Adios, Blogged Out as a new Owner

Posted on September 12, 2007 by

Adios, Blogged Out as a new OwnerWell, after a lot of deliberation, I decided to sell Blogged Out, and I have found a buyer who will take the blog on to the next level, which is something I can’t do unfortunately, due to the lack of time, running my travel business and blog.

I have sold the blog to Scott Boyd, who is the man behind eFlaunt, a UK SEO agency, and Fused Nation, an SEO blog, so he is very knowledgeable about the topic of blogging and search engine optimisation and I am sure you will all welcome him.

During the move, you might find Blogged Out is down for a short time, but don’t panic, service will resume as normal soon.

I’d like to thank everyone who has helped contribute by leaving comments, writing guest posts, and generally being there helping me promote Blogged Out.

Happy Blogging,

Darren

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Tip to get rid of Supplemental Pages in Google

Posted on August 2, 2007 by

I’m helping market a friend’s blog, and when I took the project on over 90% of the blog posts were showing in Google as supplemental pages. This was frustrating for him because as quick as he was writing the posts, Google were indexing them, and moving them into the supplemental index.

The solution for this WordPress blog was very simple – all I did was download the Sitemap generator plugin and activated it, played around with the settings, and within a week the posts started to appear back in the search results, and three weeks later, all 650 posts are out of supplemental and his traffic has increased considerably.

Now he thinks I’m a genius – if he only knew the truth.

Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Blogging to the Bank the Unethical Way

Posted on August 2, 2007 by

Blogging to the Bank the Unethical WayCall me cynical, but sites like Blogging to the Bank just attract gullible people who think that they can earn thousands of pounds by following ‘hidden truths’ to make money on their blog. I found this site within Google Adwords, and had a good giggle.

Quotes like “The One Technique No One Else Is Telling You about on How to Build a Multi Million Dollar Blogging Empire” and “Earn six figure sums from my underground techniques” just make me laugh, and unfortunately people buy into this crap.

All of the testimonials are from people who are promoting similar ‘I’ll make you a millionaire’ type schemes, and none that I could see are from genuine bloggers who have bought this resource and have earnt the kind of money it raves about.

Personally, I’d save your money and read blogs like ProBlogger, and Daily Blog Tips [plus Blogged Out of course!] which to be honest is probably where most of this content comes from because from my experience in blogging, there’s certainly no underground hidden secrets.

Sites like this piss me off, and will probably just promote splogs, where some lowlife, creates a blog, and then steals all of your content, and includes Google Adwords and other advertising revenues to earn money from your hard work.

Posted in Blog Monetisation, Blogged Out | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Plan your blog ad space

Posted on August 1, 2007 by

Plan your blog ad spaceIt seems ridiculous but I have to turn away advertisers from my travel blog, simply because I don’t have enough advertising space, and I don’t want the blog appear to be swamped with ads.

So a lesson I have learnt is plan your advertising space before you choose or design your blog theme, and offer different forms of advertising from RSS, content and different sized banner advertising. I have seen a number of blogs that have adverts within the middle of content and as a reader that drives me mad.

If you plan all this before you launch your blog, it saves you from having to redesign your blog, which is what I have to do on the travel blog.

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Argh! I want keywords that attract Visitors

Posted on August 1, 2007 by

Argh! I want keywords that attract VisitorsSearch engine optimisation can be frustrating if you’ve spent four weeks optimising your blog for search terms which drive very little traffic from search engines.

My advice would be to use a few keyword tools like Keyword Discovery and Google to find which keywords are more popular with searchers.

To test these keywords out you could sign up for Google Adwords, and create a few ads for these targeted keywords on Google sponsored ads. Set yourself a daily budget and monitor which keywords attract more impressions and clicks.

Once you’re happy with your keyword list, start to optimise your blog by entering the keywords within your content, on the title and description tags, within alt tags on images, and get links pointing to your blog using these keywords. By playing around with Adwords you can save yourself a lot of time and effort.

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Facebook used as Crime tool

Posted on July 24, 2007 by

Facebook used as Crime toolToday, I read an article on the BBC about how thieves are using sites like Facebook to burgle houses. I was shocked when I read the article because I never realised how easy it was for people to use this as a crime tool, but if you have your address on Facebook, don’t tell people your on holiday!

The same could apply to a blog, and because I write on a travel blog, I always blog that I am going away on my travels, and if I had my address on my blog or on another place on the internet, people could use this. Thankfully, I don’t publish my home address on the internet, but I think it’s worth thinking about before telling the world you’re away.

Posted in Blogged Out | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The demise of the WordPress theme Sponsored link?

Posted on July 12, 2007 by

At last someone agrees with me regarding sponsored themes – before I carry on, just let me say that I don’t mind 1 or 2 links to the designers sites.

I think this is at least what we should offer someone who has given up their time for free, and without these designers, we’d all have boring looking blogs.

What is a sponsored link?

It’s a paid link that the designer has sold and placed on the theme – initially we saw just 1 or 2 sponsored links, now we are seeing themes, with 5 or 6 links, which is crazy. Anyone who reads Matt Cutt’s blog will know that Google frowns against paid links as this is tricking the system as such.

I’ve ranted how I disagree with adding sponsored links on themes, anyway I read the weblogtoolscollection.com blog today, and was surprised but pleased to read they will no longer be promoting WordPress themes that carry sponsored links.

What’s your opinion on this subject?

Edit: Interesting post on Lorelle’s WordPress blog, confirming that WordPress will be removing all themes with sponsored links by the end of July from it’s official theme viewer.

Posted in Blogged Out, Wordpress News | Tagged , , | 6 Comments