WordPress tips abound however they are generally encouraging another plugin or more code within the header, footer, index or page files. These WordPress tips are a little different. They are designed to speed up you blog, not slow it down.

The problem is fairly simple. The more widgets, plugins or PHP code that WordPress has to load, the slower your blog will get. If you have a blog that also relies on graphics, you have probably got a snail for a blog. Loading speed is one of the greatest turn-offs when it comes to visitors bouncing away from your blog.

The following WordPress tips will help to optimize your blog with hopefully some noticeable increases in load times.

1. First and foremost. How does your blog load? By this I refer to the load order which is generally header, left sidebar, right sidebar, content and footer. If your sidebars are busy then the last thing your visitor will see is the content and that could be after 10 or even 15 seconds. Look out - they are gone before the content loads. WordPress Tip One: select a theme that loads content early, preferably first.
2. PHP is actually a slow language to run. The PHP code is run and converted into HTML which the browser then renders to the screen. You can see the results by viewing the pages source code (View, Page Source or Control U or right click View Page Source - FireFox). Generally speaking, the Pages header and footer are fairly static. Once you have your page setup it is normally only the sidebars and of course the content that changes. Have a look at the source code - it is in HTML. WordPress Tip Two: Cut out the middleman (PHP). Copy the header and footer HTML code from the source code screen. In the Presentation - Edit Theme section, paste this code in to replace the PHP code for the relevant sections - take care and back up the files first.
3. Sidebars are notoriously slow at loading. Humans are notorious for adding every new gadget that comes along. WordPress Tip Three: The easiest tip to work on. Go through every widget in your sidebars and really consider whether or not you need them, particularly if they are repeating the same information, eg, recent posts, most visited posts etc. If it is not really adding to the benefit of your reader - get rid of it.
4. Plugins are another area that can slow your blog considerably. WordPress loads all plugins whether or not they have been activated. WordPress Tip Four: If the plugin has not been activated, delete it altogether. While you are at it, check that each plugin is up-to-date and is really necessary. If you don’t need it - delete it.
5. A lot of blogs like to advertise who has been visiting with widgets from BlogCatolog or MyblogLog to name two. WordPress Tip Five: if you have a widget from one of the social directories, check to see if you can create a full width widget (you can with BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog). If you can, place it in the footer so that it appears across the bottom of your blog. The footer is the last to load - after the content.

Each of these WordPress tips may only improve your blogs load speed by a half to one second. Put them all together and you have as much as five seconds reduced from your blogs load speed. On the internet, that is quite a reduction. Keep a lookout in the coming weeks for more WordPress tips on how to increase your blogs load speed.

Blog directories are always trying to keep ahead of times, more importantly, trying to offer more to keep you participating on their sites. The latest offering is from BlogCatalog who have teamed up with the comment tracking and ranking service, SezWho.

BlogCatalog is one of the fastest growing blog directories on the internet. Every day over 100,000 bloggers interact through BlogCatalog making it not only a blog directory but also a powerful social networking site.

SezWho is a collaborative review and reputation service that give bloggers the opportunity to rate the comments left on their posts. Bloggers are also able to review the commenting history of the individual who has left a comment. This could become a useful tool in weeding out those that leave meaningless comments in the hope of getting link juice from their comments.

It seems to be a natural progression for these two services to come together to form quite a powerful alliance. SezWho gets to feed off the one of the largest blog directories on the net whilst BlogCatalog users get the benefit of a potentially powerful comment rating service.

On the down side, for bloggers it means another plugin is required. A further issue I have as a blogger is that SezWho is not the prettiest of widgets on the net. At present the widget is only available in a rather stark red. The other issue I have is that the widget makes each comment window noticeably larger, if you have a lot of comment then it can take a while to get to the bottom of the comment list. There is the capacity to minimize each comment window to reduce space, but this is only for the current session. Once you refresh the comment windows are all maximized again.

On the plus side, being able to rate the comments left on your post and also review the ratings from other bloggers is very handy. You are also able to get a short history of the blog viewing habits of your commentators. With careful use this could provide and insight as to what type of posts are popular. This is always convenient when stuck for inspiration for your next post.

Blog directories are no longer simple directory listings. Blog directories are becoming more like social networking sites as the need for promoting the blogger rather than the individual post becomes more popular. Keep your eyes on your favorite blog directories as they start to offer more to you as the blogger.

FeedBurner is one of the most popular RSS services with millions of subscribers and over three quarters of a million publishers using the service. You may well be reading this post through a FeedBurner subscription.

There is more to publishing content through FeedBurner now. The advent of FeedFlare allows publishers to provide the resources that allows subscribers to tag, email and share the content with others. Subscribers can now act on your content by tapping into a wide variety of social bookmarking sites including StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, Sphere, Technorati and Facebook.

Setting up FeedBurner

While the concept is not new, the FeedBurner FeedFlare options has two major pluses. First, its free. Secondly, for the publisher, enabling FeedFlare it is very straight forward. Log into you FeedBurner account, set your FeedFlare options then place the HTML code on your site. FeedBurner does the rest. It could not be easier.

Adsense in FeedBurner

You also have the option of placing AdSense ad units into your content. Goto the Monetize section of your FeedBurner account and fill in the details. If you have enabled FeedFlare then that is all you need do. The ad units will be placed automatically.

FeedBurner for WordPress

For WordPress bloggers, install the FeedSmith plugin and you can add customized messages to your feeds. This is ideal for sending out messages, for example at Christmas or to highlight particular campaigns.

FeedFlare in FeedBurner is easy to setup. The hard part is getting the subscribers - but that is another story.

Social bookmarking has to be the most cost effective way to promote your blog. The cost in dollar terms can be nil. The cost in time can be minimal once you are established. The rewards can be huge compared to other forms of blog promotion.

One of the biggest mistakes that new bloggers make is to try and get on the Digg or Stumbleupon hit parade. If you can get on the front page of Digg or get a good surge from Stmbleupon then sure, you are in for a fun ride. However  your bounce rate is likely to be huge, your click through rate low; and the
long term affects on traffic can be negligible.

If you are prepared to take your time, research several of the social bookmarking sites to get the feel for them and then spend some time getting to know the players, your long term traffic can be boosted; it will be quality targeted traffic as well.

By fostering relationships within these sites you will slowly build subscriber numbers and just as importantly slowly develop backlinks. With the increase in backlinks comes the increase in recognition by search engines and with that development comes the increase in quality targeted traffic.

The key to successful social bookmarking is to get to know the important people on these sites, promote yourself to them by visiting their blogs and leaving thoughtful and appropriate messages. Don’t jump in and add them to your contacts. Become known first. Don’t throw every article you write into the mix; promote your best articles. Finally, respect the other  players; promote their articles only when they deserve promoting; don’t promote articles to become popular. You will gain a reputation for being selective in what you promote, what you submit and who you befriend. Your opinion will start will be valued.

Compared to other forms of blog marketing, social bookmarking can be very productive and very cost effective.

There is a new WordPress blog software update available that closes a potential security problem. To quote the WordPress.org release note:

[source]WordPress 2.3.3 is an urgent security release. If you have registration enabled a flaw was found in the XML-RPC implementation such that a specially crafted request would allow a user to edit posts of other users on that blog. In addition to fixing this security flaw, 2.3.3 fixes a few minor bugs. If you are interested only in the security fix, download the fixed version of xmlrpc.php and copy it over your existing xmlrpc.php. Otherwise, you can get the entire release here.

The release also advises the removal of WP-Forum plugin as that also has a security problem that is being exploited.

If you do not have registration activated then may not need this blog software update. If you do have registration enabled then consider seriously whether or not you need it. If you don’t then disable it. If you do require it then you will need the update.

If you have been installing all the WordPress blog software updates then you will only need to replace the xmlrpc.php file as advised. Otherwise you will need to do the full update.

As I understand the current situation, there will not be a 2.4 upgrade. WordPress will go straight to 2.5 for its next major blog software upgrade.

Some blog plugins are used to enhance the look, feel and functionality of a blog. Other blog plugins work behind the scenes to assist with administrative tasks. This blog plugin does both.

One of the recommendations I frequently hear is that blogs need regular face lifts. Change or update the theme, introduce new colors, new header image - really give your blog a new life. I wont go into the rights or wrongs of this theory in this post, however, should you decide to give your blog a face lift, how are you going to accomplish it?

The normal process is to find a theme or three that you like and upload them into the theme folder. From there you can go to the Theme tab in the administration panel and with one click you have changed theme.

The problem is, themes often look good until you actually load them with your content and your widgets. If you don’t like the look, one click and you have changed to another theme; and another. Finally back to your original theme while you go hunting for more themes.

This is all fine, except for one issue. Your visitors to your site are watching all of this. It certainly doesn’t look to professional. Not only that, it can send visitors away. I had the humorous (at least I thought so at the time) experience of a visitor emailing me and apologizing for any ‘damage’ they had done to my blog. “I don’t know what I did but when I changed pages your blog went all weird” was the email. Of course that was me changing the theme.

This is where the blog plugin ‘Theme Test Drive” comes in. It allows you to change your theme, tweak it, change colors and really play around with a theme all behind the scenes. Your visitors continue to see the old theme until you make the permanent switch. This blog plugin has the added benefit of protecting your blog. You can make all the changes you like in a theme to the point of crashing the theme - your visitors continue on totally unaware and your blog has come to no harm.

To quote the theme’s author:

[source] Theme Test Drive Wordpress plugin allows you to safely test drive any theme on your blog as administrator, while visitors still use the default one. It happens completely transparently and they will not even notice you run a different theme for yourself. Best part is you can even set the testing theme options (if it has them) in the Admin panel while you are testing the theme.

Blog plugins can be very useful. This is one blog plugin that is worth have in your tool chest ready for the day you decide to update your theme.

Many will argue that graphics and images do little to help blog SEO and blog marketing. This is debatable and will depend on how much emphasis you place on pure keyword usage and content optimization. If you believe as I do that traffic and external linking play a greater role in your blog SEO strategies then you may agree with the use of graphics and images after reading this article.

How will graphics or images help my blog SEO?

Graphics or images on their own will not help. It is how you use them and where you get them from that counts. To get the most from using graphics or images you need to visit sites such as flickr.com where there are millions of images, photos and videos on display. A site such as flickr.com has Page Rank which can be passed on to your site, in particular your post’s page. You just need to find the right photo or image and place it by direct link to the source.

Is it that simple - where is the blog SEO value?

No it is not that simple. You need several other factors to work for you. You can use a site such as flickr.com to store all your own photos or images. If you want to use someone else’s photos or images then you need to request their permission. This is where you get the PR value. Leave a comment on the photo owner’s photo requesting permission to use that photo. You can do this even if you host your own images. Search engines do not know who owns the images. A request like this obviously requires a link so that the photo owner can view the site prior to giving permission. That link in the comments is one link with Page Rank back to your blog.

Once permission has been granted, publish your post with the photo or graphic. Go back and leave a comment thanking them and pointing to the post itself so that the photo owner can see the photo in situ.Very few photo owners remove these comments as you have been very polite in requesting permission and included proper referencing in the post - it is free advertising for them. You now have two links, one to the home page from the request and one to the post itself - both carrying PR value.

All that is left is to ensure that the image and alt tags have been correctly formatted using keywords and you have a graphic or image that is going to provide some extra value to your blog SEO. Not only that, you have improved the overall appeal of your posts.

This may sound like a strange blogging tip, but for some blogs it may be very useful. Do you have a blog that is filled with ‘how to’ posts? Do you have a blog that has articles that are quite long? If so, then this blogging tip will be appropriate.

It is possible to publish short 55 word excerpts for each post. This forces the reader to click through to the post’s page to read the full version. This has pluses and minuses. It will either dramatically reduce the number of ‘bounce’ pages, or dramatically increase them as readers disappear before reading the post. Think carefully before using this blogging tip.

The process is fairly simple. Goto your Main Index Template and find the following text:

< ?php the_content(); ?>

Change this to:

<?php the_excerpt(__(’Continue Reading This Post’));?>

That is it. Done. This will only publish a short 55 word excerpt on the front page. The excerpt will not print any formating or images from the post. If you wish to maintain your formatting or images then the alternative is to use the “More” option in the editor window. Another word of caution, using the ‘more’ option will truncate your RSS feed at that point. If you want the complete post in your feed then you will need to install a plugin like the Full Text RSS Feed WordPress plugin.

This blogging tip will suit some blogs - for others, the full post is more appropriate. Overall, a better blog equals better blog marketing!

A bouncing blog - sounds interesting. When it comes it blog SEO, you do not want a bouncing blog. What is bouncing. The bounce rate is a measurement of how many visitors land on your home page and then leave without visiting any other pages. Together with the time measurement, you can get a fairly good overall picture of your blog.

If you have a bounce rate of 70% with an average stay of 1.20 minutes; you know you are getting visitors, but they are not staying and certainly not staying long enough to read the landing page. There can be many reasons for this. Perhaps you have engaged in a pay per click campaign. People are clicking to visit but not staying. Perhaps your blog marketing is wrong with visitors arriving only to find you don’t have what they are looking for. This is a problem. It means your blog marketing campaign is not delivering.

If you do have a high bounce rate, you need to adjust your landing page to see what works; to see which modifications keep the visitors on your page and then deliver them to other pages.

Good solid blog SEO strategies along with constant analysis of your traffic should keep your blog from bouncing.

This is a short blogging tip. At least, a tip to shorten some of the URL’s on your blog. Are there times when you need to forward one of your URL’s to someone and it gets chopped off in the email.

There are several services available that enable you to take a long URL and shorten it considerably. These are really URL forwarding services. If your URL is something like this:

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/2008/02/04/blog-marketing-using-email-surveys/ (this is yesterdays post URL).

Using the Tiny URL service as an example, this URL of 78 characters is reduced to

http://tinyurl.com/ynklvb which is only 25 characters long.

You have to agree, 25 characters is much shorter than 78. When someone clicks on this link they go to TinyURL who then redirect them to the correct URL. It all happens in a fraction of a section so the time lag is hardly noticeable. What is lost of course is your brand - your web name is not in the URL. You will also lose link benefits if using it in comments or other possible link opportunity situations.

For emails and other activities like twitter, then a tiny URL may just be the blogging tip you need. When it comes to blog marketing - not so much.

Blog marketing can be a difficult task with varied results at the best of times. One marketing tactic is to use an email survey. Email surveys, when designed intelligently, can return positive results in several areas.

The obvious result from a survey is to gain feedback from your readers or clients. However, with some cleverly designed questions, an email survey can result in an increase in traffic. Using survey questions that ask the respondent to undertake comparisons on products, services, changes to your blog or post styles are just a few areas. These questions really require the respondent to visit your blog before they can properly answer the question.

A blog marketing email survey like this could also include free gifts, downloads or entries into a prize draw as a further enticement. One blog marketing tactic that I have seen used to effect is to use a standard survey but making the final question a ‘must visit to answer’ type question. Get the answer right and you are entered into a prize draw or receive the free gift.

With some thoughtful design, an email survey could also provide you with some valuable insight as to how others view your products or blog; what changes you may need to make; and what areas are currently working and not working.

Blog marketing can be difficult, however if you can think outside the square and use concepts like email surveys you may be surprised at the results.

Blog SEO, is it really that important? After all, its just a blog. With that mindset perhaps blog SEO is not that important. Blog marketing and blog design are probably not that important either. On the other hand, if you are serious about your blog; serious about getting visitors; delivering a message or making money; then blog SEO is extremely important.

Around 85% of online consumers use a search engine of some type. If you don’t use good search engine optimization practices then your competitors are receiving the traffic and your left behind. Given the billions of searches that are made each day it is important to get onto that first page for your given keyword.  The majority of consumers only go as far as that first page. Some look at the second page. Very few get to page three.

Employing a professional blog SEO  consultant is often money well spent. If they can get you onto the first page then the flow of visitors will more than adequately cover that initial expense. If they incorporate blog design and blog marketing in the package then your visitor numbers will rise dramatically. If you have a good product to sell, affiliate program or other income generating program that is attractive to your visitor then you may well be able to employ the consultant on an ongoing basis. Blog SEO - here at Blog Marketing Journal, we consider it very important.

Where does your blog SEO focus sit - concentrated heavily on Google, or spread to cover all major search engines. The announcement that Microsoft have made a huge offer for Yahoo may leave some looking at their current strategies. The question that must be asked first is what changes can Microsoft bring to Yahoo?

The announcement stated that the focus would be on consumers, advertisers and publishers and not so much on technologies. The immediate question in my mind is the Google-Firefox relationship and whether or not Microsoft will align Yahoo more with Internet Explorer.

It seems that Microsoft and Yahoo have been in discussion for almost 18 months with the Yahoo board obviously interested in the proposal. With that in mind it will be interesting to see if Yahoo starts to implement any Microsoft ideas prior to the takeover. Of course Yahoo have to agree to the proposal first and I am sure there are many government agencies that will run their magnifying glasses over the proposal. For now, watch for any changes to Yahoo’s requirements.

Irrespective of the outcome, your blog SEO strategies should target all search engines. Not only should you target all search engines, you should be constantly watching what the search engines are doing. Determine what blog SEO strategies you need to tweak to keep pace with search engine changes and what directions they are taking into the future.

If this all appears too difficult or too complicated then look at some of the blog and website services that specialize in blog SEO strategies and blog marketing - the dollars invested could turn out to be dollars saved.

There are many blog metric tools out there, some free and some that cost a few dollars. I have become a little disillusioned with a lot of the measuring tools available. One reason for my dissatisfaction is the fact that each tool seems to return a different set of numbers. I find they are useful for measuring trends but not actual numbers.

Probably the best is the Google Analytics tools, however I find that even his tool doesn’t provide data that agrees with any other tool. Over time my reliance on any form of measurement including Page Rank has diminished to the point that I only look for curiosity and trends. If I want a real measurement of how well my sites are doing I use the one measurement tool that counts - the search engine.

I regularly take my keywords and run searches on each of them to see how well placed they are in the search results. After all, these are the results that matter most. Google Analytics does at least help to support the results I receive from my searches.

One tool I have come across, whilst not a blog metric tool, is SiteScan. Site Scan will scan all the pages on your site to determine whether or not your Google Analytics code is in place and being included in the analysis results.

Do you have a favorite blog metric or blog marketing tool? Is it accurate and reliable? Let me know if you do.