Why Would You Want To Remove NoFollow?

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Surely this will increase spam?
There is every chance that once you remove the nofollow attribute that this will attract those who are only looking for some quick link love. However, I’m of the opinion that it’s worth it if you have certain things in place.

My philospophy
My aim is to maintain or improve the quality of comments for you as a reader and reward genuine contribution.

I want to reward readers who actively participate and contribute on this blog. If someone is kind enough to take the time to leave a comment and contribute to the discussion I am more than happy for them to receive credit in the search engines as well as having a chance to generate traffic.

Everything in moderation
Whilst all of the above is true, I also recognise the need for balance and moderation. My blog is set up in such a way that every comment requires moderation before it appears and this has always been the case.

This gives me complete control over which comments I include, those that I moderate and those I choose to delete. I also have the Akismet plugin that catches most of the obvious spam comments.

I verify each link that is posted and if I feel it looks like spam I’ll either remove the link, comment or both. This is to protect you as a reader and also ensure this blog isn’t seen as a link farm when google crawls the site.

Comment’s like “nice post” usually won’t be added and anyone who posts keywords where their name should be also has their comment removed.

My own blog commenting strategy
I comment on both nofollow and dofollow blogs. If I’ve got something to say on a particular subject I don’t stop to think which category it falls under.

However, when I set out specifically to generate traffic by using blog commenting I set out with these intentions:

• Place my link on dofollow blogs
• Contribute something of value
• Read and Learn
• Look for potential JV partners

So although I set out to drive traffic that’s not where the process ends for me. Some people will simply try to post as many comments as possible. But they are missing a trick and that is learning from the site’s you visit and building relationships with the site owners.

I’m certainly not part of any “dofollow movement” this is simply something I’m testing and if this action affects the blog adversely then I won’t hesitate to change it back.

Are You Following Me?

If I place a link to your website on my blog there is a chance someone will click on it and you will gain a free visitor to your site.

If you make a comment on my blog your name will be hyperlinked to your site and you have another chance to grab some free visitors.

If you trackback to one of my posts from your own blog and I approve, you get yet another link back to your site. These are all ways to generate traffic to your site by interacting with mine.

Now generating traffic is all well and good but you also want your comments to help your site’s ranking in the search engines and doing the things above does not guarantee this at all. Why?

Do you follow?
WordPress software by default adds the “nofollow” HTML attribute to all links from user generated content on your blog. This means anyone leaving a comment or providing a trackback to your site will not gain any positive influence when it comes to ranking in the search engines.

Put simply, if you leave a comment on a Wordpress blog that has default settings you will not rank any higher in the search engines. Sure you might get some traffic from people clicking on your links but you want to gain some extra ranking benefit too.

How can I know the difference?
A quick way to tell if the blog you are visiting has the “nofollow” attribute in place is to click any post that has comments and view the source code:

• FireFox: Right-click the page then “View Page Source”
• Internet Explorer: Right-click the page then “View Source.”

Scroll down to find the code for the comment section and if you see rel=’external nofollow’ after the links then you know you will not be credited when the search bots crawl that particular site.

How can I change my own blog settings?
There are 2 main methods you can use.

1. Use a plugin
2. Modify the core WordPress code

The main problem I have with modifying the WordPress code is you have to remember not to overwrite it when you upgrade to the latest version of the WordPress software or update the new version once you have upgraded.

Dan Thompson (One of my fellow moderators over at Lee McIntyre’s Standing Start Profits) recently made a post about this:
http://www.elpassoblog.com/why-adding-blog-comments-does-nothing-for-seo/

It was Dan that got me thinking about this issue in more depth recently. As I mentioned on his blog I’ve tried many different methods but in the last few days I’ve settled on using Semiologic’s DoFollow plugin which you can download here (bottom of the page):

Semiologic DoFollow Plugin

Install like you would any other plugin and once activated the “nofollow” code is removed from your comment section.

Being the proud owner of a “dofollow” blog has it’s own issues and there are a couple of things you need to consider before you put this in place - primarily spam.

I will be talking about this in more detail soon and how this has caused me to rethink certain aspects of my blog’s comment policy. See you then.

30 Blog Design Tips Part 4

24. Plugins
Only use plugins or widgets that enhance or support your content or that help build your community and deepen your relationship with your subscribers. Avoid using those that distract from your content. Here’s a list of widgets currently installed on this blog:

• Akismet - Checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.
• Breadcrumb Navigation XT - Adds a breadcrumb navigation showing the visitor’s path to their current location.
• Get Recent Comments - Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith - This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.
• JAW Popular Posts Widget - Adds a sidebar widget that shows the most popular posts. Requires the Popularity Contest plugin.
• Limit Posts - Limits the displayed text length on the index page entries and generates a link to a page to read the full content if its bigger than the selected maximum length.
• MyBlogLog Widget - Adds MyBlogLog widget to your blog.
• Popularity Contest - This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity.
• ShareThis - Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.
• Top Commentators Widget - Adds a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site.
• What Would Seth Godin Do - Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors.

25. External links
Links to other sites should be kept to a minimum. I recommend none above the fold unless they are to your own products. You will notice that there are no external links immediately above the fold other than those which might appear in my post area.

Links to pages on your blog or site should open in the same browser window. External links and even links to your own products should open in another browser window. You want your blog to remain open in your reader’s browser.

26. Comments
You want to encourage participation so leave the “follow attribute” but just limit the number of comments displayed. I recommend a top comments widget over simply listing the last comment posted. This rewards the more active readers by having their link displayed on your page.

27. Ads
Don’t use them. I hate visiting blogs full of ads. When I see a site full of ads I navigate away. Unless they are for your own products I would not recommend and even then they should be subtle.

Obviously this depends on the type of blog your creating. If you are reviewing other peoples products, you are an affiliate marketer or you make a living from adsense then this is different. If it is for your personal blog limit them and place them below the fold. This is just my personal view.

28. New Visitors
Don’t welcome everyone at the top of your page or in your header. My tip is to use the What Would Seth Godin Do? plugin. I have mine set to welcome new visitors on their first 3 visits though some might say 7 times might be best. Test and find out what works best for you. If you use this plugin, encourage new visitors to sign up to your list or feed.

29. Exit Popup
I don’t have one of these at present but this is something perhaps you should consider. I know many marketers who say that this substantially increases their opt-in rate. Offer something of value in return for your reader’s email address. Usually a product that you could get away charging money for. Offer it for free. Be careful though as a lot of people do not like popups of any kind.

30. Stats
You are proud of your blog right? Display an Alexa Traffic Rank Button on your blog, don’t be afraid to show your stats even if they aren’t that great at present. I’ve heard the act of putting this button on your page alone actually helps increase your ranking! Let your readers know how popular your blog is. Since you are always going to be working on improving those stats then let everyone see just how well you are doing. This is also a great personal motivator to drive traffic to your pages.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of posts as much as I enjoyed writing them and find these tips to be of use when thinking about starting your own blog.

Is my blog perfect? No way! But it does adhere to most of the above criteria and will adhere to all over the coming weeks and this will give my blog the best chance of success.

Some of you may disagree with some of the points above. The point is you have to do what’s right for your business and niche. There are no hard and fast rules but use these ideas as a guideline and you won’t go far wrong.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below. Don’t forget if you enjoyed this post then please feel free to share.

30 Blog Design Tips Part 3

Welcome to part 3!

15. Logo
A large logo or image placed in your header takes up valuable space on your page and increases it’s load time. Keep it small and simple or discard it altogether and rely on the power of your title alone. Your site is all about providing visitors with good content not showing how shiny your header graphic is.

16. Photo
You might be drop dead gorgeous but people don’t really care too much about that! They care more about what you can do for them. You might think they want to see your pretty face every time they load your page but I assure you that most people are looking for content. If you do add a photo, keep it small. My advice is add an about me page instead for the more curious types.

17. Links
Make your links look like links! Blue underlined is my preference. If you asked someone to describe what a hyperlink looks like (in fact I checked this by asking my girlfriend!) most would say blue, underlined text. Underlined isn’t absolutely necessary nor is the colour blue but anything that increases the chance of your links being clicked can only be a good thing.

Also make them interesting to hover over and click. You’ll notice mine change to red. Red is known to encourage people to take action. Do not overdo the colours though. Remember support not distract.

18. Fonts
Fonts should be easy to read. I recommend black on white, I don’t recommend justifying your text as this makes it harder to read. For your body text I recommend Arial or Verdana. For titles I recommend Tahoma or Arial. As far as font size I recommend 12pt Arial for body text. The font you are reading is set at 12pt Arial.

19. Content area
I recommend your content section (your post area) is not too wide. You don’t want people to have to move their head from side to side to try and read your text. Mine is set to 550px which I think is optimal - you might disagree, see what works for you.

20. White space
White space around your text is very important and makes it much easier to read. Pay particular attention to line spacing. This is something that is often overlooked. If your lines are too close together your text will be harder to read. Too far apart and this gives the perception that your work is a little light on content. My body font is 12pt Arial and my lines are usually spaced between 17px and 20px.

21. Background Colour
Have a high contrast background colour so that your eye is drawn into the page and towards your content. I opted for dark gray but dark blues and blacks work well. The rule of thumb is, as long as there is good contrast between your posts and your background this will make your blog easier to read.

22. Colours
Keep these to a minimum. Nice blues, fresh greens, anything that looks clean and supports your content without distracting from it. In other words, nothing too bright or gaudy.

23. Theme
I’m not going to recommend specific themes here but choose one that has a layout that you like. Something clean and simple. Don’t worry too much about dimensions and colours, you can always tweak the code if you are comfortable doing this. Find one that adheres to most of the principals in these posts. You can always edit it to your liking afterwards.

The 4th and final part of this series will be posted on Friday. See you then!

30 Blog Design Tips Part 2

Welcome to part 2 of my blog design series.

7. Content
Don’t just regurgitate what you’ve already seen, try to be different and add value to your site. The better the quality of your content the deeper the relationship with your readers. Make your blog a place that you would want to visit. Not one that talks about how great you are! People visit your blog ultimately because they want to learn from you - not about you.

Let the power of your content do the talking for you. Content over design not design over content. They don’t exist in isolation but design must support content not distract from it.

8. Personality
You want to inject your own personality into your work and this is really important with regard to building a relationship with your subscribers. You can do this through your writing style and by letting readers get to know more of the real you by sharing some things from your personal life. I’m not talking about disclosing everything but let people get to know more about the real you.

You can express yourself creatively on your personal pages but for your business pages keep it simple. You can do this without the use of lots of fancy graphics which only detract from your overall message. You might also think you have a great sense of humour but what one person finds amusing another might not. I’m not talking about being bland but I know I’ve been turned off from sites where you have to wade through an author’s “amusing” anecdotes to find useful information.

9. Categories
I would consider using nested categories like you will see in my nav bar. This allows you to organize your content into much more specific categories and enable people to find relevant content much more quickly. Name your categories appropriately. Keep them succinct yet descriptive. 1-2 words ideally.

10. Permalinks
I use the format http://johnszram.com/post_title. I like to keep my titles really descriptive. You can tell what this post is about from it’s web address. I don’t worry about writing for the search engines. My aim is to provide you with quality information. I might lose out on some traffic short term but I’m in this for the long haul and my relationship with my readers is more important.

11. Search
As your blog grows it is going to become increasingly important for people to be able to find content quickly and easily. Provide a search box and also provide an archive section and links to your archived pages. I don’t recommend a calendar it takes up too much space and why would you click on it if you don’t know what content you are going to find on that page. A search box is better and much more targeted.

12. Returning Visitors
Don’t forget your returning visitors. You know that you need to build relationships online so don’t forget your current readership. You want to make sure that returning visitors have a great experience too and aren’t pestered by your ads or welcome messages. Return visitors should easily find your new posts as they should be displayed above the fold.

13. RSS Feed
Provide a button for your RSS feed. I’d recommend signing up with FeedBurner and running your feed through their service since you get access to countless extra features that will improve the user experience. This is something I will be blogging about at a later date.

14. Social Bookmarking
Make it easy for people to share your content. Provide links so your readers can Digg, Stumble and bookmark your posts. My advice is add the ShareThis widget. There are countless others that do a similar job but this is the one I find works best. I’ll be talking about the specific plugins I use on Friday.

If you find this post to be useful please hit the ShareThis button below now and spread the word! Parts 3 and 4 to follow.

30 Blog Design Tips Part 1

I recently made some changes to my blog and I thought I’d share with you some things I think you should consider when creating a blog of your own. All this week I will be sharing my blog design tips. I hope you find them to be useful. First a couple of prerequisites:

i. Know the purpose of your site
Many beginners know they need a blog but many are unsure why. Your Internet Business blog is not simply to attract traffic from the search engines but to build a thriving community. It’s function is to provide great content, convert readers into subscribers and to promote your own products. If you follow this guiding principle you can’t go far wrong.

ii. Keep your target audience in mind
It is important to think about who your site is aimed at. Who is your target audience? Which type of reader are you trying to reach? Keep these things in mind when designing your blog.

OK, let’s get started with your 30 Blog Design Tips:

1. Opt-in
I am starting with this as it is extremely important to convert readers into subscribers. Your conversion rate won’t be as high as it would be for a squeeze page since a lot of your traffic will be less targeted, but an opt-in box on your blog is important all the same. It needs to positioned in a prominent position and you need to give people a compelling reason to opt-in to your list. Ideally offer something in return for doing so - a free report, or perhaps a free video.

2. Header
You don’t want your header to be too big. I’ve seen pages where it takes up over half of the page above the fold! This means that visitors immediately have to scroll to find the information they are looking for. You want it to catch the eye of first time visitors but not distract too much from your content or annoy returning visitors.

3. Title
First time visitors need to know what your blog is about quickly or they will navigate away. Tell them in your header with a descriptive title. No need to welcome visitors here, simply let them know in a short sentence what they can expect from your blog. e.g. Internet Business Blog by John Szram. Don’t forget you can use a popular keyword here too. e.g. “Internet Business Blog” “Make Money Online” “Hype Free Marketing” etc

4. Navigation
Your site should be easy to navigate. This is really important. Visitors should not have to spend long searching around for information. I prefer to have my navigation bar at the top of the page as I think this looks better. I have not tested with a side navbar however, and this might depend on the rest of your layout.

5. Sidebar
I like a 3 column layout as I like the option of using different sized widgets. Some things look better narrow and some in a wider context. However, above the fold I like to keep things simple and only provide links to my content and opt-in Remember your blog is all about providing great content and turning visitors into subscribers.

6. Footer
Here you can place your copyright information. Keep this simple. Place a link back to the homepage of your blog so that once a reader has read your posts they can quickly navigate back.

These are just some basic tips. Look out for Part 2 tomorrow. Parts 3 and 4 will be posted on Wednesday and Friday this week. If you wish to be notified subscribe to my blog announcement list and make sure you don’t miss out.

Take care, John Szram.

Post YouTube Videos Into Your Wordpress Blog

If you have a Wordpress blog, like this one, you may encounter a slight problem when adding YouTube videos to your posts.

You might already know that you should paste the embed code from your YouTube video into the code section when creating a post. However, if you then return to the visual editor the code becomes garbled and the video doesn’t display.

How do you do this without installing yet another plugin? Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1 - Write and format your post as usual bearing in mind where you want to place the video. Hit Save.

Step 2 - Turn off the visual editor: In your blog’s admin area, click on “Users” followed by “Your Profile”. You should see the following:

You need to uncheck the box next to “use the visual editor when writing” as shown above, then click “Update Profile”.

Step 3 - Paste the YouTube embed code into your post. When you return to edit your post, instead of the option of either visual or code views you will see a window like this:

Simply paste the YouTube embed code into the appropriate position of your post as shown above and hit publish for your post to go live.

Step 4 - Switch the visual editor back on

Please be aware that if you return to edit this post at any stage, you will need to turn off the visual editor before doing so or the code will become garbled once again and you will need to re-enter your YouTube embed code.

An alternative method is to write and format your post as normal then at the very end, switch to code view, paste your embed code in and hit publish without returning to the visual editor. Again bearing in mind if you wish to return to edit this post at a later date you will need to turn off the visual editor before doing so.

Let me know if you think your method is easier or maybe convince me of the merits of installing yet another plugin!