway. Why would I get this text on my search, and if I’m managing a blog, how can I avoid it? Unless I missed it, I can’t find any posts you have where managing these kidns of results are discussed. I can provide specific search and screenshots if it’s not clear. What other forum would discuss this? (I usually start here…)
Thanks!
Most sites intentionally craft those snippets using an SEO plugin, or specific meta data that Google reads. It’s no accident what gets in there. For your blog, if you’re not using an SEO plugin, Google will likely use the first paragraph (or at least the first 160 characters of your first paragraph) for that snippet.
Hi Dustin,
We use Thesis theme, and ALWAYS craft a relevant custom text in the “meta description” section. The strange part is that the snippets are not coming from this, OR at the top of the post, but rather are coming from the comments section.
I remember reading somewhere about someone having their site hacked, and the only way they knew was that the results in Google searches were falsified. In this case, they are not falsified for a bogus site, but still far from what we are expecting.
That is quite interesting… hmm…
Daniel, I had a similar weird behavior in my blog, but the text shown in the snippet was a random text depending on the page/post I was accessing, no matter what I put in the SEO plugin fields. Checking the HTML of the page, I saw that the meta description field was OK, but there were some weird extra meta fields added by the plugin Jetpack, so I deactivated it, just in case. That was it, the problem was gone.
I was in a hurry so I didn’t look into it further. I just left the Jetpack plugin deactivated.
If you use Jetpack, try deactivating it. If that doesn’t help, try checking the HTML code of your page, look for the meta fields, see if there is something weird there. You can try also, as a test, to deactivate the CommentLuv plugin.
Hope this helps…
agreed. watch those plugins.
Hi All,
Thanks for the tips and help. Aside from my screenshots of the problem, I have not been able to reproduce this at all for myself or others. I am still curious as to how it got in there, but will certainly be careful when selecting plugins as a “resolution” of this problem.
Best,
DB
hmm. interesting.
OK, I’m not an expert in any means outside of historical services and genealogy. I recently bought a hosting package where they said I could have unlimited sites hosted in the same account so long as they are mine and I’m not reselling. I’m using westhost.com business package.
Now I’m stuck. I have multiple domains I want to set up. I am starting three different websites (businesses). My primary business is genealogy and historical research. My primary domain is historicalservices.com. This will be my primary focus. I have a website template I have fallen in love with and can visualize my site pretty well.
The other websites will be hoosierancestry.com, homehistoryservices.com, and james-e-harris.com
I can see in cPanel how to create folders for each domain and point the DNS servers to these. I have no idea how to set up WordPress on each folder to effectively and efficiently host and run these sites without crosslinking and making a mess of things. For example, I know there is a WordPress MU something and then individual installations.
This is your area of expertise. I need suggestions on how to best accomplish this task and/or what you or someone will charge to set up the folders, install WordPress, and import the theme, and double check functionality.
If I’m best served getting rid of the business package and hosting four separate sites, let me know that too.
Best regards,
James
email me ~~~~~> me@john.do
Hi John, I want to ask you another question:
What solution do you suggest to prevent Google Analytics from counting my own accesses to my blogs? My provider uses dynamic IP addresses, and they are from different ranges (so I can’t filter out by IP address or network address).
I tried a few procedures I found in the net, but none has worked so far.
Do you have any suggestion?
Thank you so much!
none i think. or that i’m aware of.
Did you help Michael Hyatt customize code or settings for Facebook sharer? I can’t get the sharer to consistently display the correct title or description. I need some direction. Let me know what you guys need from me to look into this.
i designed the original but it’s been customized heavily by his developer now.
Hi John,
I’m not sure if this is where to post this but I wanted to introduce you to one of my WordPress Plugins (SupportDynamo.com). Basically it’s ZenDesk as a WordPress Plugin.
I wanted to offer it to you for Free and see what you guys thought about it and see if you had any suggestions or other ways to improve it.
Let me know if you’re interested.
Thanks!
~ Wesley
SupportDynamo.com
PluginDynamo.com
hmm. thanks! will check it out.
I need some help optimizing my website. Do you consult?
that i do.
Have you ever done a post on folder structure on your server?
Just wondering as I am following along with a few of your series (ie. ultimate guide to launching a wordpress powered blog) and I notice that my folders structure is different that some of your example. Such as your httpdocs etc.
I am using Site5 for hosting so maybe my defaults are just different. Thats cool if that the case I am just new enough I want to make sure I am not missing some basic setup that will come back to bite me later
Thanks!!!
yeah, that’s just different per host.
Absolutely love Tentblogger, John, and keep coming back to it all the time as my go-to resource for WordPress questions. Thank you, thank you.
I notice you’ve been using this My Tweet Links plug-in recently, and I’ve been playing with it too, but I also notice that yours doesn’t show up in your RSS Feed, whereas mine does (and clicking Tweet or Buffer then just takes you to a blank window). I use Feedburner (learned it from you!). So how do you do this?
Thanks again for everything.
i put it outside the post, into a different area. that’s all.
Hi John,
I couldn’t really find anything about Chitika on your blog. I’d love, love, love if you posted an article about Chitika. Your experiences with it…Pros and Cons…And how it works (I don’t get it).
I got kicked off Adsense for testing the adds and I’m struggling to make money on my blog. The content is my FOCUS, but it would be nice to make a few bucks…Linkshare and Amazon aren’t generating any porfits
Hey John,
Love your content! I’ve done a bit of searching, and I haven’t found anything about how to track stats on ads sold through direct advertising. At this point, I’m planning to set up and image with a link. Can this be done through Google Analytics, or perhaps some kind of a WordPress plugin (like AdServe)?
Thanks!
Hi John
I was reading on your site that you recommend waiting until you are at 250 views a day to start monetizing your blog… in that post you said that if you haven’t reached that number a year after starting your blog, something is wrong. I have gone through your SEO series and done most of the things on there (anything I was able to figure out, I did it)… so what I am doing wrong? It has been a little over a year since I started my blog, and I’m at about 30 views per day. Do you have any suggestions?
Hi John
I am having trouble leaving a specific comment. I will try and contact you via a different means.
Kristine
I am leaving this comment to see if it works.
Sorry, you can delete this comment now. I think I couldn’t post the comment I originally wanted to because there were some links in it (I wasn’t trying to spam you or anything – I was just trying to use them as URL structure examples). Regardless, I didn’t get any message/explanation when my comment wasn’t published so I’m not sure what it was exactly. Anyhoo, I removed the links and the comment published (see below).
So sorry for the confusion.
Thanks so much for the awesome tutorial on migration.
I have already migrated from Blogger to WordPress though am yet to do any of the redirection.
I was about to hand edit any of my WordPress permalinks which differed from those of my original Blogger posts though if this is not necessary it will save me a lot of time.
I just have a quick question about how redirection to specific posts works. I have been struggling to understand this and can’t seem to find the answer anywhere. I will be your best friend forever if you can shed some light for me
Do the permalinks/slugs of the migrated posts in WordPress need to match those of the original Blogger post exactly for the redirection to work? Or does the redirection rely on different information entirely so it doesn’t matter what my WordPress URL or permalink is?
I saw in the comments earlier there was mention that changing permalinks after migration shouldn’t effect redirection though can you confirm this is really the case? If the redirection isn’t looking for a matching permalink then how does it work?
Sorry for my naivety. I am still new to all this though am very keen to learn and understand
Thanks so much.
john i am very thanks for every thing i am mahmoud i live in Egypt i download them Digital Business Card but i need to help name of the them this view in up website
you can see photo and know this problem
watch this and understand my http://mahmoudelgohary.com/up/gohary.jpg
thanks for you
i am wait for answer