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Question: How can you get free content for your blog. Is there a tool that can automatically feed your blog?
I have a question for you dear reader, and that is…
Why do you want free content for your blog?
I ask, because I cannot think of one legitimate reason why you would want to not write your own original, high-quality content for your blog. Can you?
It makes no sense, unless you’re looking to try and create an MFA, or “Made for Adsense” site. And personally, that’s not something I recommend, because Google is cracking down on this practice, and you will get your account banned for life.
Not to mention that “taking” content from someone else is copyright infringement. Why should you be able to take content from someone and use it for your own purposes? You shouldn’t.
Again, concentrate on writing high-quality, original content for your blog and you’ll win long-term.
Want a short cut? You won’t learn it here.
Question: I have over 500 hits and over 200 people that read my feeds…and only 1 comment. What do I do to get more comments on my blog?
Comments are great, don’t get me wrong, I love comments. I mean, that’s one of the best things about having a blog is people interacting with you, and you talking back to them. The discussion…
But, and a big BUT. (hehe). There’s something you need to know, and that is…
Comments are fun and good and all, but they don’t make your blog.
In other words, don’t worry so much about not getting comments. It isn’t the measuring stick for how successful your blog is. I’ve seen gigantic blogs with thousands of visitors a day get only a handful of comments. It just depends on the readers, and the content you’re developing.
That being said, here are some of my personal tips to getting more comments (If you must have them) :)
1. Get negative. People like to complain and commiserate. If you want lots of comments, complain about something and see how many people come quick to help you.
2. Ask questions. This is too easy. Simply ask your readers for their opinions. At the end of the blog entry write “What do you think?”.
3. Comment frequently on other blogs. Sometimes I go out of my way to participate in discussions on my friend’s blogs because they do the same for me.
Happy commenting!
Question: I’m new to blogging (5 days old) and I’m not sure how to approach my entries.
I have some blog entries where I’m sharing certain spiritual topics that I am learning about, entries about dreams I have, and some entries that are just about me. Is it a good or bad idea to mix topical entries with personal entries? Is it okay to mix the two..or should I have 2 blogs (one personal and the other spiritual topics)
One of the reasons blogs work is because they are relevant and on topic. People like to read about things they are interested in, so they come to blogs to be part of those discussions.
This is a tough question to answer, but in the end, I believe you need to look within and answer two questions before you can make a decision.
Ask yourself these questions.
1. Who’s reading my personal blog? And do those people want to read all of my life, or just some of it?
2. Am I writing my blog for me, or for everyone else?
In a business situation, I’m going to recommend you separate your blogs into different topics to keep things relevant.
In a personal situation. Well, I’d just do whatever I wanted to do. It’s your blog. And frankly, if something is a part of your life enough to blog about it, it fits on your personal blog.
Good luck, and have fun. It shouldn’t be work.
Question: We all know that WordPress isn’t really SE friendly because of the duplicate content it produces in other categories, monthly archive, etc… and many found ways to solve this problem. Just wanna ask your opinion. What is the “best” way to optimize a WP blog?
First off, let me comment on your first statement, as it’s important for me to clarify my position on this. You said…
We all know that WordPress isn’t really SE friendly because of the duplicate content it produces in other categories, monthly archive, etc…
I very much disagree with your assessment that Wordpress is search engine unfriendly because of duplicate content. I have seen zero proof to show me that that is true. It is simply not true, and concentrating your time worrying about it is a complete waste of time.
I should make this perfectly clear. Going to put this in bold and all caps because I want everyone to understand something very, very important.
GOOGLE WANTS HIGH-QUALITY, RELEVANT CONTENT, PERIOD. IF YOU SPEND TIME DOING ANYTHING BUT WRITING GOOD CONTENT, THEN YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO RANK WELL LONG-TERM.
Now, back to your original question, in case everyone forgot :) You asked…
What is the “best” way to optimize a WP blog?
I do recognize that there are small things you can do to optimize your blog for the search engines (and more importantly, your readers), perhaps, but again, those pale in comparison to writing good content. That being said, here are some optimization tips that I have heard of that you could do.
Write better headlines. It’s very simple. Write titles that have searched for keywords and phrases in them. Write them in a way that someone might search for them. See my title on this blog entry?
Make sure your title tag has your title (headline) first before your blog name. You’ll need to edit your blog template to make sure that is happening. This is VERY important.
Tag your posts. Blog search engines like Technorati use tags to organize blog content. You should too.
Question: How do you put Google AdSense ads in the middle of your blog post? I know how to add it to the top or bottom within the post but not sure how you put it in the middle of your posts. Thanks for the info.
Great question, and actually, the answer is much more simple than you imagine. In my experience, you can do it two ways.
The first way is to simply just do it manually. That’s how I do it here at AsktheBlogger.com. See the Adsense block above, just below the question? I manually placed it in using a simple cut and paste. The problem with that method is I have to keep a copy of my Adsense code handy for every post, and it’s unnecessary really.
The right way to do it is to use a Wordpress Adsense plugin. This one called the AdSense-Deluxe WordPress Plugin is great because it uses both Google Adsense & Yahoo! Publisher ads, your choice.
AdSense-Deluxe is an easy-to-use plugin for WordPress 1.5+ (including WP 2.0) for quickly inserting Google or Yahoo! ads into your blog posts, and managing when and where those ads are displayed.
What if I don’t use Wordpress?
Well, then I’m afraid you’re probably stuck manually pasting your code in the blog entry, or finding out from your blogging platform if they have some type of plugin you can use.
Just another reason to use Wordpress. :)
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