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Q&A: What WordPress Plugins Do You Use?

Q&A: What WordPress Plugins Do You Use?

January 5th, 2009 — Daily Blog Tips

questions and answers

Rajasekharan asked:

What are those minimal set of WordPress plugins that you would recommend any blogger to use and which are those plugins that you actually use?

This is a question I get asked quite often, so lets take it out of the way.

First of all I don’t think there is a minimal set of WordPress plugins that I would recommend to bloggers. It depends on the blog in question, and on what features the blogger requires for it. A simple photo blogger could get away with 4 or 5 plugins, while someone building a more complex website could need 15 plugins to make it run smoothly.

Now let’s cover the plugins I am using on Daily Blog Tips (notice that this list might be different for my other blogs):

1. Akismet: Probably the first plugin I activate on any blog. It already comes with WordPress after all, and I found it to be the most reliable anti-spam plugin around.

2. All in On SEO Pack: I resisted using this plugin for a couple of years, but late in 2008 I was having a problem with duplicate meta description tags on my main content pages (homepage, page 2, 3 and so on), therefore I decided to give it a shot. I am very pleased with it, and definitely recommend to other bloggers.

3. Chunck URLs: Ever had someone leaving a comment with a really long URL that broke your site design? To prevent this problem you can use this plugin. It will break down long URLs automatically.

4. Custom Query String: This plugin is a life saver for me. It allows me to specify how many posts I want displayed on every page type of my blog. For example, it allows me to display 8 posts on the homepage, 15 posts per page on search results, and all the posts ever published on category pages.

5. SGR Clean Archives: Personally I think that all websites and blogs should have one page where all the articles and posts ever published would be available. That is what this plugin does, it creates an Archives page for you with all your posts. As the name says, the style of that page is pretty clean too.

6. Feedburner FeedSmith: I am not sure how necessary this plugin is if you point all your RSS feeds manually to the Feedburner one. I guess I use it just to be 100% that all the subscribers will be redirected to it.

7. Related Posts: This is an old “Related Posts” plugin, but it gets the job done. To be frank, lately I am finding that it lacks in some aspects, so when I get some free time I will make the switch to the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

8. Robots Meta: A cool plugin by friend Joost de Valk that allows you to add all the appropriate robots meta tags to your pages and feeds, disable unused archives and nofollow unnecessary links.

9. RSS Footer: This plugin allows you to add a text message or some links to your RSS footer. Additionally, it also comes with a feature to automatically add a link to the original post on the feed, which is particularly useful to combat content scrapers.

10. WP-ContactForm: A very old and rustic contact form plugin, but I love its simplicity. Somehow I also don’t get spam even without a CAPTCHA on that form, and I have been using it for years.

11. WP-SuperCache: The best cache plugin available. It has a lot of advanced features, and it gets the job done when you have sudden burst of traffic from social media.

12. GoCodes: Very light yet useful plugin. It lets you create redirects on the fly, which is useful if you want to link to affiliate programs and advertisers while keep the links pointing to your own blog. It also allows you to track the clicks on those links.

13. Subscribe to Comments: The classic plugin that allows commentators to subscribe to the comment section and receive new comments via email. Lately I also started questioning how many people actually use this feature, but for now I will leave it live on my blogs.

As you can see I just use the plugins that are essential to the running of my website. Sometimes I install new ones to test them out, but if they are not essential, I remove them right after.

Q&A: What WordPress Plugins Do You Use?

Q&A: Should I Buy Text Links For SEO?

Q&A: Should I Buy Text Links For SEO?

January 4th, 2009 — Daily Blog Tips

questions and answers

Matej asked:

When someone purchases text link for a month on one site in order to increase their SE rankings - is it enough, or it needs to stay in there at least couple of months? Will Google notice when someone removes the link? For how long people buy text links, is there some rule?

First of all I don’t recommend purchasing text links for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. While this practice was widespread and reasonably secure until some years ago, in 2008 Google made a special effort to combat it.

Their objective is to keep their search algorithm working as efficiently as possible, to make sure that when you use their search engine you will find just what you were looking for. That is what keep them in business, after all.

Paid links might disrupt those search results (according to Google), so they tried to extinguish the practice from the Internet. Many websites that were selling (and some that were buying) got penalized last year, and most webmasters started playing on the safe side.

Now I am not saying that buying text links for SEO is right or wrong. There are good arguments on both sides. However, we need to accept that Google has its own search engine, and the rights to dictate the rules inside it. If you want to get listed on their search index, you need to play by their rules. Period.

Some people disrespect those rules deliberately and try to fly under the radar. That is a strategy too, but a risky one in my opinion. It is liking trying to cheat in a poker game. If they don’t catch you, you might end up with good money. If they do, you will be in trouble.

How you want to play the game is up to you though, and I am not here to preach anyone.

Back to the original question: if you are buying text links for SEO, for how long should you keep them?

The answer depends on your objectives.

Sometimes people just want to get a website indexed fast. For that case purchasing a link on a trusted website for one month should be enough (for the matter of fact purchasing the link for a couple of days should already get you indexed).

If your objective is to increase your rankings for searched keywords and increase your overall organic traffic level, though, you will need keep the paid links live constantly.

Why? Because Google is constantly monitoring the links that point to your website, always recalculating your rankings and overall trust level. Suppose you have an article about “superman comic book” that is ranked in page 2 of Google for that search query. You then purchase a text link on a popular comic books website, and that link propels your page to the second result in Google. If after one month the website owner removes your link, as soon as Google spiders it and finds that the link is gone it will immediately recalculate your search rankings, and if all other variables stayed the same, your page will go back to the second page of the search results.

Sometimes it might take longer for the effect of a removed link to appear, because some websites get crawled only once in a while. Sooner or later Google will crawl it, though, and if the link you purchased is not there anymore it will stop yielding results for your search rankings.

Q&A: Should I Buy Text Links For SEO?

Mix, Match and Transform RSS Feeds with xFruits

Mix, Match and Transform RSS Feeds with xFruits

January 3rd, 2009 — Daily Blog Tips

I came across xFruits some time ago, and I found it a really interesting concept. It is basically a website dedicated at mixing and transforming information systems. Practically speaking, here are some of things that you can do using their service:

aggregate several RSS feeds into one
transform an RSS feed into a web page
transform an RSS feed into PDF documents
transform an RSS feed into mobile alerts
group several RSS feeds and create an OPML file
send an RSS feed to an email address
transform emails into an RSS feed

xfruits

Sounds cool right? You can even transform an RSS feed into an audio file! I bookmarked the website just in case. Sooner or later I am sure we will all need to do something unusual with an RSS feed, and this service could come useful.

Mix, Match and Transform RSS Feeds with xFruits

Uncoverr.com: A Resource for Web Designers and Developers

Uncoverr.com: A Resource for Web Designers and Developers

January 1st, 2009 — Daily Blog Tips

Lachy G., an old time Daily Blog Tips reader, contacted me to let me know that he launched a website aimed at web designers and web developers, called Uncoverr.com.

What is the site all about? It basically features book reviews, articles and interviews about web development in general. If you browse the books section, in fact, you will find a big list of books for Javascript, PHP, AJAX, ASP and so on.

He also published a recent interview with Chris Garrett. Here is a quote from it:

Can you talk about the time commitment in writing a book, was there much research, or have you always been able to just publish your personal views and opinions on the various topics you have written about?

I think everyone underestimates how long a book will take. Not just the writing either, the whole process takes *months*. You can never just splurge your thoughts out if you want it to be a top quality book, you must be sure of what you are saying is both true and will work for the reader. With publishing online you can send it out and correct or tweak based on feedback. You don’t have that luxury in print so everything must be checked, checked and checked.

Overall I think it is a nice idea, and if they manage to keep adding fresh content like interviews and book reviews, it will be a nice resource for web developers. Check it out.

Uncoverr.com: A Resource for Web Designers and Developers

Daily Blog Tips: Best of 2008

Daily Blog Tips: Best of 2008

December 31st, 2008 — Daily Blog Tips

This yeas was very productive for Daily Blog Tips. We grew the number of RSS subscribers from 7,500 to almost 16,000, and the traffic increase followed on the same pace. I am also sure that the main ingredient for that healthy growth was the unique and (I hope) useful content that I publish.

Below you will find a recap with the most popular posts in 2008 (in a random order), enjoy.

10 Simple Productivity Tips for Bloggers: Productivity itself is pretty unimportant. It’s what productivity allows us to do that matters. A productive blogging habit means more posts and more quality, and we all know what that means: more links and more traffic.
3 Must Apply Security Tips for WordPress: Today I was reading through my RSS feeds and I came across a very interesting post from Matt Cutts. Basically he was describing 3 (plus a bonus) tips to secure your WordPress install. I was already using two of them, but the first one was new to me, and looks like it is the most effective one as well.
How to Write Scannable Content: A 6-Step Approach: Despite what some people might think, the Internet is no big book. This means one thing: if you write in large, monotonous blocks of text, people will just ignore you and your message.
10 Things That Bloggers Tend to Forget, But Shouldn’t!: I must admit that I tend to forget some of these myself, so hopefully this post will also serve as a checklist to go through once in a while. What about you, do you forget them?
Open Discussion: What is Your Favorite Web Hosting?: Like it or not, web hosting is a vital part of any website. Reliable and fast hosting will give your readers a much better user experience, and they will be more likely to return in the future. Slow hosting with frequent downtimes, on the other hand, will not only annoy your visitors, but it might also harm your search engine rankings over the long term.
28 Ways to Make Money with Your Website: There are several lists with “ways to make money with a website” on the Internet, but none of them seem to be complete. That is why I decided to create this one. If you know a method that is not listed below, just let us know and we’ll update it.
Extending Your Reach from Blogger to Influencer: 12 Practical Tips: Many top bloggers are not just seen as bloggers. Some have been able to transcend the role of blogger and have become icons of their industries that have significant impact and influence on others. A successful blogger may be able to attract readers and make money through their blog in one way or another, but an influencer’s reach will extend well beyond their own blog into the niche as a whole.
The Dynamics of the Subscriber Impulse: When Do People Decide To Grab Your RSS Feed?: This is a question that has been on my mind for some time already. When I started getting a good response from readers on my first blogs, I thought to myself: “Cool, they like the content. Now it is just a matter of getting mentioned on a blog with thousands of subscribers and these people will want to grab my RSS feed as well.”
Hold Tight, It Will Only Get Easier: Most bloggers that get discouraged and decide to abandon their blogs tend to do so on the first three to six months. Sometimes the traffic is not growing as fast as they would like. Other times they are not happy with the money that they are making. Personally I think that quitting after such a short period is a mistake.
Become a Blogging Wizard - 6 Lessons from Harry Potter: Humble beginnings, a long arduous struggle, and ultimate triumph… The story of a young wizard? Or the story of a beginning blogger? How about both? Here are six lessons from Harry Potter on how to become a blogging wizard.
The Ultimate WordPress Contact Form Plugin: cforms II: Recently I was creating a small static website, and I needed to insert a custom contact form there. I use WordPress as a CMS even for static websites, so I tried a couple of contact form plugins. None of them was customizable enough, though, so I went to ask a couple of programmers if they were interested in creating a custom contact form for me.
50 Thoughful, Funny and Polemic Blogging Quotes: I love quotes, what can I say. Below you will find some that I gathered recently. Some of them are thoughtful, others funny, others yet polemic. All of them should be worth a reading though. If you have one to add, just let me know.
5 Steps to Write Effective Articles in Less Time: Do you sit in front of computer for a long time to create a single blog post or article? Does it take too much thinking for you to come up with an effective article? If your answer was ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you should continue to read the post. Whether you are a blogger or a freelance writer or an article marketer, you need to write effective articles quickly. If you are doing one of those as a full time job, you must really use your time properly and try to write more articles in less time. Here are few things you should do when you sit to write an article or blog post.
Is It Just Me or Most Web 2.0 Domain Names Suck?: A couple of weeks ago I was browsing around TechCrunch when I came across some articles that were listing web startups that would be participating on a Demo event. The idea about getting startups grouped together to demonstrate what they products or services can do is pretty interesting, but that was not what caught my attention. Instead, I could not help but think about how bad some of these domain names were. Here are a few examples:
10 Signs That Your Blog Is On The Right Track: Starting a new blog or growing an existing one can certainly be frustrating, as it may seem like you are not on pace to achieve your goals. Like anything worthwhile, building a solid and effective blog will take some time and hard work. As Daniel wrote recently, it gets easier with time if you can stick with it.
Do You Really Need to go to the University?: If you want to work on the Internet or to be an entrepreneur, I really don’t think you need to. I always tell my friends that if I had the mind that I have today (in terms of knowing what I want to do, and what knowledge and tools I need to do that) five years ago, I would not have enrolled myself in the university.
Let’s Follow Each Other on Twitter, Shall We?: After reading about it virtually on every single website on the web, a couple of weeks ago I decided to give Twitter a try. I must say that, contrary to what many people claim to, I did not get addicted to it.
Embracing the Status of Part-Time Blogger: 5 Practical Tips: I’m sure you read a lot about pro blogging and what it takes to earn a full-time income from your blog. This is a common topic among active bloggers and there are plenty of great articles that cover various aspects of the subject. With the huge amount of focus that is given to becoming a pro blogger, I think that becoming a successful and profitable part-time blogger is often overlooked. Earning a reasonable amount of money on a part-time basis is actually more desirable than most people realize.
May 1st RSS Awareness Day: Get Involved: What is the takeaway message? Only a very small percentage of the Internet population is aware of the RSS format and its benefits.
Killer Domains: My First eBook is Available Now: If you tried to find some good domain names lately you know how disappointing the experience can be. It feels like all the marketable domains are already gone. And the problem is that the success of your website starts with the domain name.
7 Reasons Why You Might Never Be Productive: Are you disappointed with the fact that, no matter how hard you try, you can never seem to get things done in a productive manner? If so, then acting now is the way to go because you can rest assured that things will not exactly get better if you just stand there and wait for a miracle. As a blogger, being productive is definitely a must if you are serious about long-term success and living in denial is simply not an option.
Open Discussion: What Do You Think of Internet Marketers? (aka the long sales page gurus): The same cannot be said about people that resort to the long sales pages, though. If you navigate around the web you will notice that there is a great deal of controversy around these practices.
The Best Sources of Content for WordPress Users: If you’re looking for technical documentation or support, the codex and forums are usually the first place to look. However, I would like to share some blogs and websites that provide a good amount of WP-related content that I think you will appreciate. Whether you are a theme designer/developer or a blogger who is looking to get more out of WordPress, visit some of these sites and see for yourself.
Website Traffic Series Part 3: Leave Comments on Other Blogs: On the first part of this series we talked about how you can generate traffic to your website by getting it featured on Web Design and CSS galleries. On the second part we talked about Blog Carnivals. Today we will cover another basic yet effective strategy: leaving comments on other blogs.
Make Sure Your WordPress is Not Hacked: Lately there there seems to be a hacking spree around old versions of WordPress. Most of the times the hacker will edit your theme files to insert spam links. One of my older and non-active blogs got that problem, and I had several friends complaining to me about it as well when chatting over IM.
Why You Must be the First, in Google’s Search Results at Least!: People always say that you need to be in the first page of results in Google if you want to receive clicks, right? Well, this will hurt, but the reality is that merely being in the first page is not enough.
Are You Familiar with HTML and CSS? Six Reasons Why You Should Invest the Time to Learn: I had been involved with web design for a few years before I ever started blogging. In my opinion, being able to work with the code of a blog is a huge advantage that many bloggers choose not to pursue.
Video Blog Review 1 - FavBrowser.com: On this first blog review I will cover the design and layout aspects of FavBrowser.com, a blog coming from one of our readers (I asked his permission to review it).
Google Indexing Scrapers First?: This made me curious and went to check for myself. The first thing I wanted to know was if my post was indexed already by Google or not. I copied one sentence from the post and search it in Google, with quotation marks to find only exact matches.
Poll: What is Your Favorite Browser?: Anyway all this browser thinking got me curious about what browser you guys use. I know that many of you will need to use more than for work purposes (cross browser testing, Internet Explorer applications, etc), but what is your favorite browser for surfing the web, blogging and similar?
Website Traffic Series Part 6: Using Forum Signatures: Time to analyze another traffic generation strategy: using forum signatures. At the bottom of this post you will find links to all the previous parts on the series, and stay tuned for future ones, we are going to cover literally all of them!
Star Trek Blogging: The Klingon Way: In the world of Star Trek, Klingons are known as a warrior people, formidable in battle, fierce in their passions, and concerned with honor above all. But the life of a Klingon has lessons for humans, even for that sedentary class known as bloggers. Here are three proverbs that can help you learn to blog the Klingon way.
DarkZen WordPress Theme Released: Most of our previous WordPress themes used light or vivid colors, so I thought that a darker design was needed on the portfolio. DarkZen comes with a dark header and a gray background, packed on a clean and minimalist design.
The Pros and Cons of Working from Home on the Internet: Almost two years passed since I quit my job inside a multinational company to work from home on the Internet. For me it was pretty a straight forward move. One year inside a corporation was enough to clarify what I wanted to do professionally, and working for someone else was definitely not part of it.
Did You Buy YourName.com Already?: All right let’s put this straight: if you read Daily Blog Tips regularly, there are good chances that one day you will become a web celebrity. If that is the case, you should register YourName.com before someone else does.
My Top Commentators WordPress Plugin: I am glad to release the third WordPress plugin by Daily Blog Tips. My Top Commentators is a plugin that allows a blogger to discover who are the most active commentators on his blog (via the WordPress Dashboard, so other people will not see this information).
3 Simple Secrets to Reducing Your Blogging Stress: Thoughts, creativity, and writing should flow freely and without tension. As I was writing an article a few months ago I noticed the strain in my stomach, neck, and jaw. I was straining to get the thoughts out. As if tensing my muscles would actually help me focus or even create something helpful to my readers.
The Bloggers Union (or Association): Should we create a bloggers union? This idea was floating on my head, so I decided to share with everyone.
The Bloggers Glossary: If you think there is a term missing just let me know and I will update the glossary.
Take One Day Off Every Week: Yesterday I took the whole day off line (we had a guest post indeed). Now that I think about it, it was the first one in a really long time. Sure I don’t work full time on weekends, but I was getting used to working half a day on Saturdays and Sundays.
Blogging Idol Is Live!: Show time! All the competitors have until the July 31 (midnight) to prove their blogging skills and to improve their RSS subscriber base.
Open Discussion: Does a Degree Improve Your Chances of Succeeding Online?: Let’s kick start this week with an open discussion. Do you think that a college degree will improve the chances of someone succeeding online?
Forget Winzip. Try 7-Zip: This one month traveling, where I was forced to use my Windows laptop, allowed me to discover many new useful and interesting software for the paid operating system.
Are Social Networks Like the Fashion Industry?: Fashion lovers pardon me, but I am very skeptical regarding the usefulness of this industry.
BlueSensation WordPress Theme Released: Last month we missed the free WordPress theme release, but the one for July is available now. BlueSensation is a clean theme with a traditional look: large content column on the left and a single sidebar, ready to display 125×125 ads.
Behind The Scenes: Check Out The Desktop of 30 Bloggers: The result was pretty good though. Last week I asked for the DBT readers to share their desktop, and 30 of you stepped forward (if I missed anyone just let me know).
PageRank Update Coming in 2-3 Days: Hey I am not the one saying it, the word is coming from Mr. Matt Cutts (head of Google’s web spam team).
Is Google Crossing the Line with Knol?: Now while I am willing to sing them praises when deserved, I also think that we should be vocal when they cross the line. If you paid attention to the launch of their expertise sharing website Knol, you probably saw a great deal of controversy coming together.
Alexa is Becoming Completely Worthless: Alexa is becoming a joke lately. Some people claim that over the previous two years it was already losing reliability, but lately it went completely nuts. Whatever they did on the last algorithm update, it messed up their rankings badly.
What Is A Blog?: It is 2008; do we still need to ask ourselves what a blog is? I think so, and for two reasons. First of all we still have many misconceptions about blogging floating around the web. Pretty much every week I get at least one email from someone asking if I believe blogging has a future. My answer is always “as long as the Internet has a future, blogs do too.” You will see why I answer that below.
The Art of Writing Catchy Articles: 11 Simple Tips: If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them - George Orwell
Interview with Timothy Sykes (The Guy Makes $50,000 Monthly From His Blog): A couple of weeks ago a reader emailed me to ask if I knew anything about a guy named Timothy Sykes, who is supposedly making some killer money with his blog.
On Domain Names, Size and Quality DOES Matter!: What kind of impact will a domain name have on the success of the website hosted there? There are basically two schools of thought around the web.
On Linkbaits, Socialbaits and Viral Content: If you have been involved with online marketing, web publishing or blogging for a while, I am sure that you have come across the terms linkbait, socialbait and viral content at least once.
50 Simple Ways to Gain RSS Subscribers: Most bloggers love their RSS readers. Not only that, but they also love to gain new RSS readers. It is such a joy when you wake up one day and see that your Feedburner count jumped by 200 or 300, right?

Daily Blog Tips: Best of 2008

Google Just Updated the Nominal PageRank

Google Just Updated the Nominal PageRank

December 31st, 2008 — Daily Blog Tips

I was expecting it to happen early in January 2009, but the Mountain View folks were faster. The nominal PageRanks started changing yesterday, and by today you should already be seeing the updated values.

I am pretty happy with the new numbers. Daily Blog Tips remained a PR6, while Daily Writing Tips went up from PR5 to PR6, and TechCult went up to PR5.

How about you, did your PageRank increase?

Google Just Updated the Nominal PageRank

Q&A: Should I Interlink My Own Blogs and Sites?

Q&A: Should I Interlink My Own Blogs and Sites?

December 30th, 2008 — Daily Blog Tips

questions and answers

Ron Merters asked:

I have several sites. They are “somewhat” related - they are all related to technology, but different technology. (like one is cars, the other is washing machines, let’s say - related, but not really).

I have added a footer on each site with links to the others on my network. Is that wise? Will I get punished by google who might consider this a link exchange?

Interesting question, especially because I have to deal with it with my own blogs and websites, too.

First of all let’s check what Google itself says about interlinking and link exchanges.

Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank

Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web

Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

As you can see, Google does not mention interlinking between websites that have the same owner or that belong to a network. The problem is when you “build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites.”

In my opinion, therefore, cross linking your own sites is OK as long as those links are placed for the purpose of helping your readers to find more content that they might like, and not exclusively to increase the overall PageRank of your online properties.

That being said, I would add an extra layer of caution on the interlinking process, even if done with legitimate purposes in mind. Why? Because often times it will be a computer and not a person judging if your interlinking is legitimate or not. That is, it will be a Google bot taking a look at your sites and determining if the cross linking is suspicious or not. If for some reason the computer finds that your links are suspicious, you might get a search filter penalty without knowing it.

So what is this extra layer of caution? Using the nofollow attribute on the links that connect your own sites. If you are interlinking them for the purpose of letting your readers know about your other properties, after all, nofollowed links should get the job done anyway. The only difference is that they won’t pass link juice.

That is what I use on my “Daily” network on all my sites that are interlinked. Most large blog networks are also nofollowing their network links these days, too.

So my answer is: In theory it is OK to interlink your sites and blogs as long as you are doing it with the purpose of adding value to your users and readers (by letting them know about your other content that they could also be interested in). If you want to be 100% safe, however, it would be a good idea to add a nofollow attribute to your cross links.

Q&A: Should I Interlink My Own Blogs and Sites?

I Am Looking for a Podcaster

I Am Looking for a Podcaster

December 29th, 2008 — Daily Blog Tips

One of my upcoming projects will have a great deal of audio content, and I am looking for someone interested in producing that for me. The scripts will be provided by me, so you would just need to record them and send me the MP3 files back.

My budget for the project is over $1,000, so if you are interested just send me a message via the contact form. It would be nice if you have samples of your voice work to show.

I Am Looking for a Podcaster

56 Internet Goals To Get You Inspired for a Great 2009

56 Internet Goals To Get You Inspired for a Great 2009

December 29th, 2008 — Daily Blog Tips

A couple of weeks ago I asked our readers what were their Internet related goals for 2009. Below you will find what 56 of them replied. Notice that I only published a small excerpt of the goals of each one, and you can click on their names to visit their blogs and read the full post with their goals.

I am sure you will find some nice goals to get you inspired for the new year, and perhaps even find some fellow bloggers to partner with and work together to achieve those goals.

1. N-Speaks:

1. Cross 350 RSS subscriber mark.
2. Write atleast 5 posts a week
3. Write atleast 3 good quality posts a week out of above 5

2. Crane Factory:

Goal 1 - Increase paid blogging income

I got a taste this year for paid blogging and it has so far worked out well. It certainly isn’t “pro blogger” money but it means I don’t need to dip into the household budget to fund things like hosting fees, publishing setup costs, or development costs such as premium themes.

3. JaledWith:

1. Two posts per week (a minimum of 104 next year)
2. Forty total RSS subscribers (current total: 20)
3. Add an original video at least once each month

4. Making Home Made Wine and Beer:

Stop chasing social media - 80% of visitors come from search engines and another 17% come from links and blogrolls.

5. MyLifeCEO:

1. To increase my readership (no limits to this)
2. To increase my ‘Property Product’ sales
3. To somehow upload my son’s “Thomas the Tank Engine” video clip to You Tube

6. JARD:

1. to launch my 1st e-book
2. to get more bookings from my two travel sites
3. to get more advertising/sponsors for my sites.

7. CashSeeker:

1. stop procrastinating
2. write an article at least once week and submit
3. create a new blog once a month( niches)

8. Hardware Revolution:

Reach 1,000,000 pageviews monthly. I know, you’re probably thinking that I’m absolutely out of my mind here. Well, I am aiming high, that is true. I do believe that it is a reachable number, if we work together toward it! We? That’s right. While I will do my best to deliver valuable content, I will need you to help me spread the news and help me by sharing this to your friends, family and contacts that you have on social networks!

9. Ibrahim Cesar:

Acho que é uma média atingível. Minha rotina vai mudar um bocado e vou ter menos tempo ainda para postar mas acredito que possa atingí-lo. Tenho algumas idéias para postagens, série de postagens, etc. O que têm me faltado ultimamente é motivação.

10. TechZoomin:

You must have got what would be my intention by this time! Yes,First we need to set some goals if you want to succeed some where.Ofcourse i know one more quotation “Setting goals is easy,But achieving shows the difficulty” Even though nothing we loose by setting and trying to achieve them.So,Here are my goals/dreams for the coming year.

11. LGR:

1. Posting more regularly, hopefully on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. If possible increasing posting frequency to five days a week.
2. Increasing RSS subscribers in the LGR Internet Solutions blog to 500 or more.
3. Diversifying my online income so it is more dependable and less reliant on one or two sources.

12. Slavi:

1. Read 7 good books on algorithms and best software development practices
2. Start learning Java
3. Write 5 articles / week

13. Essential Blog:

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14. Yield to Pedestrian :

1) I want to complete landing pages for all four of my main websites

2) I want to install on all four sites a four-part graphic widget that links to the landing page, the best posts, the funniest posts, and the most useful posts

3) I want to put up a better background on http://picsremix.com (suggestions?)

15. MyHou:

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16. Devakshor:

1. Increase the frequency of my posts.
2. Start posting at least one original and quality content on my blog every week.
3. Submit articles to EzineArticles, Goarticles, etc and create some Squidoo pages

17. eTechBuzz:

1. Figure out way to be successful in click arbitrage.
2. New designs for few blogs in my blog portfolio. (I manage 3 popular blogs)
3. Post consistency

18. Scribbler:

1. Increase traffic from sources other than Teacher Lingo
2. Get 100 RSS subscribers
3. Blog at least once a week

19. MayUOnline:

1. Daily Unique Hit: 4000
2. Daily Hit: 6000
3. Ad sense Revenue/Day: $10

20. Thursday Bram:

Before the end of January, 2009 I plan to have an ebook to share with all of you. I’ve been working on this particular ebook for a little while, but I need to wrap up some lose ends before I tell you the top secret title. I’m also planning to do a few more series of posts, like the series I did last year on copyright. If you’ve got any ideas for topics, please let me know.

21. Joyful Days:

My goal is that the Joyful Days blog benefits enough people to generate a monthly income of at least $800 a month. Too new to blogging to know how many daily uniques, RSS subscribers etc will give that result. That’s what I have to figure out next year!

22. Rarst :

1. Learn the new tools I found recently (Yahoo Pipes , PostRank , NewsGator , etc) and find some more.
2. Build some bridges of communication to people around, since starting this blog my Internet experience became more social.
3. Learn to drop services, sites and blogs I no longer enjoy sooner instead of sticking with them to the last.

23. Smart Blog Tips:

1. Bring one quality post per day + At least one Important News item from Blogosphere for the visitors
2. Start Video Blogging, bring one weekly Video post for the visitors

24. TechnoTip:

1. Stay focused and consistent.

2. To finish one of my project - Creation of a spirituality based website(will post about it soon).

3. Never to stop thinking of new ways to be online and to make a decent living out of it!

25. Alease Michelle :

1. To increase my readership- those who subscribe to my feed by 50%.

2. To offer more valuable content. Stay to my topics and only write about those topics.

3. To create a separate blog- that I am able to write about other topics of my interest.

26. Hardgainer Transformation;

1. I will post at least 2 posts per week (Tuesday and Thursday)
2. I will maintain better posting consistency
3. I’m going to start Video Blogging!

27. Heat ItFrom:

1) Get at least two friends to start blogging. This means you!!! Even if you keep your blog private (that’s easy to do) or accessible only to your friends and family, it’s just too easy to have a nice site these days. I have a whole different post coming about managing your online reputation. Having your own site is the first step. Grab a domain name for a few bucks a year, and talk to me about hosting. I’m running a friend special right now.

28. Zen Dreams:

1. Make more opensource plugins for Wordpress (and get ideas of course)
2. Publish more on Zen-Dreams.com (at least once every two days would be nice)
3. Get more daily visitors (not defined)

29. Island Crisis:

1. Reach over 500 Subscribers - I reached 94 from 8 but lost some during the migration. I guess it was those on the rss readers. It is now at 74.
2. Reach an average of 1000 page views per day by December 2009 - It is currently between 200 to 300 on normal days.
3. Keep a steady average number of 25 posts per month

30. Noo Idea:

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31. Putting Blogs First:

1. Have a Twitter network of at least 2000 followers (follow me on Twitter)
2. Become highly active on at least ten social media sites (currently about 3)
3. Have an RSS subscriber base of atleast 3000 readers, for this blog as well as for a new one(Listfied)

32. Home With The Kids:

1. Reach 500 RSS subscribers to this blog .
2. Build overall income to $5000/month across all sites. I’ve nudged this one many times in the past. I’d like this to be the year I stabilize it.
3. 5 posts per week per blog for my 2-3 best sites.

33. DutchSchoolKid:

1. Reach 500 visits a day on my blog. I am not sure what to expect, but if I can reach this, it will be good!
2. Reach 25 RSS subscribers. Something which is very low at the moment, I will work on this!
3. Get an income from blogging. It doesn’t have to be big, but it would be nice.

34. DailyApps:

1. Reach 7500 RSS subscribers (currently at 1300+) Didn’t manage to achieve that.. Currently at nearly 3000 subscribers
2. Average 30,000 daily page views (currently at 10,000) Around 20,000 at the moment, so didn’t achieve this as well.
3. Generate $2,000 in monthly revenues (currently at $0). Achieved it earlier in the year, but didn’t quite manage to keep it consistent

35. Daniy:

1. An Alexa rank under 200,000 points for this blog (it’s 1,118,243 points currently)
2. At least 200 subscribers for this blog (for the current time it has zero subscriber *wink*)
3. At least $1,000 monthly revenue from all my internet projects

36. Jen Patton:

Build up my blog subscribers to 500 and my newsletter subscribers to 500. Right now my newsletter subscriber list is growing faster than the blog. I have made some changes in my article resource box to drive more traffic directly to the blog. Some of the goals below will assist me in achieving both subscriber goals.

37. Bloggers Guide:

1. Increase Twitter followers to 500 (2008: about 40)
2. Increase page impressions to 200/day (2008: about 200/month)
3. Increase ad revenue to $5/day (2008: $5/year)

38. Bloggy:

1. To write at least 100 posts
2. Cross 50 RSS subscriber mark.
3. Improve posting quality

39. TechEnglish:

1. Ensure regular SKYPE conversation conferences on technical topics.
2. Involve in these conferences students from English speaking countries.
3. Involve students from English speaking countries in written discussion carrying out on the blog

40. Spreading Joy Corporation:

1. Post consistent articles that will encourage, motivate and remind other about the lasting joy of giving.

2. Focus on the quality of the posts.

3. Reach 700-1000 subscribers - This one scares me. Being so new and learning how to “get the word out” is more difficult than I had imagined.

41. Misentropy:

By the end of next year, I’d like to have the luxury of not needing to set any goals for this blog for the coming year(s). I’d like it to soar, with nary a thought to how high above the ground it is or how far below the sky. To be one with the wind, period.

42. Lx7:

1. The return of the Lx7 - Podcast - Once the studio is renovated and relatively dust free I am DEFINITELY bringing the camera in and shooting more how to videos, and get out to do some event based artist interviews.
2. Issue #3 of Assembler Techno Fanzine - all the articles are already here on the blog, but I haven’t done the magazine / PDF design.
3. More Music Releases - I’ve been working in a mini hardware setup that I’ve enjoyed alot, and once I’ve got the space where I can finalize some of the mixdowns, expect to see those finalized songs released beyond the Humanjava Enterprises page on Last.fm

43. Vanae:

1. To get 1 of my videos featured on YouTube
2. To reach 2,000 RSS subscribers
3. Triple my youTube subscribers to 15,000

44. Normadic Rider:

1. Launch a new blog dedicated to tech tips and trick. I have the domain up and will start posting soon.

2. Reach atleast 200 subscribers for the tech blog.

3. Contribute more guest posts and build up readership on the tech blog.

45. Accurate Auto Advice:

1. Re-design the architecture of the site. It’s difficult to navigate and it doesn’t give people a lot to grab onto.
2. Publish at least 12 videos - that’s only 1 per month, so it really shouldn’t be that hard.
3. Boost daily unique visitors from nil (where it’s at right now despite my best efforts) to 500.

46. Tundra Headquarters:

1. Reach out to more Tundra owners. People really seem to enjoy our ‘Featured Vehicles’ segments, and we’re going to work on boosting the number of trucks we write about.
2. Boost the number of RSS and email subscribers to 500. We’ve worked on posting on a regular basis (every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) and we’re starting to get pretty darn consistent. The next step is to increase the number of people that read our site regularly, even if it’s just from their inbox or RSS reader.

47. Our New Office:

1. Get more consistent. I’m not blogging often enough, plain and simple. If Sara and I work at it, we can post an entry every day of the week.
2. Expand the focus. Right now, we’re just blogging about our travels…but people always ask us what it’s like to work abroad, work at home, etc.

48. Weblist:

1.Reach 2,000 Twitter followers. (Currently 26)
2.Cross the border of Alexa’s 500,000 in Rank. (Currently 10,110,758)
3.Reach 1,000 RSS Readers. (Currently 0)

49. Exploring Binary:

1. Write 64 articles. My articles are technical and generally require a lot of research, and I want them to be accurate so that they will be a resource to search traffic for years to come. My current rate is about one article every 10 days. I’d like to publish one full-length article per week in 2009, plus some shorter articles that take less work.

50. Geek Entrepreneur:

Page Views: 5,000 a month by November 2009
Unique Visitors: 1,000 a month by November 2009
Twitter Followers: 800 by November 2009

51. Let’s Go Amerks:

1. Market and promote the site. Up until now it’s just been a field of dreams, we built it and people came. Need to go well beyond that in 2009.
2. Network, Network, and more networking!
3. Read the book Sports Media: Reporting, Producing, and Planning

52. Daily SEO Blog:

1 - Increase subscriber base to 10,000
2 - Increase average daily post count to 2, increase unique hits at least by double
3 - Get more involved with other projects

53. Amrick:

1. Launch DesignCloud.co.uk
2. Launch IWDJ
3. Re-launch BO

54. Sean P. Aune:

Comments -The number of comments is very sporadic, I would love to see some more sustained conversation going on.

Daily Page Views - Again, I am hoping to increase my average over this year, and though I am still seeing slight growth, it won’t be easy. I will again shoot for a 50% increase, and hope to do this through writing more general appeal posts that result in better search engine traffic.

55. Money Amulet:

1. achieve visit his blog in 2000 people per day
2. the number of subscribers to reach 10,000 people
3. Release PDF book with the best of my blog posts

56. Gonchaya:

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2. ??????? ????? ??????????? ????? ????? ?? 1000 ???????
3. ??????? ?????????? ????? ????? ?? PR5

56 Internet Goals To Get You Inspired for a Great 2009