The Wordpress Dashboard is the first page you see when you login to administer your Wordpress blog and is the perfect place to see a snapshot of what is going on with your blog. Unfortunately, the default Dashboard doesn’t display much about the blog, just a list of the most recent posts and comments and trackbacks in a small box on the side of the page. Most of the space is taken over by content from Wordpress related feeds. Oh, and if you scroll all the way down you’ll see a list of draft posts.

Jeremy points to the changes Angsuman Chakraborty made to his Wordpress 1.5 Dashboard. He removed all the external Wordpress related content and placed more important information in the main area of the page. Now, when he logs in, he can easily find the information that he needs to keep track of.

As another example, Rob Barak shows in a comment how he changed the Dashboard for CafeGeek, a blog where readers can rate and discuss their favourite coffee shops. In his case, customizing the Dashboard is very important since users who want to rate a cafe need to be registered, and they will see the Dashboard every time they login. So Rob changed the contents (click to see a screenshot) to be more user-friendly by adding a welcome message and changing some minor details to better fit the blog’s content. For example, instead of Posts, he uses Reviews as the header for the latest blog entries.

Customizing the Dashboard is not for everyone, though. If you have some HTML, PHP and SQL knowledge you’ll be able to figure it out by looking at the code Angsuman Chakraborty uses and comparing it to the original Wordpress code. But if you need some help, let us know!

If you want your friends to get some good juice in from Google, place the link to their post on a strong keyword. Google will start to link them higher on that particular keyword/phrase.

This piece of SEO advice comes via Robert Scoble.

Now, if I had any good Google juice of my own, it would pass on to Scoble for the term “SEO advice.” But I don’t. Yet. :)

Should I be surprised that “Big Marketers” choose to ignore the power of RSS and thereby the power of blogs? In most respects, I’m not. It’s a sad fact that the most innovative, and most effective, “marketing” (I would prefer the term communication) is done by the smaller marketing firms and companies. We are the early adopters. The ones who lead. The ones whose results will eventually force the “Big Guys” to wake up, smell the coffee, and jump in so fast they end up really messing things up. Trust me, it will happen.

We’ve seen it with the McBlog - the blog set up by the McD’s guys, complete with fake posts and commentary. So sad. And so bashed by the online community. Why did they do it? Someone probably said “we need a blog” and then it was passed off to the guys in marketing. Guys who have never done anything but expensive tv campaigns. So we get an online campaign. No knowledge of what a blog is. Nor what a true blog could have done for the McBusiness. Their loss.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. A report from JupiterResearch found that “RSS will not have a significant effect as a supplemental alternative to e-mail marketing.” Great study. Since when did we believe that RSS was only a supplement to email campaigns? When phrased like that, I wouldn’t be surprised that most people disagreed. Although it is a great complement to online marketing in general, the point of RSS and blogs is not nearly as narrow as that question would phrase it. Blogs are a new communication tool for creating relationships with customers. The study was talking to a group of businesses who likely haven’t used the word relationship in quite some time.

Back to the survey. 17% of those who use RSS for marketing (this is 17% of the 5% who do), use it to publish newsletter content. Still one way. Still carefully crafted prose. More problems. Unlike the claim of JupiterResearch, RSS is not an “alternative for newsletter content distribution” - that is not the type of content that cuts it on a blog. Very interesting.

RSS is not well suited to promotional-offer-oriented content because it does not offer the targeting and personalization capabilities of e-mail, the report said.

Can we think of more reasons why blogs are not good for promotional content? :)

And check out this lovely tidbit:

Marketers publishing newsletter content through RSS should treat it not just as a low-cost delivery mechanism, but also as a revenue opportunity. Only 19 percent of marketers told JupiterResearch they were exploring RSS for extra ad unit revenue opportunities.

I’m not the only one happy that the Big Guys don’t get it (see Seth’s post and this post on threadwatch). Let’s just wait until the Big Guys understand what a relationship is and why customers want two-way communication. Then, maybe, they will understand the full value that blogging offers.

News via Threadwatch.org

Hacking Movable Type is a new book that promises to become the Movable Type bible. Amazon describes it as:

Gives Web developers and administrators the power to customize and modify MT, from eliminating comment spam and creating customized templates to hacking the MySQL backend and working with third-party modules.

I wish I could see a table of contents, but it does sound like it will be a must read if you are interested in more than just a basic Movable Type installation and need to customize MT to fit your needs.

The authors are:
Jay Allen
Brad Choate
Ben Hammersley
Matt Haughey
David Raynes

Tris Hussey has compiled a hard-to-top article comparing all the various desktop searches available on the market. His article can help you choose which desktop search is best for you.

Why should you care about desktop searches? Because, if you intend to have a business online or even just a webpresence of some sort, you will have lots of email. And, if you blog, lots of files you may collect in your research. So, what if you misplace something. Finding it should be as easy as searching online. Most OS search tools suck at finding files - but that is where desktop searches come in.

Go read Tris’ post. Great blogger. Great opinion.

Google released today some new changes in their Adsense program.

The one I noticed immediately is that channel reports are now done in real-time, no more 2 day delay. We’ve been experimenting with ad placements lately and this will help us see what the results are without having to wait a couple of days every time we make a change.

There other changes to the reporting interface and new support for pages in Russian and Hungarian. Go read the details here: Google Adsense: What’s New.

So, someone finds your blog from another blog or via a search engine. They read what you have to say on the topic at hand - but will they ever come back? This is the most important question we need to ask. We all know acquisition can be expensive - but retention, well, that should be the easiest thing for blogs! I mean, you update often and interact more closely. Right? What else do you need to know?

Here are great tips from the Blog Herald here and here:

1. implement Recent Post features - make sure people who land on one of your permalinks can see a) articles you have recently written and, I would add, b) the last and next article after the one landed on
2. Have a good number of posts on your index - 10 to 20
3. Use layout effectively - take less important features such as search out of the hot area (that area seen without scrolling)
4. Use simple features to make the eye read the important text - try making the headline font/colour different. Easier to scan for good material.

What I also do:

1. have a good design. One that is easy on the eye but also highlights all your sections appropriately.
2. Use a font that works well
3. Make sure your blog looks great on many browsers
4. Insert images into posts whenever possible
5. Break up lengthy text with text effects (bold, underline, headings, etc)

Don’t forget, while you may want your readers to stay, it would also be nice if they found your ads relevant and well placed to catch their attention… more on generating revenue with your blog in later posts.

Thanks to Darren of ProBlogger for the tip and for his commentary.

So, the question has been raised. Is Google Page Rank still relevant?

I agree with Darren, that Page Rank is relevant for some things:

Google’s Page Rank isn’t anywhere near as important as it has been previously - however I don’t completely write it off. I suspect that it still plays a part in how Google ranks sites in its results - but another important factor is that page rank can still be an important factor in working out how much to sell ads on your blog for… in terms of Search Engine Rankings I’m not sure Page Rank is as relevant as it previously has but in terms of grading the value of a blog for other purposes it remains one of the few tools people use and therefore is helpful.

I agree with all of the above, but have some thoughts to add.

First comes from my personal example: our eldest site, Blogaholics, manages to get a ton of new readers each and every day, despite being “sandboxed”. Our new readers come from other blogs, links, and come very strongly from MSN. I am sure we may grow faster if we had a stronger Google presence, but are not overly worse off for the low PageRank. In this case, I would say PageRank plays a part in the growth factor, but is not a measure to lay all your success on.

The one other thing I would add concerns where your business comes from. For some reason, certain businesses get more customers from Google than other. Perhaps has something to do with demographics and psychographics - different people using different engines. For example, though more highly rated on MSN and Yahoo for key phrases, at work we still drive nearly 80% of new customers from Google. So, in this sense, PageRank is crucial. Just some food for thought.

A great blog strategy suggested at ProBlogger is to add authors to your blog.

Why are more authors better for your blog?

1. It gives you increased content volume and allows you to take a blogging break. If you want your blog to take off, you need to consistently post a lot. It’s a hard task to take on alone. And if you want to go away for a weekend, it is also difficult indeed. Having more authors = more content and the ability to take a break without losing post frequency.
2. You can get people to blog free in some areas. If you want to really take off, paid bloggers are also a good option. We currently offer this service.
3. Greater word of mouth. Having more bloggers means having more networks to spread the news. Most bloggers of this type will post to many blogs, cross link, and spread news to their associates.

From my experience, I think more authors is also a good strategy to retain your readers. It gives them multiple perspectives on a topic, but also opens them up to different topic segments.

For example, this blog covers many how to’s for blogging. I may talk on aspects such as writing, reasons to blog, etc, but Ianiv will be providing great insight on the technical side: how to set up your blog, how to customize it, and news that would appeal to developers in the blogging world. On one hand, this gives us a better chance of reaching and appealing to more readers overall, but it also gives some insight of the overall blogging perspective to all our readers. Something we think is very valuable.

Check out the podcast by Tris Hussey of Larix Consulting - the topic is SEO and blogs. Tris always has really great insight. Worth a listen - especially if you have an mp3 player you can take on the go.

Darren over at ProBlogger has taken a look into the new Google patent to see what it is that Google really looks at. There is not enough time in my day to read through the patent myself, so I will gladly sum up some of what Darren has said and then point you over to his post for all the details.

1. “PageRank isn’t about the number of links, its about link growth.” Your popularity must grow - more people must link to you more often for your PageRank to grow.
2. “How often you update affects everything” Consistency seems key. Your rank will drop if you suddenly stop posting as often.
3. “How long you register your domain name for affects your rankings.” Good to know.
4. Cross-linking your sites is useless - Google knows its you from your registrar data.
5. Changing content is good - large content changes show you are keeping your site fresh

From Search-Science:
6. Search terms are important - what did people use to find you?
7. “history variable will include the number of times your documents appear in search results, and the number of times people choose to go there”
8. How long people stay on your site
9. Amount of comments
10. Whether you were added to bookmarks (hinted that Google looks at this via Google desktop search feature)
11. Keep all pages of your site fresh (perhaps this means posting to all your categories regularly)

Darren linked to a number of other sources, of which one is of personal interest to me (and likely others). This is the issue of the Google sandbox. There appears some validation within the patent that it may indeed exist. What is it? Well, it’s not a fun situation. Basically, Google will index your site, but then may put it in a “holding area,” so to speak. This is the Sandbox. Your PageRank will not climb while you are there, and therefore you will not really be found often on Google searches. It’s all very speculative as to whether or not it exists, and people are not completely sure how to get out of it. Currently, our other site, Blogaholics, is in the said sandbox.

Trust me, if I can figure out how to get out of the sandbox, I will most willingly share that information!

A little while ago I was looking for a solution to automatically insert Technorati tags into posts and RSS feeds on a Movable Type blog. I found a simple MovableType plugin called MTKeyWordList that can be used for this purpose.

The plugin lets you split the keyword field into a list and then use each keyword using the MTKeyWord tag.
So for example

<MTKeyWordList>
  <dc:subject><$MTKeyWord$></dc:subject>
</MTKeyWordList>

Could be used to add the keywords as categories in your feed.

That plugin can be found at LaughingMeme. It works great, but only works with static pages. The archive pages in the blogs I wanted to add this to are generated dynamically so I wrote a dynamic version of the plugin. It works the same way as the static page version.

If you want to use it you need the following files:
function.MTKeyWord.php
block.MTKeyWordList.php
Just drop them in the php/lib directory of your Movable Type directory.

Tris from Larix Consulting has a tidy little post on how you can use your blog for your search engine optimization. I will do tons more posting in this area, but I think this post is a great little overview of how blogs achieve great results on search engines.

I came across a really thorough post over on Noah Brier’s blog about Firefox. I am a really avid fan of Firefox, and am firmly convinced that I could not be as thorough in my marketing campaigns or my blogging without it.

I highly suggest you read Noah’s post, as he offers a lot of great arguments in favour of Firefox, including:
- Tabs
- Live bookmarks
- Integrated search
- Security
- Easy install
- Extensions (including a spellchecker!)

From my perspective, I will tell you how it makes my online life much easier through examples.

Tabbed browsing

I use Bloglines to read most of my news. My preferred method of reading is just to open up a folder all at once (I organize my subscriptions into folders so I can prioritize my reading). Bloglines then delivers all new posts for all blogs in that folder in a linear fashion. So, I scroll down the page reading post titles that appeal to me. If there is something I want to read more fully and/or perhaps blog on, I will middle click or Control+click to open that post in a new TAB. I have set my preferences so that new tabs open “in the background,” so to speak. Let me explain this: I tell Firefox to open the tab, but it does so by just opening a new tab behind the one I am currently reading. Non disruptive. I can keep reading without any popup or any clutter in my taskbar.

Why do I like this? Well, I have two stages for reading my blog subscriptions. Approaching 200 blog subscriptions, it is impossible to read everything, nor does everything interest me.

Stage 1: look at titles. If appealing, open tab. Keep scanning down for more.

Stage 2: Go through each tab and read the posts.

Another great advantage of tabbed browsing is the ability to read a webpage fully from top to bottom, while also opening up links you think would be interesting to read more about. No having to press the back button a ton of times. Each link is a possibility for a new tab. Indeed, I think I’ve come close to having 50 open at once. Try that with IE windows. No thanks.

I think tabbed browsing is the TOP feature of Firefox that works for me. For blogging and for market research, as both are similar in many ways. You want to dig around and find as much info as you can on the topic that you are looking into.

Even better - if you find you’ve opened up 50 tabs and then have to go away from your computer. No problem. No need to save them individually as bookmarks. Simply click save bookmark on one tab and it gives you the option to save all to a folder.

Integrated search

I know that you can add the Google searchbar to IE, but with Firefox, you can add an easy search function that lets you pull down a menu for multiple search options - search engines, dictionaries, Amazon, and much more.

Extensions

Firefox is customizable!! This is another reason my life becomes easier. For example, at work I keep track of PageRank. Controversial, I know. But I do think it’s important. Now, I don’t want to check it all the time. So I installed the Google Pagerank Status directly to my browser. What else do I have? I use the Spellbound extension to check my spelling - this is huge for when I write blog posts from my browser, as I am right now. None of the blogs I write on have spell check features - so, this little plug-in allows me to right click and Spell check. In any form. Anything. So great.

So at the end of all this, what do you need to do? Use Firefox!!