This is the first in a series of casual (unscripted!) screencasts to help you overcome your fears of CPanel. If you recently opened an account on Hostgator you may have a $100 credit for Google AdWords. Unfortunately for those who faint at the words 'login your cpanel', the credit voucher is in the dreaded CPanel! So don't be afraid to claim it!
Don't fear this alligator!
Hostgator sent you a new account email containing the control panel (cpanel) url, user name and password to login, which you gladly turned over to your techie friend or freelancer! But as with many things in the adult world you need to understand a little about what's under the hood, if only to give it proper respect, not fear!
How to login your site's control panel
The quick way is to use your domain name with "/cpanel" to bring up the login screen --- you still need to have your user id and password. This is critical information when in the wrong hands can leave your site vulnerable to hackers, so be sure to protect it and change passwords before/after you share with anyone. You then see the dashboard of control panel functions. A daunting list! Here's a snapshot of one section --- looks interesting... In future series we'll safely explore features like the File Manager.
Partial Dashboard for Hostgator
If you have a voucher it will be in the left sidebar. The expiration date is at the bottom of the page when you press 'redeem now'. e.g.
"* Offer expires December 31, 2012. Promotional credit must be applied to a new AdWords account within 15 days of creating the account and is valid only for new Google AdWords customers with self-managed signup accounts..."
How to claim your voucher
The cpanel part is quite simple. Just login and follow the screencast below. The video goes further and shows you a sample adwords campaign and budgeting strategy. Remember it's free for a reason --- to get you to use more than the $100 credit. You must backup the account with a credit card or other payment methods (USA or Canada billing address only). You will be charged if you go over the credit amount. But if the campaign does wonders for your business, it's well worth seeing which keywords worked best. You can then budget a revised, more targeted campaign.
Screencast - Claim AdWords Credit on Hostgator
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giSxEIZXPc8
How do you plan to use your AdWords? What other cpanel fears to you have? I may select it as the next topic in the series...
Well, Comment Luv is back on this site! I'm rebuilding the reader community and now have a way of rewarding real commentators. A couple of days ago I installed the CommentLuv plugin which:
"visits the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit." - CommentLuv
Readers can click the link to visit commentator's last post. I've set the feature that allows the comment author to see her last 10 posts and select the one that might interest this blog's readers. Cool!
I could see the difference immediately when 2 real comments came in --- how refreshing!
Many bloggers offer the 10 post selection to subscribers only, but I chose to allow this feature for all commentators. I haven't yet decided on offering DoFollow links or Linked keywords for repeat commentators. These would be extra rewards (enticements) for people participating in community dialog. Currently I use the lite (free) version and those features are available on the Premium version priced at $67 for one-time payment.
What is DoFollow?
By default then someone leaves a comment the website link's html format tells Google and other search engines to NOT follow the link to his blog.That means the link never appears as a back link as far as his page rank is concerned. No juice is passed from the owner's blog to the one making the comment. By contrast you can tell Comment Luv to change the NoFollow link on the commentator's 'latest post' to DoFollow. This is done by means of Html for the link url. Please note the default for post content is usually DoFollow. See examples below.
Default link within blog post: is DoFollow and requires no extra tag
With this feature, Comment Luv uses the commentator's preferred keywords to serve as the anchor text for the link. When you add a blog link you may leave the anchor text blank or just key anything associated with the post or website you're linking to. The title= tag holds the anchor text that shows as the mouse hovers over the link.
This text is then used by Google indexing. Example: WPBlogExperts.com has a backlink in the footer on this client site. The link points to the setup page using the keywords "WordPress Setup". The hope is that Google gives higher search results when someone searches for that service.
"Google (and to a lesser degree other search engines) heavily weigh its Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) towards the anchor text of links to a page."
Warning: There are downsides to these extra enticements in the form of smarter human spammers. They use directories that list blogs with the dofollow comments. Those blogs can then become targets. Similarly if you publicize your permission to use Linked Keywords, monitor carefully. However, Premium Commentluv professes to guard against this...
Prior History with Comment Luv
Similar to third-party commenting systems, I've had on-off again periods where I loved and hated Comment Luv on Blogger. When I used the software on Blogger, it required us to use JS-Kit/Echo, instead of Blogger's commenting system. That setup turned into a horror for me and for Andy, the CommentLuv developer. He got a LOT of flack from Blogspot users and it got unpleasant. He had to require Blogger sites to use Intense Debate as the third-party commenting system. Thus began my frustrating hunt for a good commenting system which retains my prior commentator links. If you follow the site news, after moving to WP, I used Intense Debate and Disqus, and only recently reverted to native WP comments. So the time was right to re-instate Comment Luv --- I never stopped 'luving' the actual software!
Can I use this on Blogger or WordPress.com?
Yes, for Blogger. You need to install Intense Debate which allows you to get the CommentLuv features. See this tutorial How to Get CommentLuv on Blogger.
No, for WordPress.com.
Your Turn - Let's hear what you have to say about this software.
What do you think about comment luv? How do you reward commentators on your blog? With your feedback and participation, I look forward to expanding this blog's community spirit.
While looking at other blogs I noticed quite a few advertising their YouTube channels. I have a few public screen cast tutorials that that I refer to in my articles. So I decided to become more social on YouTube by subscribing to a few other channels. You may want to do the same, so here are two options:
Add a YouTube Subscribe Box Widget
My first attempt at a box did not fit into my theme's sidebar. I had to adjustments the width. Instead of 300 I used 270px. Here's the final widget code. Just copy and paste into a new Html widget on your sidebar. Then substitute your YouTube name instead of BWSVideoSBA and Save.
I opted for the second method, using a clickable icon instead of the box. It takes up less space and fits in nicely with my Twitter and RSS icons at the top of the sidebar. Just do a Google or Bing search for 'youtube icon images' , download a free one and add to your media library. Also try Getty Icons.
Here's the one I downloaded:
Next steps :
Uploaded it media file and copied the url, http://bpwebnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/youtube_icon.png
Composed html to make the link click to my video channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/BWSVideoSBA
Here's the resulting html which you can copy and paste into an existing widget or combine with other social icons in your sidebar. Again substitute your channel address and YOUR media file location:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/BWSVideoSBA" target="_blank"> <img src="http://bpwebnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/youtube_icon.png" title="Subscribe to my YouTube Channel"> </a>
Your Move
Try this new method of social networking and keep track of new visitors from your YouTube Channel! Don't forget to leave a comment, sharing your experience with this approach for building traffic and gaining readers.
Just added a toolbar by Apture to allow readers to more easily explore this blog --- see prior post about lowering bounce rate.
Using the toolbar, you can search for keywords. Other handy buttons on the toolbar let you bookmark the site or individual posts in FaceBook, Twitter or send via e-Mail --- does anyone email referrals any more?
Search results appear in a popup window. Your blog's posts are listed before any Google results. There's also a Wikipedia definition of your search word(s) at the top of the pop-up.
Click on a definition and you get a second pop-up. Other links open in a new tab. I don't like that the owner's blog results open in a new tab --- but we'll see how it works.
Here's what a search for 'table of contents' returned:
The Apture bar appears only after visitors page down past the top-fold. Learn more about handling your blog's top-fold in the post I wrote called 3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog Design.
The search bar also pops up when a reader highlights words within the blog page and clicks on the search bubble:
[image by Apture]
I saw the toolbar install instructions on my friend Varun's BeepTheGeek blog. He is also on Blogger and put the code in the template html. But I decided to steer away from even more template code, so I tried the sidebar gadget path. Seems to work. Why not give it a test drive and leave a comment about what you discovered? Hint: you can view videos in the search box.
I'll be following the effect the toolbar has on bounce rate (and time on site).
If you found this post useful, get future tips in your RSS feed or by email.
Google Analytics has a beta feature called "Intelligence". I noticed it recently when I took a look at my blog's statistics. Not a pretty sight since I stopped posting on a regular basis and lost Page Rank. Much of my blogging time was spent on my team blog over at BloggingWithSuccess. The other co-founder was occupied with studies and another has been missing for a very long time. I've also spent a lot of time converting some clients from traditional websites to WordPress content management, adding a blog for the first time. More about that later...
Here's where the new feature sits on the Analytics dashboard:
A quote from the Google Analytics announcement late last year:
Analytics Intelligence constantly monitors your website's traffic. Anytime something significant happens, it adds an automatic alert in your Intelligence reports. If your bounce rate suddenly jumps on one of your referrals, Analytics Intelligence creates an alert. Of course, it's up to you to go find out that the bounce rate jumped because someone inadvertently changed the landing page. But you might not have noticed that there was a problem that needed fixing if your trusty assistant hadn't alerted you. - Google
Analytics Intelligence posts the alerts automatically within your account after it analyzes your historical data. You can opt to receive an email notice as well. Take a look at this quick video for an overview of how it works.
In my case, since the bounce rate has been pretty high lately I created an alert for whenever the rate goes below 70%. I plan to take some actions to entice you to jump over to another post! Most of the visitors lately have been new readers (80%).
I know which posts get the Google search engine traffic and I'll add an action event there to see when and if the rate goes below 70. The current bounce is 89% for Google hits!
The Intelligence feature also includes 7 templates for common alerts. You can copy the template and customize with your own name and time period, etc. Neat!
Have you tried this yet?
If you found this post useful, leave a comment to let me know. Grab the BPWebnews tips button and share the luv with others. Get future posts in your RSS feed or by email.
Did you notice the brand new Twitter gadget in the sidebar? There's a site called Twitter Goodies where you can create one for yourself --- it's interactive. You specify the colors, size, number of tweets to display, etc.
If you need changes after installing your gadget, you can start over or adjust the gadget using the Layout tab on your Blogger Dashboard. It may look like Greek but fairly easy to find the attributes you want to adjust.
Don't forget to use ColorZilla, to capture the color codes to match your theme's design. Happy tweeting.
If you found this post useful, leave a comment to let me know. Grab the BPWebnews tips button and share the luv with others. Get future posts in your RSS feed or by email.
FriendOrFollow is a handy tool to analyze your Twitter base and find out:
Who are you following that's not following you back? Who's following you that you're not following back? Find out! - FriendOrFollow
I like an almost one to one ratio of people I follow on Twitter and those who follow me. I currently have 60 followers. I was curious about which ones have not followed me and if I had missed out on following someone back. So I used the Friend or Follow resource. Here are the results.
Breaking it down Who am I following?
These are the 53 people to whom I can send direct messages; my retweets are seen on their timelines.
Who is not following me?
These are the 10 people who don't consider me a friend, i.e. they don't see my tweets; I can't send them a message; if I reply to one of their tweets they may never see it, unless they search on their own names. In effect I'm stalking them.
I decided to unfollow a few of them, keeping those with exceptional tweets that I can at least retweet to my followers.If I haven't retweeted them lately, then why bother following?
Who are my fans (stalking) me?
These 8 people follow me but I don't follow their tweets. I don't even see them unless I look at the Fans tab on FriendOrFollow!
When you list your fans, you can hover the mouse over the avatar and get a quick summary like this:
You can see he has 2526 followers and he follows 2276! I guess I didn't want to fade into the crowd...
Summary
Try the FriendOrFollow software. You may discover ways to more effectively use your Twitter time. I found that those with thousands of followers that they also follow are mostly in it for the marketing. Many send tweets by the hundreds. Those that have hundreds, but only follow a few are more credible to me. Unfortunately if I'm not one of their friends, then it defeats the networking angle. I continue following them if they have valuable tweets and reasonable activity.
As for fans who are not on my friends list, review their tweets and you may pick up a few good friends. I suppose I initially did not return some of their follows based on low tweet volume. I don't follow anyone if I see a very high follow to followed ratio --- like following 654 but only 2 followers and 1 tweet! This was not the case for one of my fans who has a one-to-one ratio of about 75 people, so maybe I missed the friend email. I'll add him to my follows.
Leave a comment about your philosophy for returning Twitter follow requests. Did you find any worthy fans you had overlooked?
If you found this post useful, grab the BPWebnews tips button and share the luv with others. Get future posts in your RSS feed or by email.
I'm Shirley, aka SBA. Follow along as I explore the world of blogging. Learn how to better chart your path. Read my tips for creating and growing your blog. While you're here, grab my next post.
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You then see the dashboard of control panel functions. A daunting list! Here's a snapshot of one section --- looks interesting... In future series we'll safely explore features like the File Manager.
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Comment Luv is Back on This Blog - Join the Party
Well, Comment Luv is back on this site! I'm rebuilding the reader community and now have a way of rewarding real commentators. A couple of days ago I installed the CommentLuv plugin which:
Readers can click the link to visit commentator's last post. I've set the feature that allows the comment author to see her last 10 posts and select the one that might interest this blog's readers. Cool!
I could see the difference immediately when 2 real comments came in --- how refreshing!
Many bloggers offer the 10 post selection to subscribers only, but I chose to allow this feature for all commentators. I haven't yet decided on offering DoFollow links or Linked keywords for repeat commentators. These would be extra rewards (enticements) for people participating in community dialog. Currently I use the lite (free) version and those features are available on the Premium version priced at $67 for one-time payment.
What is DoFollow?
By default then someone leaves a comment the website link's html format tells Google and other search engines to NOT follow the link to his blog.That means the link never appears as a back link as far as his page rank is concerned. No juice is passed from the owner's blog to the one making the comment. By contrast you can tell Comment Luv to change the NoFollow link on the commentator's 'latest post' to DoFollow. This is done by means of Html for the link url. Please note the default for post content is usually DoFollow. See examples below.
Default link within blog post: is DoFollow and requires no extra tag
Customary link within comments: is NoFollow and requires an extra tag
CommentLuv override: latest post link to DoFollow using the Rel= tag but blog owner must specify the option.
What are Linked Keywords?
With this feature, Comment Luv uses the commentator's preferred keywords to serve as the anchor text for the link. When you add a blog link you may leave the anchor text blank or just key anything associated with the post or website you're linking to. The title= tag holds the anchor text that shows as the mouse hovers over the link.
This text is then used by Google indexing. Example: WPBlogExperts.com has a backlink in the footer on this client site. The link points to the setup page using the keywords "WordPress Setup". The hope is that Google gives higher search results when someone searches for that service.
One SEO consultant in the tutorial for optimizing keyword links describes the importance of such links:
Warning: There are downsides to these extra enticements in the form of smarter human spammers. They use directories that list blogs with the dofollow comments. Those blogs can then become targets. Similarly if you publicize your permission to use Linked Keywords, monitor carefully. However, Premium Commentluv professes to guard against this...
Prior History with Comment Luv
Similar to third-party commenting systems, I've had on-off again periods where I loved and hated Comment Luv on Blogger. When I used the software on Blogger, it required us to use JS-Kit/Echo, instead of Blogger's commenting system. That setup turned into a horror for me and for Andy, the CommentLuv developer. He got a LOT of flack from Blogspot users and it got unpleasant. He had to require Blogger sites to use Intense Debate as the third-party commenting system. Thus began my frustrating hunt for a good commenting system which retains my prior commentator links. If you follow the site news, after moving to WP, I used Intense Debate and Disqus, and only recently reverted to native WP comments. So the time was right to re-instate Comment Luv --- I never stopped 'luving' the actual software!
Can I use this on Blogger or WordPress.com?
Yes, for Blogger. You need to install Intense Debate which allows you to get the CommentLuv features. See this tutorial How to Get CommentLuv on Blogger.
No, for WordPress.com.
Your Turn - Let's hear what you have to say about this software.
What do you think about comment luv? How do you reward commentators on your blog? With your feedback and participation, I look forward to expanding this blog's community spirit.