Updating WordPress and Backing Up Data

People are smart – really!  I know sometimes it doesn’t APPEAR that way but they really are – IF you understand the WHY behind what they’re doing.  In my experience, you must identify the “why” behind a problem before you can begin to provide a real solution.

When it comes to updating WordPress and backing up data – I’ve seen that there’s a REASON for why many people don’t perform these essential WordPress tasks and my daughter provided a GREAT illustration the other day.

Danielle gets REALLY annoyed with one of the exercise DVDs she uses because during the workout – the featured Barbie-esque creature chirps, “You just have to MAKE time for exercise.”  My daughter is annoyed because – when she looked up this woman online – she discovered that she works full time  as a personal trainer.  She snarled, “Of COURSE she has no trouble making “time” to exercise – she works in a gym!”

So I get it.  I get that many WordPress bloggers aren’t “working in a gym”.    Just as you have to find a way to fit exercise into your schedule – you have to find a way to fit blog maintenance into your life.

Nagging Never Works

The reason people don’t back up their data and update their WordPress installation is  not for lack of “nagging”.  WordPress gurus who speak geek fluently (for some – “plain English” is a second language). are constantly admonishing WordPress users to keep their installation of WordPress current.   They go on and on about “security” issues and can even share tales of horror about lost content and blogs destroyed because someone failed to update their WordPress blog installation.

Yet – there are still many – MANY blogs operating on outdated versions of WordPress…. like prior to 2.8 in some cases.  Why?  It’s not because the WordPress development team hasn’t TRIED to make it easy – they’ve included beg notices and made it so you don’t even have to log out of your blog to update.  Yet – I’ve found that even technically savvy clients will contact me – quaking in fear – because of the warning which appears before you update WordPress –

Important: before upgrading, please backup your database and files.

This links to a Codex page which is approximately 10 miles long.  I know from experience that when my people (who aren’t signed up for automatic updates) get to this point – their reaction is something like this…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9df0Kz6A_58[/youtube]

The reason the page is 10 miles long is because they have to try to cover EVERY possibility available from various web hosting companies.   This is what happens when you try to write a message targeting EVERYONE – but that’s a rant better suited for my book’s blog Beyond Niche Marketing.  🙂

Quick Easy Database Backup

So here’s a quick EASY way to back up your blog – it’s a WordPress plug in called WP-DB Manager.  Install it on your blog and you can not only backup – but optimize and repair your database without logging out of WordPress.  I then FTP a copy of this backup to my hard drive and then burn it to a CD.  (This level of OCD  is  only defined as paranoia if you’re NOT working with Windows based computers.)  By the way – I feel this plug in is WELL worth a $20 donation to the creator.

Remember, your database is WHERE your blog content REALLY lives.  Pulling a backup of your WordPress blog without pulling a copy of the database is NOT backing up your blog. (If you’re thinking “duh”  as you read this – let me just say – there’s a REASON I’m clarifying this here.)

If you think your blog may have been hacked – Donncha et al have created a plug in to scan for exploits.

I know it’s one more thing in an already busy day – but it’s truly a zen moment when you experience the inner peace of having your database backed up and your blog purring along.

Introducing WordPress 3.0

WordPress 3.0 was recently released and it has caused quite a stir in the WordPress community.  I had to chuckle when I saw the RSS feed widget below appear in my iGoogle.

The first post is the post at the bottom which is  “Dowload WordPress 3.0 now.”   It was promptly followed by two later posts of how to FIX the problems caused by updating.

Most of my clients don’t know what they don’t know – and in many cases that leads to WILDLY unrealistic expectations – such as blog updates being effortless.  When it comes to updating WordPress blogs – expect the unexpected.  While the WordPress development team does an exceptional job of vetting the software – there’s no way for ANYONE to know how the software will work on the wide array of hosting providers who host WordPress blogs.

For those of you who don’t know, I provide hosting for over 100 WordPress blogs and as part of that hosting service, I provide automatic updates for my clients.   I also provide support services for about a half a dozen more clients who maintain multiple WordPress blogs as part of their internet marketing strategy.

Which is why – I maintain several blogs which act as “update guinea pigs” – so I can see if it’s time to unleash an update on my clients.   For example, the last time WordPress changed it’s internal architecture this significantly – many of my clients discovered their beloved theme wasn’t going to make the transition.  Fortunately, I was able to contact the clients and warn them of the impending update meant for their blog.

When I began providing my hosting with automatic update service over 4 years ago, WordPress updates were few and far between.

At that time, the battle was raging between Typepad and WordPress – with WordPress being labeled “hard to use” and “only for geeks”. Other blogging software contenders like DruPal were actually in the running in those days so deciding to “back” the WordPress “dark horse” was a risky decision for the direction of my business.

Fast forward 4 years and it seems everyone is on the WordPress bandwagon – with good reason.  One of the reasons WordPress blogs are SO popular is that they are so search engine friendly.   Another reason is – despite the initial “press” – the only “hard” part about using WordPress was installation.  My business began offering WordPress installation for clients and discovered there were a LOT of people who were ready to take control over their web destiny.    As a result, I have several clients whose technological expertise is limited to opening and responding to emails who have successfully taken their blogs to the top of the SERPS for their chosen keyword.

This has not gone unnoticed and the same quality of people who fill your mailbox with offers of “get rich while watching porn” – are also launching attacks on WordPress self hosted blogs.  The early “hacks” were an attempt to hijack your blog – or to hijack your email program to send spam.  However, lately the attacks are becoming more frequent – and more fiercely devastating.

It is more important now than ever before to make sure your installation of WordPress and all of your plugins are up to date.

Over the past few months, I’m getting more calls than ever to try to “rescue” blogs on older versions of WordPress.  Unfortunately, these are people who “passed” on my Cyber Angel hosting service and they are now facing the consequences of their decision.   In yet another example of ” WILDLY unrealistic expectations” – if your blog is hacked – there is no magic ritual which will enable anyone to retrieve your database without a backup.

The “foundation” of your WordPress blog is your database.  To perform a periodic backup of your WordPress blog – you need only to download a backup of your database and then simply FTP the contents of your wp-content folder to your hard drive.  You only need to FTP the contents of your wp-content folder once – to preserve your theme.  As for backing up the database – do this once a week – or even once a month -and it will mean never having to say “goodbye” to all of your blog’s content overnight.

Everything’s relative… setting your life thermostat

Today in my little corner of south eastern Florida – it’s 60 degrees today.

BRRR!!!

I don’t expect you to cry me a river – especially if you’re living in the path of the bitter cold that is blanketing much of the northern United States. However let me assure  you that temperatures in the 60’s feel positively FRIGID when you’ve spent a few summers surviving “surface of the sun” heat indexes in the mid to upper 120’s.

Meanwhile, a check of the weather back in my hometown in Indiana reveals that the current AIR temperature is currently -11 and the wind makes it feels like -29 … and those temps are °F by the way!   It’s even worse where my in-laws live.  It’s -20 and it feels like it’s -40 below just an hour north!  (Yes, I’m deeply concerned about the state of the plumbing in my Indiana property!)

But this whole weather thing has got me thinking about how where we are (and who we’re with) affects us and how our experiences shape our view.  In other words – there’s more than one setting on your life thermostat.

For example, I know that the weather today at my house would have felt positively tropical in January when I was living in Indiana five years ago.  Unfortunately, KNOWING that doesn’t make it FEEL any more tropical today.  Living down here for four short years has reset my thermostat – without my “permission” I might add.

That’s right.  I didn’t make a conscious decision to TRY to reset my body’s  thermostat.   I didn’t attempt to use “positive thinking” to change my body’s physical reaction to temperature so 60 degrees would feel cold to me.   As a matter of fact,  the opposite is true.  I desperately didn’t WANT to be a “Flor-idiot” who complains about being cold when it’s 60 degrees outside.

It didn’t matter what I desired, by moving to southern Florida, I changed my physical environment and as a result, my body’s physical responses have been altered.

Setting your Life Thermostat

However, there are other aspects to setting and regulating your life thermostat – beyond that of your physical perceptions of hot and cold.  Call it self help, call it self awareness, call it authentic expression or call it creative productivity –  the input you allow into your mind greatly affects your life thermostat settings.  (Oh, and if you think you can separate your “business” from your “life” ….. good luck with that.)

Just as your body will get “adjusted” to your physical environment – your mind will also get “adjusted” to the environment you create there as well.

Way back in 1997, I taught myself to code in HTML.  When word got out around town that I had acquired this skill, local business people started hiring me to create websites for their businesses.  One day about a year later, a very progressive woman who called herself a “life coach”  hired me to create a website for her business.  This turned out to be a significant “life thermostat altering” event.

What you read – what you watch – and the people you choose to accompany you on this journey called life – all have a dramatic effect on where your “life thermostat” is set.

Because I started working with forwarding thinking, successful people, my life thermostat settings changed… to the point where I find it difficult to relate to people from my “previous” life.

I recently was contacted by a co-worker from my past.  She was laid off from a subsequent employer and worrying about what she would do when her unemployment ran out in a few weeks.  She contacted me in hopes of landing a “J-O-B”.  However, her passions don’t lie in administrative work – and as much as I would have LOVED to have a passionate virtual assistant, it was easy to see that she was not that person.  So, in the course of the conversation (which lasted less than 40 minutes), we came up with a plan for her to start her own business based on the very things she was passionately devoting her time to during her unemployment.

I was surprised at how blatantly OBVIOUS what she SHOULD be doing was – and then I realized that my life thermostat settings have changed DRAMATICALLY since we last worked together.  She’s been punching a time clock, rubbing elbows with other “wage slaves” over the past decade.  Meanwhile, I’ve been spending the last decade connecting with other people who breath “rarified air” on a daily basis.

I am honored and feel privileged to be surrounded by such an amazing group of successful business owners.

Don’t underestimate the power of your surroundings to impact your perceptions and thinking.   What changes have you made (or do you need to make) to change your life thermostat?

Sneak Peak at WordPress 2.7 Dashboard

If you’re using an updated version of WordPress, you’ve been seeing what is known in the trade as a “beg” screen asking you to update to WordPress 2.6.3 for the past few weeks.  (If you’ve been ignoring the previous beg screens, you should have noticed the message changed recently.)

It’s really important to keep your WordPress installation current.  These beg screens help to remind self hosted WordPress blog users that part of using the world’s best CMS software is keeping your installation current.

A self hosted WordPress blog installation is the closest thing to web site marketing magic you get – and when you’ve got something that is that powerful AND easy – well, the “bad guys” on the internet will want a piece of that action.

Imagine if there was a possibility that you could gain back door access to some of the most highly trafficked sites on the internet.  Imagine that if you could find this golden ticket, you could gain access and inject high PR sites with code to link that site to websites of your choosing.   Wouldn’t you be constantly searching to find that hidden way in too?

The WordPress development team is faced with the challenge of matching wits with those “bad guys” every day.  They’re working tirelessly to make WordPress even better AND easier to use.

THANK YOU WordPress Development Team for all your hard work!

(I’m going to bitch and whine a bit later, so I wanted to preface that whine and bitch session with an expression of gratitude!)

If you’re one of my clients, don’t panic when the beg screen appears asking you to update WordPress to the 2.7 version.  I’ll be “testing” it thoroughly on my test blog before I update yours.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  WordPress 2.7 is not ready for production blogs yet!!! Wait until your “beg screen” tells you it’s time before you update.

I just installed the beta version on one of those test blogs.  Here’s the screenshot of the new and improved dashboard:

If you aren’t my client and aren’t familiar with my business model, I work with people who need tutorials to be able to use WordPress.  Because I’m a SUCKER for customer service, I prepare these tutorials in the format my CLIENTS desire (PDF) , not the format which is easiest for me to create (video).

I won’t leave my clients on 2.6 for any longer than necessary – and that means I need to get started creating a whole new suite of tutorials – created with “regular” people in mind

WARNING:  BITCHING AND WHINING LIKE A PRE-PUBESCENT GIRL STARTS NOW:

This change in the dashboard is effectively rendering the last Blog Post Tutorial I created EXTINCT!  WORTHLESS!!!

Just like the ones I created for all the versions that have come before!

I HATE IT!!!  I’ve got other things I need to do!

I know why they made the changes. The new dashboard IS more intuitive and is easier to use.  However, I enjoy the comfort of the familiar.

In the movie, V for Vendetta, V begins his address of the nation with:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption.

I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

Fortunately, the new WordPress isn’t promising you order and peace, nor is it demanding your silent, obedient consent.   However, ignoring this update will no doubt create chaos and confusion in your future.

With the update will come the usual minor and temporary chaos.  I’m sure that popular plugins will cease to function and some themes will stop working as a result of the update.   However, it’s SO WORTH IT when you consider how much you gain by using WordPress.

My sister owns a Mercedes.  NOTHING is cheap when it comes to the care of that car.  A simple lube oil and filter runs almost $200.  However, she has deemed the car essential to her business AND her professional image so she accepts the costs associated with owning  a Mercedes.   IMHO, the same applies to WordPress.

Fast Track to Blog Success – 100% Discount Ends Friday

Want to get bloggers “buzzing”?  Sell your blog for big bucks. That’s what happened when John Wu sold his Bankaholic blog to Bankrate for a cool $15 Million.

Cath Lawson did the math and the 26 month old blog netted that blogger a cool $3348 per hour.

If you’ve been blogging for more than a few months, you may be wondering what makes the Bankaholic blog worth so much money.  After all, the blog doesn’t get NEARLY the number of comments that Cath’s blog gets.  There’s very little “community” on the blog – unlike on Cath’s blog, yet it’s raking in a record setting payday for the blog’s developer.

The key to the Bankaholic’s success is simple:  KEYWORDS. The Bankaholic’s blog expertly targets the right keywords – the keywords a mega-site like Bankrate wants.  If you’ve run a PPC campaign lately, you’ll see where the $15 Million dollar price tag for a blog that ranks well on highly sought after keywords might actually be considered a BARGAIN!

I love it when people “do the math”.   SEO Diva did the math and showed how a $20,000 domain name can be a BARGAIN in the end.

The Bankaholic blog sale happened just as I was in the middle of doing a review for one of my 8 Week Power Blog Launch customers.    Turns out, people want to fix their blogs in 30 minutes or less, not 8 weeks.  (Mock Horror and Surprise!).  So, as I was in the middle of creating this “Fast Blog Fix” report, the Bankaholic sale was announced.  I put my 30 Minute system to the test and applied the principles to the Bankaholic blog.  The results are revealed in “Fast Track to Blog Success”.

I’ll be offering this product for sale next week, and  I’ll definitely be adding it as an “added bonus” for people who buy the 8 Week Power Blog Launch.

However, this week – until October 10th (Friday), you can get this report for free.  Just use the code CathRocks and click the button below.  This discount code will give you a 100% discount on this report.

Add to Cart

I was going to email it to people who commented, but the file has lots of screen shots which makes it too big to send via email. So, I’ll be using e-junkie to give this away!

Click the button, enter the discount code and it will be yours for the taking.  I’m sure you’ll find the analysis of the keywords used on the Bankaholic blog fascinating AND educational.

Of course,  when it does go for sale – there will be an Affiliate Program so if you recommend the book to family, friends and blog readers you grab your piece of the action.

What is YOUR blog worth?

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger is getting inundated with the news of the 1 Man Blog Sells for $15 Million Dollars

The question at the back of EVERY blogger’s mind when they hear news of a blog sale is, “I wonder how much MY blog would bring?”

For John Wu, the sole author of Bankaholic the answer is a cool $15 Million.

Darren reports:

the blog has an Alexa ranking of 42,168 and averages less than 20 comments per post. The blog does seem to rank very well for a lot of bank terms and I’m sure drives targetted traffic.

That’s the key – TARGETED TRAFFIC.  The blog buyer is Bankrate, which is acting very much like Google in this acquisition.  It’s the old,  “let someone ELSE do the hard work” and then the big guy with deep pockets sweeps in to collect.    John Wu got to perform the hard work – building up the blog over a period of 26 months.  He did the digging and Bankrate gets the gold and John’s labor is being WELL rewarded with a ROI of $576,923 per month for his efforts.

However, I think it’s important to remember that he didn’t launch this blog with this payday in mind. Instead he set out to create a tightly targeted blog focusing on attractive and tightly targeted keywords.  Now a big player wants his blog and is paying handsomely for John’s hard work.  Congratulations John.

Oh, and in a medium where community is everything, this blog is a bit light on that aspect.  Blog posts don’t get a lot of comments, but the blog delivers where it counts and that’s on desirable keywords and targeted traffic!

Oh, and for what it’s worth – Bankaholic is a WordPress blog.

Working in a No Trust Zone

We’re living in an age that is quickly becoming a “No Trust” zone. If you do business on the web, you should be especially concerned by antics occurring on the national stage which are serving to erode trust.

My family, like many others, has Olympic fever. However, you don’t have to be following the games to watch the degradation of trust that is occurring on the international stage.

I’ve written before about the importance of transparency in the world of Web 2.0. The law of transparency applies to every entity whether it’s a business, a country or an individual.

Building trustWeb 2.0 can be great when you’re authentically providing valuable goods, services and information. On the other hand, it can be your worst enemy when you’ve got something to hide.

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, especially in these days of Web 2.0 which could be called the “No Trust” Zone.   When trust is abused, it scars us and makes us less vulnerable and less willing to trust.

The problem is, when you’re doing business via the web, you’ve got a HUGE obstacle to overcome in that often you don’t meet your customers and clients face to face. For the throng of people who may visit your website, they have to TRUST that you are who you say you are. They have to TRUST that you can do what you say you can do.

Recently, as I was corresponding with my editor, the issue of trust came up. This is not the same editor I used to edit my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results, so this new editor hasn’t had the opportunity to earn my undying trust. He made an innocent comment which, little did he know, set off a multitude of alarms for me.

Fortunately, I was able to communicate with him WHY his comment had set me off. Last year, I hired a virtual assistant. I had spoken with her repeatedly as she did work for one of my clients. Long story short, I signed a contract to pay her $700 per month for a minimum of three months. I gave her a project immediately to which she claimed she was anxious and able to do. In the end, she didn’t have the skills she claimed she had. I ended up paying $2100 for something I could have created in 10 hours because she possessed neither time management skills nor the technical skills to complete the project. (Did I mention that when she finally delivered the product, it was such a mess I couldn’t use it!) She refused to refund my money and instead offered her future services. I haven’t heard from her since.

Ken McCarthy once wrote words of wisdom to which I still cling. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “9 out of 10 independent contractors don’t know what they’re doing.” He followed this statement with a story of how he hired a gentleman to create a video for him. The gentleman’s website showed an image of the man holding a high end video camera. That was enough to sell Ken on giving the guy a try. Unfortunately, when the guy showed up to the shoot, it was painfully obvious that posing with the camera was all the guy had done.

Which is why Ken recommends that you “try out” new contractors on unimportant contracts before you give them the assignment of creating something important to your business.

You’re living and working in a No Trust Zone. Your marketing, your blog, your advertising must ALL focus on a single goal: to build trust with your clients or customers. You build trust slowly, through communication. That’s why I adore blogs as marketing tools for independent service providers. A blog allows you to build trust with potential clients and customers because quite honestly, it’s hard to “fake” expertise over the course of a hundred or more posts.

Are you viewing your blog as a trust building vehicle? Do you see evidence of client’s lack of trust? How do you build trust with your potential clients and customers?

Blog Diagnostic Tool – Wordle: Graphic Illustration of Your Blog’s Content

One of the basics of internet marketing is to recognize that keywords play a huge role in internet branding. Use the right keywords, and your blog will find it’s target audience quite easily. Use the wrong keywords and you’ll be left wondering why more people aren’t reading your great blog posts.

With that in mind, here’s a great big SHOUT OUT of thanks to Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog for introducing me to the very cool and very illustrative blog toy er, I mean tool Wordle.

Wordle will take any text you plug in and create a cool graphic of the keywords contained within. You have the option of choosing random text or you can pull text from your blog’s RSS feed.

Wordle To the left is the Wordle created from this blog’s RSS feed.

Not only is a Wordle visually interesting, your blog’s Wordle can also act as a diagnostic tool to answer the question “Why is my blog not working?”

In order for your blog to act as a powerful marketing tool, you must focus your (marketing) message. Focusing on the right keywords is the key to blog marketing success.

For example, you can see in this blog’s Wordle image, that the keywords “marketing” and “credibility” play a HUGE roll in the content on my blog. That’s good because those are the drums I tend to play in my business… so seeing those words appear in “large print” pleased me.

The term troll is a bit more prominent than I’d like… but then again, it’s a recent blog entry AND contained in the title as well. I have to ask myself, what did I expect that particular post to do to my Wordle?

Since I didn’t know about Wordle then, I couldn’t have thought much of it. However, the World of Wordle can help you to get a clear perspective of the role each post plays as you build your blog.

THIS IS A KEY TO SUCCESS AS YOU ARE CREATING AND BUILDING YOUR BLOG!

Often, when we’re blogging, we don’t think of each blog post as a part of the whole. It’s easy to view blog posts as standing on their own – when in fact, they are essential building blocks. Each building block makes a contribution to making up the blog as a whole.

From the looks of my Wordle, I’ve been focusing upon marketing, selling and credibility here. The whole troll reference actually fits into that theme if you read the post. I just should have named it something different to fit better into my Wordle.

So Wordle gave me good news on this blog. On to my other blog holdings.

I have another blog where the focus is EXCLUSIVELY upon using blogs as marketing tools for small businesses. The Wordle for that blog is pictured to the left.

Seeing the Wordle for this blog allows me to see that I’ve been focusing too much on the “blog” aspect of blogs as marketing tools in the content on that blog.

Not exactly good news, but useful news none the less.

With this information, I know that I need to start featuring the “marketing ” aspect of blogs in this blog’s content.

On to my next blog.

I created the Wordle to the right for the blog which I use to promote my book (Beyond Niche Marketing).

Ouch again. It looks like I’ve been focusing a bit too much on that magical marketing word “free” in the content of that blog and there’s not enough focus on the term niche. On the other hand, marketing is playing a nice role on the keyword parade for that site.

Informative and fun. This is great.

Just for kicks and giggles, I ran a Wordle for a client who is complaining that her blog isn’t “working” for her. She’s frustrated and with good reason. So I ran a Wordle for her blog. The image to the right is what Wordle came up with for her blog.

Now, if my client’s business had ANYTHING to do with gardening, then this Wordle would be a good sign. But her business isn’t gardening nor is it focused on kitchens. Her ideal prospective clients wouldn’t use ANY of those words featured prominently on her Wordle to find her business.

Unfortunately for this client, her business is about journaling and writing as a way to achieve spiritual healing. I say unfortunately because it doesn’t appear that is what she’s communicating via her blog.

So I ran a Wordle for another client who specializes in executive training.

To the right is what her site looks like through Wordle’s eyes.

Rosemary will be pleased to see how the posts on Miboso Training are shaping up, thanks to this tool!

Then, just as I was playing with this tool, another client emailed me and was wondering why despite consistent blogging her blog isn’t picking up any readers. So, I ran a Wordle for her blog.

This client’s business is coaching people who want to lose weight. Lose weight is an important keyword for her and is included in her domain name.

Yet, when you look at her Wordle, the word YEARS is by far the most prominent and coach does play a big role too. Weight does make it to the hit parade, but lose doesn’t.

Maybe it takes a bit of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) to build a blog full of the “right” keywords, but I’m really beginning to see a pattern here.

For kicks and giggles, I run Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net site through the amazing Wordle tool.

Hmm… blog, people, community, readers, campaign, advertising… those all look like words that readers of Darren’s ProBlogger.net blog would want to read about.

What I find fascinating is Darren has achieved this ideal “mix” while having guest bloggers write posts for his blog. Now THAT is the sign of a blog with a vision!

Wordle may appear to be a “toy” but in fact it’s a powerful blog diagnostic tool you can use to see the word picture you’re building with your blog’s content.

Take your blog’s content for a Wordle spin and see what you can see. It might be the best blog diagnostic tool yet!

Spotting Marketing Crooks and Liars

My clients are the best people on the planet! They are honest, trustworthy and loyal which are traits which make spotting marketing crooks and liars difficult.

See, people who are honest tend to view the world through that lens… the lens of honesty and integrity. Even the most “web savvy” are not immune to getting hooked by marketing crooks and liars. (Read the Itty Biz post 7 Home Business Lessons From StomperNet for an in depth explanation from a web savvy business owner who got “caught up” in the game.)

I OFTEN tell my clients that part of the “service” they pay for when they sign up with me is that they don’t have to get “burned” because I’m already heavily scarred from the 3rd degree burns I’ve suffered over the past 12+ years on the web.

After reading the post above, I got a message in my inbox the other day from a client who is toying with the idea of buying a “program” which will teach her the “secrets” to Google Adsense.  She sent me an email that goes like this:

My partner and I were just talking about the possibility of putting Google Adsense on our websites as guaranteed income. Just something we are thinking about. An example of this is on: [blog address that I’m not going to justify with a link]

This guy said that he has a guaranteed income of $15,000 thanks to Google Adsense.

Our question is-can this be done on the type of websites that we have? We are just wondering…

Thanks Kathy!!!

My reply:

Of COURSE you can add Google Adsense code to begin displaying ads on your blogs.

The way you make money with Google Adsense is when people come to your website and click on the ads displayed a.k.a… leave your site to go to another site.

The secret to making money with Google Adsense is traffic… lots and lots of traffic. It also helps to have really CRAPPY content because that way, visitors won’t find what they’re looking for on your site and will click on one of the ads displayed to find a site that does have the information they seek.

So I go to the site she sent me and there’s this guy who has his own typepad blog which is not “domain mapped”. The blog has an alexa ranking in the 1.2 million range. Adspy tells me he has 2 Google Adsense ads, both are running on this blog and he has them positioned in the navigation bar at the bottom. As anyone who makes money with Google Adsense will tell you… put your ads at the bottom of the page… that’s where the REAL money is made with Adsense. (Tongue is planted so firmly in cheek it hurts with that statement!)

However, because my dear, sweet, lovely clients would never lie to get clients, they assume that this guy is also a straight shooter as well.

Google Adsense can be a GREAT way to make money with very little effort from your blog, but it’s a numbers game pure and simple. From my experience with Google Adsense ads, I average about $1 for every 1000 visitors. Since the client who sent me that email gets about 2500 visitors to her blog every month, she can expect to make about $2.50 a month from displaying Google Adsense ads on her blog. Needless to say, that is far short of the promised $15,000 promised by this wannabe marketing guru!

In direct contrast to the idiot I refused to link to who promised guaranteed income of $15K, I’d like to introduce you to Courtney Tuttle. In his post, Smart Farmers Don’t Plant One Seed at a Time (and Neither Do Smart Internet Marketers)

As we’ve taught you more and more about sniping I’ve had a recurring fear for our readers. The fear is that you’ll do a little “case study” of your own, with one site, and after a few months you’ll get that number 1 spot on Google. It will be a big victory, because you’ll feel like you cracked the Google code, you’ve made it, arrived, etc…but then the site won’t make much. Maybe $3 to $5 per day.

Personally I think a $5 per day site is something to be excited about when it’s part of a portfolio of ten similar sites. But if you invest 6 months into getting that one site ranked, and then another month or two watching it get to $5 per day, you’re going to be mad.

Court’s the best… that other guy my client found is the worst.   Learning to tell the difference sometimes means getting burned but if you’ve got a blog, you can at least share your experience with others.  (Thanks Naomi!)

WordPress 2.5: Fix for the “unable to upload files” blues

I love WordPress… really I do. WordPress blogs are great for so many reasons which I’ve covered before here. I’ve got clients who can barely use email who are creating posts on WordPress blogs that are getting GREAT SERPS.

WordPress is DEFINITELY the technically challenged person’s dream application.

Installing WordPress is easy.   Using Fantastico, it’s positively simple.  The devil is in the details.

For example, when WordPress 2.5 is running on a security minded hosting platform… well, let’s just say allowing WordPress 2.5 to upload images or video is NOT viewed as a desired activity.

In order to work around this, you have to rewrite the htaccess file. It’s not a biggie and while I was in there, I found some great suggestions on how to rewrite the htaccess file to keep the “bad bots” out.

With that said, it only takes a misplaced character to screw up your ENTIRE website when you’re messing with your htaccess files. Mistakes were made…. but no clients were injured in the process. <grin>

Here’s a bit of the code that I found on the WordPress.org message boards which fixed the 2.5 image upload file error. Add this to your htaccess file and VIOLA… WordPress 2.5 uploads files, images and videos.

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

As for my clients… they are ecstatic that this is my job and not theirs.

Unfortunately, as WordPress becomes even more powerful and more popular, it’s becoming less accessible for the technologically challenged.