Author: Barbara Swafford

A lot of blogs use tag clouds, or word tags at the bottom of each post. Are tag clouds or word tags necessary to drive more traffic to your site? I’ve done a small amount of research, and it appears the verdict is still be out on this matter. Some… read more Use Word Tags To Increase Traffic to Blog?

I recently discovered that if you change the title to your WordPress post after you’ve published it, you must also change the “post slug”; otherwise, your URL permalink will continue to display the original title. (providing you’re using “pretty” permalinks) If you’re writing with keyword density in mind, make sure… read more Change Title Of WordPress Post-Change Post Slug

Learning where to insert code into a WordPress blog can be confusing. Most code is written in HTML, as are the “presentation”, “theme editor” pages. All the more reason to learn HTML. The process I follow to make inserting code into my WordPress blogs easier, is to study the “theme… read more Learning Where To Insert Code In A WordPress Blog

When researching setting up a blog, most sites say to blog on specific topics. “Pick a topic you know a lot about, and start a blog”. At the end of March 2007, I started two blogs. This one and www.observationmountain.com. This one is specific to blogging. www.observationmountain.com is not on… read more Blog On Specific Topics or Not

Just the other day I joined a blog carnival. Joining blog carnivals is a great way to get your blog more traffic. The blog carnival “service” I joined is BlogCarnival.com. I submitted several of my aritcles plus submitted my “blogs” to a carnival that is showcasing new blogs. What I… read more Join Blog Carnivals For More Traffic

Two months have passed since I set up this blog. What have I learned? 1) Start with a good blogging software program. I use WordPress 2) Install a good spam remover. I use Akismet,-caught 96 spam so far 🙂 3) Post often. Post valuable data 4) Research what you don’t… read more 11 Blogging Lessons For Newbies

I’ve now had Google Analytics tracking my sites for a month seven months a year over two years now. What do I think of Google Analytics? I love all of the graphs and maps they provide, however, the numbers I’m receiving are different than Awstats and Webalizer. In fact, they’re… read more Google Analytics vs Awstats vs Webalizer

When I started my blogs, the first thing I did was to start posting articles. The second thing I did was to concentrate on finding a good WordPress theme. I searched the internet and found many sites that offer WordPress themes, however, the best free site I found is Theme… read more Best Free WordPress Themes Website

In an earlier article, I wrote about the frustration of outdated information on the internet. Today, I will list favorite research sites of mine that keep their information up-to-date. When I’m in need of definitions I either go to: www.webopedia.com a free online dictionary – or, www.wikipedia.com – a free… read more Free Resources For Researchers, Webmasters & Bloggers

O.K., you decided to become an affiliate of Commission Junction, Link Share, or any of the other affiliate marketing companies. You carefully choose which ads to place on your site to target your audience. Everything’s going along fine, until you start micromanaging your site, and see that Google has an… read more Competitive Ads By Google? Use Google’s Competitive Ad Filter?

Is it just me, or do you get frustrated with the outdated information search engines are “throwing at you”? I do a lot of research for my blogs, as well as for my full time job. What I find most frustrating, is that the information at the top of the… read more Search Engines & Outdated Information

It was “back to school” today. I was tweaking a page in my other blog, and wanted to add a line break, so I went to W3schools.com and learned the code. Insert “hr” inside of these brackets < >, before or after where you want the line break, and this… read more How To Create A HTML Line Break & Columns

Setting up a website or a blog? Need a domain name and web host? Want to buy a popular domain name? I know of one advertiser that sells domain names, They are www.GoDaddy.com where you can Find, Buy & Sell Domain Names Do you want to choose your own domain… read more Web Hosting & Domain Names

If you’ve signed up for the free Google Analytics for statistic reporting, you may have noticed they now have a new beta version for reporting statistics. I received an email from Google, notifying me of the change. When I clicked on the Google Analytics Bets Version, I was immediately confused…. read more Google Analytics – New Beta Version

I’m taking a break from beating my head against the wall, learning all I need to know to produce a good blog, and spending time reviewing my list of advertisers. I find that easier than researching code for my blog; plus, I feel I deserve a break. I realized that… read more Reviewing Advertisers

My research recently took me to an interesting plugin named Clean Archives. It can be found and downloaded at Geekwithlaptop.com The Clean Archives plugin will list all of your posts by month and date, creating a neat and orderly list. They can be listed either in your sidebar, or on… read more Listing All Of Your Posts With Clean Archives

Should you write your posts using high paying popular keywords like mesothelioma? If depends on your theme,, but in most instances, incorporating “high paying” keywords into your posts would be difficult. And, make for content that wouldn’t hold your reader’s interest. I’ve done some research on the most popular keywords…. read more Generate Traffic and Income – Use Keywords Like Mesothelioma

Six weeks ago, I was banging my head against the wall while I was trying to load and learn WordPress. I was so green to blogging, the terminology, HTML,posts, web-hosts, RSS readers, social book-marking, etc…the list was long. Now, here I am, about 35 posts later, a little less green,… read more How To Post Date Your Posts – WordPress

Researching whether or not to open a link in a new browser window, or not, has given me both answers. Yes and No. Some say, to have the link open in the same window is better, therefore you’re not forcing your readers to remain on your site, when they may… read more To Open A Link In A New Browser, Or Not?

As I continue to learn, I find that I’m constantly tweaking my blogs. The latest addition to my blogs is the “WP Notable” plugin from Cal Evans. By searching, I found his site at www.claevans.com The instructions on his site are quite self explanatory. I followed them, but did run… read more Adding The “WP Notable” Plugin To Your Blog

Linking to a “page” in my blog, has been a mystery to me for over a week now. I tried using the URL, but ended up getting pings. I tried something else (who knows what I did), and ended up getting “comments” from myself. I searched WordPress, but couldn’t figure… read more How To Link To A Page In Your Blog

For me, having two WordPress blogs, has proven to be very helpful. Being in the process of learning HTML code, and adding advertising to my blogs, I spend a lot of time in the “presentation” section of my blogs. Last night, I was on a quest to add my blog… read more The Advantage of Having More Than One Blog

When I’m researching for my blogs, I never know where the search will take me. Yesterday, as I was researching, “how to link to previous posts”, I came across, “how to add meta tags”. From what I’ve read, it may be important to have meta tags in your blog. Apparently,… read more Adding Meta Tags To Your Blog

I’ve been seeing the term “permalinks” ever since I started blogging. I didn’t have a clue as to what they were. Finally while researching about linking between individual posts, I figured out what a permalink is. Since you’re on my site, in the box at the top of your browser,… read more What Are Permalinks?

As I mentioned in an earlier post Learning About & Problems With My RSS Feed, I was having problems setting up the RSS feed on this blog. I already had one at the bottom of the page, but I wanted to be able to use the universal RSS feed symbol…. read more RSS Feed Problem Solved

Stumble Upon is a new (to me) way to surf the internet. After you register, you check boxes for the types of sites you like to view. The categories are limitless. After you add the Stumble Upon toolbar, you can click the “Stumble” button and see websites that fit your… read more Stumble Upon – Add Your Blog

As mentioned in my previous post, I installed Google Analytics. I now have two days of stats and am very impressed with the results. Google Analytics gives me beautiful bar and line graphs, information on my visitors and pages views, a “geo map overlay”, and a ton of reports I… read more Google Analytics Up & Running

In an effort to increase traffic to my blogs, I came upon Google Analytics. It appears to be a well designed tracking mechanism. It apparently can analyze what improvements can be made to your blog to continue getting a good traffic flow, plus possibly increase your traffic flow. It also… read more How To Add Google Analytics To Your Blog-It’s Free

When I’m writing my blogs, this one and www.observationmountain.com, I post directly to the WordPress “Write Post” screen. I don’t use a text editor. I continue to click, “save and continue editing” until I’m happy with my post. I often need to move sentences or paragraphs around to make my… read more How to Copy and Paste in WordPress

Setting up a blog can be time consuming, however, I find that micromanaging my blogs is even more time consuming. Since starting my blogs, I have changed the theme, added advertising, familiarized myself with WordPress, Bluehost (my hosting company), and started to learn a lot of new computer language. I’m… read more Micromanage Your Blog