MaxBlogPress Blog

By default Wordpress slugs are ineffective in terms of SEO, forum links, and email links .If you take Wordpress out-of-the-box, it doesn’t do anything to help you make your URLs more effective. Wordpress just takes your post headline and sticks it as the post URL. You keep typing away headlines as looooooooooong as you want and Wordpress just keeps nodding away with you. What you need to do is manually shorten it. If you don’t, Wordpress just doesn’t care.

Here are two problems Wordpress causes by putting post titles as post slugs:

1. Long email links and forum links get broken.
2. It isn’t Search Engine optimized.

Long post links get broken in emails and forums.

If you have sent some of your long Wordpress blog post links to emails and forums, you will know exactly what I am talking about. Take this link for an example.
www.YourBlog.com/2/12/why-did-i-use-such-a-long-and-useless-URL-that-does-nothing-to-promote-my-products-in-google

If you mail this blog post to your readers, you will get complains saying that the link does not work. Even if the post really does exist, the URL will not be clickable in your reader’s mail program. The reason here is that the mail program actually breaks the link into two lines. The URL is too long for the email program. That is why it appears to be broken.

Not only in emails but long URLs also get broken in forums and a lot of other similar places. You talk in a forum about something with all your energy. You paste a link there to your blog post. After a while you notice that the link just doesn’t work. The long URL has again come back to you like instant karma for being lazy.

We now come to a more important problem.

Slugs are not automatically Search Engine Optimized.

Let’s say your slug contains Where should I go to buy vegetables in NewYork. Your main keywords or the keywords that you want a higher search engine rank for, are only buy, vegetables, and NewYork. Then what are the other words like “where should I go to” etc doing to your slug ?

Answer:

1. it’s reducing the value of your main keywords
2. it’s reducing the search engine rank of your important keywords.

Answer number 1.
Unnecessary words reduces the value of your main keywords in your url .
Your URL contains 9 keywords, out of which only 3 are popular. So you are diluting the value of the keywords “New York”, “buy” and “vegetables” by adding “where should I go to” You do not want to aim for a higher search engine ranking for words like “why”, “about”.

You want to aim for higher search engine ranking for words that really matter to your blog post like “New York”,”vegetables”, etc. It is only the main keywords that really matter in your search engines ranking. The lesson you learnt here is: Do not include unnecessary words into your slug.

Answer number 2.
Lower the value of your main keywords, lower your page will show in the search engine result for your important keywords.
This is simply a result of answer number 1.

So remember: After you write a great blog post ALWAYS edit its URL or the “slug” as Wordpress likes to call it. Because as another wise man on the internet once said:
” Headlines Are For Humans, URLs Are For Robots “.

You can edit your post link in Wordpress 2.5 by following this procedure.

1. Go to Write >> Post
2. Write a title in the title bar.
3. Click on the contents textbox.
4. A slug appears below you title bar.



5. Click on the edit button next to the slug to edit your slug.



6. Click on save after you edit the slug.

You can edit your post link in Wordpress 2.3 by following this procedure.

1. Go to Write >> Post.
2. Open the post slug box.



3. Type in your post slug in the textbox.

28 Comments »

I’m so excited that I couldn’t wait anymore to tell you about this…

I remember back around 4 months ago when I was searching for a banner plugin to rotate different banners at maxblogpress.com

I searched a lot and found some banner rotator plugins but all of them were poorly designed, difficult to use and didn’t even have the basic features I needed.

So, I finally sit down and wrote a custom script for rotating the banners and then edited the theme to include the banner in maxblogpress. If you go to maxblogpress.com right now then you will see a horizontal banner just below the header.

Soon after I put that banner I started receiving emails like how I did it and how can they put such banner rotator in their blogs.

Unfortunately, I had to say, you can’t do that easily as I had custom coded that script for maxblogpress. As of now, there’s not any easy to use plugin or any other thing I know which can do that easily for you.

That’s when I decided that I will be creating a banner plugin which will have all the features a user will want from a banner rotator plugin as well as it will be very easy to use.

Fast forward to today… The launch of such banner rotator plugin is quite near. It’s called MaxBanners and we have been working on it since more than a month.

I have tried to make this plugin as ultimate as it can be and included all the features I can think of in that plugin. I’m anticipating it will be the standard plugin for all the wordpress users who want to have banners in their blog.

If you have ever tried to put a banner in your blog then you might have realized it’s not that easy. You might have lots of features in mind for a plugin that will do different things you want.

So, here’s your chance to speak out and tell me exactly what you want. What are the features you need in a banner plugin? If the features you are asking for is missing in the MaxBanners plugin then we will add them in the next release.

You can post the features you want in MaxBanners Plugin here.

55 Comments »

The purpose of this post is to clarify, in simple words, some misconceptions that people have about the registration process of our plug-ins.

Fact 1: You need to register only once.

I was surprised to see that some people think that they have to register every time they activate a new plug-in from us.

That’s not true!

In fact:

If you register for any ONE plug-in, you can use ALL the other plug-ins without going through the registration process again.

It means:

Once your username and email address is stored in our database, you don’t need to re-register.

Doesn’t that make things so easy.  Register only once, use all. That’s our principle.

Let me further clarify my point by showing you an example.

Let’s say you’re a new user. Here is what you did:

1. You downloaded, installed, and registered the ping optimizer plug-in.
2. You sat back, relaxed, and watched the ping optimizer plug-in at work.
3. You wanted some more plug-ins from MaxBlogPress.
4. You downloaded the Favicon plug-in.
5. You followed the installation instructions and  reached the point where you click on the “option” tab and click on the “Favicons”  tab there.

6. You fill in the name and email that you had used during the first time you registered. You hit the “register” button and this is the page you see next.

Were there any confirmation emails to check?

No.

Were there any further links to click?

No.

You get to use the favicon plug-in right away.

So let’s add a few more steps to our list and see what happens next.

1. You complete the favicon plugin installation.
2. You sit back and smile at the beauty of it.
3. You love the plug-ins so much that you want to download ALL the MBP plug-ins at once.
4. You start installing them one by one.

Any confirmation emails to check? No.

Any links to click on? No.

Conclusion:

You need to register only once, to use any or all plug-ins.

Fact 2: You don’t have to register again to upgrade the plug-ins

It’s the same thing with upgrades for existing plug-ins. You don’t even have to see the registration page to upgrade our plug-ins. The plug-ins works right away after it is updated.

NOTE: 
A note for those of you who are VERY early users of our plug-ins . By early I mean, at the time when we didn’t have a registration box inside our plug-ins and you had to register in another way. The method was not very user friendly. If you are such an early user and haven’t gone through the new registration process then you’ll see the registration form JUST ONCE only. After that you won’t see any registration form whenever you update any plugin.

Fact 3: If you have multiple blogs, you don’t need to register separately for each of them.

If you have  2 or more than 2 blogs, you can use the same email address for all of them. There is no need to go through the registration process for each of them separately.  Just type the email address you used while registering your first blog and all other blogs will be automatically registered.

Fact 4: If you unsubscribe from the MaxBlogPress newsletter, your existing plug-ins will still work.

Although the registration process is directly tied with the MaxBlogPress newsletter subscription, you don't have to stay subscribed to it to make your plug-in work. After registration, if you don't like the content of the MaxBlogPress newsletter, then you are free to unsubscribe anytime you wish by following the link at the bottom of your email.

The MaxBlogPress plug-ins you were using will still work fine without any problem.

However, if you unsubscribe from the MaxBlogPress newsletter, here is what you will miss:

• Announcements of new plugins we develop.
• Announcements of updates on existing plug-ins.
• Tips for helping you attract more traffic and more income for your blog.
• Recommendations on blog related software and e-books that help you attract more traffic and more income for your blog. Rest assured that we only recommend quality products which actually help you.

Fact 5: If you unsubscribe from the MaxBlogPress newsletter AND want to install further plug-ins, you need to go through the email registration procedure again.

If you unsubscribe from the MaxBlogPress newsletter, then your existing plug-ins will work without any problem.

But you need to register again if you want to install any new plug-in we develop.

The reason is that once you unsubscribe from our newsletter, your name and email address will be deleted from our database. So if you want to install more of our plug-ins you will have to register again.

9 Comments »

Let’s imagine…

Tomorrow morning you wake up with an amazing psychic power. Now you can see right in your mind, what your visitors are thinking while reading your blog.

You now know exactly what they want to read in your blog. You know why they are leaving your blog. You even know what they were trying to find in your blog and left your blog when they didn’t find it.

Imagine what it could do to your blog?

If you had such an amazing power what would you have done for improving your blog? Where will your blog be today? Will you be able to create the best blog in any topic you want with this power?

How would you have used this psychic power for improving your blog? Post your comments below.

This is not an arbitrary question popped in my head. I’m thinking quite deeply in this question since past 2 days and want to see your view on it.

Later I’ll show you how answering this one simple question can dramatically make difference to your blog.

26 Comments »

You may not have seen this before, but Internet radio has changed dramatically in the last few months with the introduction of Pandora.

Pandora allows users to create their own ’stations’ based on theme or artist. For example, I have a station called “Sting”. Sting is one of my favorite performers, so I created a station that plays his music.

But, Pandora does not just play Sting in my Sting Channel, it plays music similar to Sting then tries to ‘discover’ what music I like by allowing me to rate the music it selects “like Sting” by giving it a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’.

The site is supported by ad revenue, but there is an annual subscription that removes the ads for $39.

Check it out…
http://www.pandora.com

5 Comments »

I came across this free WP (WordPress) template maker online.

The best part?

• It’s FREE
• It’s online
• It’s got a real-time preview function
• It’s compatible with WP 2.1 to 2.3

The downside:

• The choices are limited

But if you’re creating a blog network and need to vary the designs or you’re a WP designer looking to create some really quick variations of a blog to sell or give away this could be perfect (please check the License first!)!

WordPress Theme Generator

0 Comment »

Branding is all important for those of use who want to be recognized for their name, business idea, business or product. Like the big name brands such as Sony, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc. business professionals such as freelancers, product developers, writers, pro-bloggers all need a brand to be instantly recognized by.

For most, the brand name is either their own name, or else the name of the product they developed. Not only will others know who they are dealing with, but if we brand ourselves properly, then our name will be a synonym of quality further down the track.

We all know that big name bloggers such as ShoeMoney, John Chow, Yaro Starak, Maki and Daren Rowse have managed to do just that. They branded themselves through continuously using their own name or that of their website.

Branding can be done in many ways, but probably the most prominent ways are either:

• Buying your own name domain (ideally this is your name.com) Freelancers should use this to create an online CV, client testimonials and even a little bit of history about themselves as the person they are. I’ve created my own on www.MonikaMundell.com and it will show you what can be done with a simple blog.
• The other way to brand yourself is via your product creations name. So if you develop product XYZ, then you would brand yourself with a XYZ.com domain name and use this as your digital footprint wherever you go online.

Even though branding is essential for some bloggers or website owners, it isn’t for others. If you are a niche blogger, or a black hatter, you won’t need to worry about branding at all, since you will make your money via hidden methods. The same applies for those with free blogs.

Whatever it is you decide to do, if you intent to brand yourself, then do it now, before your name is taken.

0 Comment »

Opening an office in another city can be time consuming and expensive… why bother?

You can get a la cart any service you need: Phone receptionists, office space, fax, desk, meeting space, professional mail/address services and more with one simple phone call.

Welcome to the world of the “intelligent office”. To find the services you need, simply type “virtual office” or “remote office” in Google, or check out the offerings from Intelligent office.

0 Comment »

Stumble Upon is probably the most popular social networking tool these days. If not, it certainly accounts for a good amount of traffic for bloggers in all niches. It would be easy to get blinded and start stumbling like mad in the hopes of getting a slice of this. But using Stumble Upon does require some finesse and personal engagement in order to work.

See, you won’t become a power stumbler if you keep stumbling your own posts. Far from it actually, the stumble community hates those who keep giving themselves the thumbs up but fail to take some time out to vote for others (stumble).

There is no secret in becoming a top stumbler, it is a simple as to become a frequent daily user and involving yourself into the community. It is as easy as signing up for a free account, then installing the Stumble Upon toolbar. Once you got this, you are set to stumble to your hearts content.

While browsing the Internet you can click on the thumbs up if you like a site very well, or else you click on the thumbs down. Personally I never use the thumbs down feature, if I don’t like what I see, I simply stumble on. Via your Stumble Upon admin (which sits in your toolbar) you can navigate to your own page. This will give you an easy overview as to how many stumbles you have done so far, how many friends you have, how many reviews, etc.

Once you have some fans, you can choose to add them to your friends list which will allow you to send your favourite posts to your friends to stumble for you and vice versa. Just be careful, as I think the maximum amount of friends you can have in your Stumble Upon profile is 200. It pays to be choosy here.

Stumble Upon is a fantastic social networking site that will bring you lost of daily traffic if used properly. By joining various stumble interest groups you will also get wider exposure. If you use Stumble Upon with a daily dose of excitement, you will see results.

Happy stumbling

0 Comment »

Here’s how to liven up your blog or website, and it’s actually easier than writing that article you’re planning - just add video.

With YourWebWidget, you can add a widget to your site that will show YouTube and Flickr videos.

To use it, you need either a Flickr or Youtube ID. Enter your ID and choose the size of display you want. Then select the videos, click create, and YourWebWidget will create the code to paste into your blog or website.

It’s that easy, and it’s free. I like free. Free likes me

0 Comment »