Category: Blogging A to Z

This is where I write about the art and science of blogging as I see it.

No One Needs Bucks to Create a Custom WordPress Theme

January 29, 2010 – 11:31 pm
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What does thesis mean? Well, I wrote a lonnnnng thesis in 1998 to complete my Master’s Degree in rhetoric. It was entitled: “Consideration of Audience in Rhetoric Since Plato.” Now, in the world of Wordpress themes, a theme called “Thesis” has popped up promising easy tweaking. No, it’s not a new drug … but blog theme tweaking and creation can become addictive with or without Thesis activated on your blog (I would assume). This post is for the newbie looking into changing the “appearance” of her/his blog:

Ok, so you have a Self-hosted Wordpress blog. Yay you! You have the best blogging platform going for you … you are bound for glory. You’ve gotten your hosting account, you’ve dipped your toe in the water but you haven’t found an “appearance” or “theme” you like for your blog yet …

Well get ready for the wildest ride a blogger can take … the theme journey.

It seems everyone is buying and using Chris Pearson’s Thesis on their blog. I have to say, no offense to Chris, but I’m not impressed. If someone has one and can send it to me I will honestly review it but as is, ahem … well, I already said what I think.

I have used literally 100’s of themes on my blogs and I have done everything from destroying access to visitors to deleting all my posts by accident. Luckily I had a backup that time so I brought it all back. I tell you these “naked” personal failures not to flog myself but rather to let you know you must be careful tweaking themes. As long as you keep a backup of your original zipped theme files, you will always be able to restore your blog after mistakes. By the way, you will never destroy your posts by tweaking a theme. They are contained in a database. It just goes to show you how much I once excelled in destroying my own work ;) Now, I enjoy regular income and comments from three blogs that have become my favorite diversion, other than guitar and my family. You can access all my blog theme work via Riley Central. I’ve been blogging on a Wordpress self-hosted platform “hardcore” for over 3 years. This goes against my Christian upbringing which taught me to never boast but feel I truly have: “seen it all” in regards to blog themes. So there you have it.

Here are my tips for changing your theme on a self-hosted Wordpress blog:

  1. Start simple and stay simple. Go crazy in your sidebar and index.php/single.php if you must but stick with the structure of the theme-maker.
  2. Once you find simple themes, keep a backup and explore tweaking them. You change most things in the css stylesheet but other html items are changed in the index.php and single.php files.
  3. Don’t be afraid to me simple. People like content over appearance. I have seen this to be true in my own blog audience and it is my opionion about blogs I read. Make your blog like an RSS feed with a few fancy things (but not many)
  4. Take a look at these blog themes below that I endorse 110%

Plaintxt.org Themes – These themes are brilliant and minimal. That means they will render correctly on many PC browsers as well as Macintosh and they will not break when you make those subtle changes. If you are new to learning Wordpress theme tweaking, these are absolutely my #1 recommendation for you. I have used them for 3 years and love them all. Currently I am not using them but it is not because I don’t love them. NOTE: Recently Scott Wallick has announced they are no longer under development so even if you don’t use them now, I reccomend downloading them now before the site disappears.

White as Milk – I use this minimalist theme (highly tweaked) on my personal blog and I love it. I can’t enough good things about the structure of this theme. Easiest theme to tweak that I ever had. This is one of the only themes that I have donated to. Try it! It can look any way you want.

If you really want to get into making your own theme, I recommend you start with the sandbox framework (which is unfortunately no longer updated but still works amazingly well). You can find all the many ways it’s been used to make appearances here: http://sndbx.org/results/designs/ I’ll admit, it is not for newbies, but if you don’t have the bucks for Thesis and want to actually learn about theme styles and templates — study the sandbox by Scott Wallick.

A postscript thought: A few of my good friends have said publicly they want to buy the Thesis theme. Why? You can find any theme you like and tweak it to your taste.  I haven’t seen it or test-driven Chris Pearson’s Thesis, but personally, it has low appeal to me. I’d rather find a free theme that I like and then tweak it and if it lasts, then I will donate to the author. Rinse and repeat …

Best of luck to you out there looking for a cool, personalized theme! If I can be of help, let me know. I am excited for you folks working to get a theme that works!

This post is part of a series tagged Blogging A-to-Z
Blogging A to Z

By Damien Riley | Tagged Blogging A to Z | Comments (0)

10 Tips to Writing a More Focused Blog Post

January 27, 2010 – 8:50 pm
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Writing a blog post can feel a lot like decorating an empty house. The opportunity and emptiness can feel overwheming. At the same time, how should your build a room? A dark place can become delightful through Dolan lighting. At the same time, too much can make a room feel uncomfortable. I have started ideas for blog posts that started focused but later they turned into flowing gobbledygook apropos to no one.  On the other hand, I have had simple, yet focused, ideas for posts or series that earned me adsense money consistently even months after I started them. I don’t claim to know the formula for a successful blog post. On the other hand, I know a good one has blogger focus. Here are 10 Tips to Writing a More Focused Blog Post:

  • My top ten earning Posts are all “list” posts like this one. Conclusion: Write short, interesting list posts.
  • Use relevant keywords. Justin Germino has an excellent video tutorial on how to do this.
  • Get comfortable physically. The brain is easily distracted and when your body distracts you via pain or discomfort, it usually comes out in the post.
  • Avoid broad themes. I don’t mean appearance here. The theme is the topic of your post. Get specific. Narrow it down, you’re more likely to stay in focus.
  • Model your post after a series or category you see on a better blog than yours. Reading other blogs helps a lot in doing this one.
  • Romanticize everything. Let the readers see the world through your eyes. People read blogs for two reasons: 1) information, and 2) personalities. Show us yours.
  • If you get stuck, save the post and come back to it later.
  • Have a drink (coffee, alcoholic, iced tea, coke, whatever)
  • Keep it 400 words or less. I base this on my own attention span for reading blogs.
  • Plan out and schedule series. Then assign due dates and reminders.

These are just a few that help me. What do you think about these 10 tips to writing a more focused blog post?

This post is part of a series tagged Blogging A-to-Z
Blogging A to Z

By Damien Riley | Tagged Blogging A to Z | Comments (0)

3 Important Tips for New Bloggers

January 19, 2010 – 6:00 pm
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This post is a Vlog episode in a series tagged Blogging A-to-Z.
Isn’t it cool when you get a comment on something you published a long time ago that you’d all but forgotten about? That happened tonight with this Youtube vid I made quite a ways back. here it is, I still think these tips are really important.

In the same way you might check into diet pill side effects, or something equally related to your health and well being, so you should always weigh advice you get on blogging. I’ll admit there are exceptions to these absolutes I share in the video. Consider them though and see if you agree they will make your blog a more valuable piece of the internet.

By Damien Riley | Tagged blog tips, Blogging A to Z, Vlog | Comments (0)

The Online Publishing Audience

January 11, 2010 – 8:02 pm
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This post is part of a series tagged Blogging A-to-Z Blogging A to Z I want to make the point very clear to online publishers that friends do not make you money. Conversely, strangers who come in from search engines are your mainstay. There are specific ways how to write blogs when you accept this fact. It can make the difference between success in blogging or mediocre rants that never get visits. Now, I can already anticipate the rebuttals out there: “I blog for ME and ME only! I don’t care what other people think.” That’s a common one. Then there is the classic: “It’s like an epiphany when I make a blog post, therapy by writing to the blogosphere.” These are all fine and dandy and I hope we can have a seasoned debate on why people should or shouldn’t blog. I think it is clear however in this economy that not everyone has the luxury of a “rush of epiphany” to bide their time on the couch. Most bloggers want or need to make money … that’s a fact. Besides that, you’d be amazed at how many people are searching and finding your blog when you write on random things like: acne medicine reviews. I mean, isn’t information about helpful products partially what the internet is about? There is much to say about making money blogging. In fact, I find it downright boring how much stuff is out there. I am not a fan of bloggers like D***** R**** and J*** C*** who cash in on publishing disgustingly huge amounts they make and how they make their “blog” money. I have taken a few things from them though: #1) People are still interested in this sort of shop talk. That’s why I run this series Blogging A to Z. #2) One of them has stopped calling himself a “blogger” and started calling himself the wonderful moniker: “online publisher.” I absolutely love that occupational name.

A “blogger” title can mean so many things, but an “online publisher” is like an author, or a publisher, or copywriter in it for entertaining, informing, and being paid for what they do. I rarely refer to myself as a “blogger” these days. I am indeed a consummate online publisher. Would you consider yourself one as well? If you do, may I suggest you frame your audience away from your social media and irl “friends?” This small small group will never make you money. Targeted readers who are brought in through keywords are your bread and butter. So, you may ask, how do you bring them to your blog? I’ll save that for another post. But I hope I have you interested enough to subscribe to what I have to say on this topic.

By Damien Riley | Tagged Blogging A to Z, online publisher, success in blogging | Comments (0)

My Online Publishing Goals, Hopes, and Dreams for 2010

January 10, 2010 – 6:42 pm
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:12 — 10.3MB)

Happy New Year one and all: In this podcast episode, I outline what you can expect from my blogging and music in 2010. I hope you enjoy it. I think it’s a fairly entertaining podcast if I do say so myself ;) As always, I really appreciate your input in the comments. I hope to hear from and work with the people I mention in the episode as well as others of you in the coming year(s). -Damien Riley

By Damien Riley | Also posted in Faith, Online Diary, Podcast | Tagged Chuck Smith Jr., cognitive psychology, Derek Semmler, Eric Stefani, Isabella Mori, make money blogging, microblogging, mmol, online publishing, social media | Comments (0)

Companies that Pay You to Blog

December 31, 2009 – 3:14 pm
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Here’s a list of companies that pay bloggers. I have used and been paid by all of them to varying degrees. I have tried several others but none worked for me long term. These have generated income for me since 2007. THE LIST IS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER. Book mark it and check back as I update it periodically.

  • PayU2Blog Hands down my biggest income source. Each link I sell gets me $5. This is an exclusive company though and they don’t accept everyone. Try to get in, they are great.
  • Google Adsense Great. I’ve made up to $100/month. Requires keyword research and keyword link insertions. A bit cumbersome.
  • Amazon Associates Though I only earned $6 through them in 2009, I learned a lot about how to do it. I expect this will be an earner in 2010.
  • Check back for updates to this list.

If you know others I should list here, please let me know. Please feel free to leave questions and comments on the subject of mmol.  I’m happy to help. Curious about what I pull down? Check the latest figures here at my CAN Blog Stats Archive. Notice:  I now have some office furniture out there in my garage and a decent recording setup. I may start broadcasting more podcast episodes about making money online in the future.

By Damien Riley | Also posted in Blog Stats, Online Diary | Tagged blog companies, earn money writing online, how to make money online, mmol, monetization, ways to make money with your blog | Comments (10)

Ma.gnolia FAILs and Loses all Data

December 29, 2009 – 5:32 pm
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I’ve been wanting to use the pop culture speak “Fail” in a post title for months … I finally got my chance. Ma.gnolia had a melt down. Were any of you really vested in them? I was a user but rarely saved stuff there. If you lost everything are you pissed? Do you care? I guess they are starting as “gnolia” now. Sad. Bow out gracefully I say. It’s not like we are dying for another social bookmarks site … right?

Maybe this is a wakeup call to all of us trusting free websites with our data. Twitter maybe?

There was a meltdown at bookmark sharing website Ma.gnolia Friday morning. The service lost both its primary store of user data, as well as its backup. The site has been taken offline while the team tries to reconstruct its databases, though some users may never see their stored bookmarks again.

Quote source:
Ma.gnolia Suffers Major Data Loss, Site Taken Offline | Epicenter | Wired.com.

By Damien Riley | Also posted in Text/Link | Comments (4)

The First Blogs Were Online Diaries: What is Yours?

December 20, 2009 – 7:59 am
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I’ve always sought to understand big ideas by looking at their history. I change my focus and theme a lot on this blog because I am always seeking to understand this concept. I think I am now content with damienriley.com as an “online diary” but understand that perecptions of that term vary person to person.

The article linked here on Wikipedia describes “Online Diaries” quite well and fascinatingly so I might add:

Online diary – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Here is the intro to the article. I recommend it to anyone who has wondered exactly what a “personal blog” is or what they might want theirs to be. Though I have shared some harsh words of opinion in the past, I think the only important thing is that you understand it is not a journal because others read it and that you should consider your audience much more so than a paper journal type you’d keep under your bed:
Online diaries began in 1994. As a community formed, these publications came to be almost exclusively known as online journals. Today they are almost exclusively called blogs, though some differentiate by calling them personal blogs. The running updates of online diarists combined with links inspired the term ‘web log’ which was eventually contracted to form the word blog.

In online diaries, people write their day-to-day experiences, social commentary, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and any content that might be found in a traditional paper diary or journal. They often allow readers to contribute through comments or community posting.”

What do you make of the terms: “personal blog,” “online diary” or just plain blogging for that matter? What is your reaction to the Wikipedia article? Can anything published “on purpose” online really be considered a diary?
By Damien Riley | Tagged Blogging A to Z, journal, Online Diary, personal journal | Comments (2)

Wordpress Blog Plugins I Recommend

December 12, 2009 – 11:40 pm
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These Wordpress plugins are ones I find highly valuable.  I’ve tested them all as of 8-30-09. Try them out and see what you think. If you need help installing them, Wordpress.org has a comprehensive codex on managing plugins. Just like the perfect truck accessories, they help you get the job done.

Plugin Version Author Description
@Reply \w comment preview 0.0.41 Marcus Himmel Preview comments linked by @Reply plugin — MASHUP of this: http://www.spreeblick.com/2007/09/25/worst-code-ever/ and that: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/reply-to/
Akismet 2.2.6 Matt Mullenweg Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.
All in One Adsense and YPN 1.84 linewbie Inserts Adsense or YPN code in to your blog posts. Ad position can be random or pre-defined. To configure this plugin go to “Settings->Adsense” menu.
Batch Categories 1.4 Rob Miller Easily manage the mass categorisation of posts that match various criteria.
Clean Archives Reloaded 3.1.8 Viper007Bond A slick, Javascript-enhanced post archive list generator for WordPress 2.5+.
DoFollow 4.0 Kimmo Suominen Selectively disable the “nofollow” tagging for comments. Configuration: Options » DoFollow.
Executable PHP widget 1.2 Otto Like the Text widget, but it will take PHP code as well. Heavily derived from the Text widget code in WordPress.
Genki Announcement 1.4 Genkisan – i18n patched by Masayan Display an announcement on your blog
Google XML Sitemaps 3.1.5 Arne Brachhold This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. Configuration Page
HeFo 0.2 Kaloyan K. Tsvetkov This plugin is designed to inject HTML snippets into the header and the footer of WordPress pages, in order to make them persistent across themes, and theme-independent.
In Series 3.0.12 Travis Snoozy Gives authors an easy way to connect posts together as a series.
Internal Link Building 1.32 SEO ROI Services Adds that ability to automatically link keywords in posts to specified URLs
Maintenance Mode 4.3 Michael Wöhrer Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end. Navigate to Settings → Maintenance Mode to get started.
MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget 3.0.1 MyBlogLog Team Adds MyBlogLog Recent Readers widget to your blog.
NFCBC SEO Plugin Add-on 1.1 Oliver Bockelmann This is an addon for Nofollow Case by Case plugins. It adds a link to comment e-mails to make follow urls nofollow plus online management features.
NoFollow For Posts 1.0 James MacKay Adds NoFollow Capability to the Link Editor in TinyMCE. When writing a post, this gives you the option to NoFollow the link by checking a box on the edit link pop-up. (Remember to flush your browser’s cache after activation).
Nofollow Case by Case 1.2.0.1 Oliver Bockelmann (fob marketing) Nofollow Case by Case is a follow plugin for WordPress but allows you to selectively apply rel=”nofollow” to comment links and comment author links. Use “NFCBC SEO Plugin Add-on” for better comment management. Compare with NFCBC SEO Light for other plugin options.
OnlyWire Button
Platinum SEO Pack 1.2.7 Rajesh – Techblissonline Dot Com Complete SEO solution for your Wordpress blog.
Popularity Contest 2.0b2 Crowd Favorite This will enable ranking of your posts by popularity; using the behavior of your visitors to determine each post’s popularity. You set a value (or use the default value) for every post view, comment, etc. and the popularity of your posts is calculated based on those values. Once you have activated the plugin, you can configure the Popularity Values and View Reports. You can also use the included Widgets and Template Tags to display post popularity and lists of popular posts on your blog.
QuickPost 0.7 Josh Kenzer QuickPost for Wordpress. Based on BlogThis! and the Tumblr Bookmarklet
Search & Replace 2.5 Mark Cunningham and Frank Bueltge A simple search for find strings in your database and replace the string.
Secure-Contact 1.1.1 Andrei Cipu SecureContact is a drop in form for users to contact you. It can be implemented on a page or a post. It offers enhaced security by using captcha images. It currently works with WordPress 2.0+. It’s based on the Contact Form ][ plugin by Chip Cuccio
Show Top Commentators 1.05 Nate Sanden Encourage more feedback and discussion from readers, by rewarding them every time they post a comment! Readers with the most comments are displayed on your Wordpress blog, with their names (linked to their website if they provided one).
Subscribe To Comments 2.1.2 Mark Jaquith Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess
Text Link Ads InLinks 3.2.3 Text Link Ads Text Link Ads InLinks program sells links within your blog posts
Viper’s Plugins Used 1.12 Viper007Bond Allows you to display alphabetically what plugins you have enabled on your blog in either a table or unordered list. Also allows you to set custom descriptions for the plugins in the output.
WP Ajax Edit Comments 2.3.3.0 Ajay D’Souza Allows users and admin to edit their comments inline. Admin and editors can edit all comments.
WP-PostViews 1.50 Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed. Modified by David Potter to include options for when and where to display view counts.

Have you tried any of these? What are your reactions?

By Damien Riley | Tagged blog tips, wordpress blog, Wordpress Plugins | Comments (3)

4 Ways to Beat Writer's Block as a Blogger

December 12, 2009 – 11:36 pm
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A lot has been written out there about what subject matter gets blog traffic and backlinks. What hasn’t been written about enough is how and where to get the inspiration to blog. That’s why I am sharing a few sources of inspiration I use.

1. Reading other blogs. I’ve used many methods of browsing blogs. So far, the easiest and most broad in scope has been through using Google Reader. You can develop a collection of favorite blogs over time and visit them in one place rather than bouncing around blog to blog. The blogroll is all but obsolete when you consider the handy nature of feed readers like Google Reader. As I read, I usually don’t even get through three blogs before I have an inspiring idea for a post. It is a good idea to recognize the blogger who wrote the article in your article. However, if the new post idea is not clearly related, you should feel no obligation to do so.

2. My kids. When I consciously take time away from my duties of life (including my computer) I get at least one or two inspiring ideas to blog on. I guess the only advice here is to do something with them away from the computer. If you end up making it into a profitable post, make sure you pay then with a trip to the pizza parlor or something else they’d enjoy.

3. Movies. I do most my movie reviews at Blogcritics nowadays. After that I usually write a shorter blurb about the movie on my blog to point people there. Sometimes these short blurbs get more comments than the Blogcritics pages. Every time I watch a movie I am imagining what the review will be like. I have learned a lot writing for Blogcritics.

4. Google Trends. This is another excellent service Google provides that shows you what people are searching for. This is probably not a sure-fire way to get visitors but it can get you thinking and therefore inspired to write a post that will indeed be relevant.

Those are four inspiration sources for me. I hope you’ll try them out and find success in your blog journey.

By Damien Riley | Also posted in Online Diary | Tagged blogging tips, inspiration to write, writer's block, writing tips | Comments (4)

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