by Bryan on October 2, 2008
So Google performed an update to its toolbar PageRank this past weekend. It’s always nice to get a visual snapshot of my site’s PageRank but that is all it is, a snapshot.
I’m an avid reader of various webmaster blogs and forums and it seems every time the Google toolbar is updated I see a gross amount of incorrect statements being made about PageRank as if they were fact. So if you will, I’m going to take this opportunity to cover a few PageRank misconceptions.
1. A Toolbar Update Is Not A PageRank Update
It seems a lot of people think PageRank only updates every few months when Google updates the green PageRank bar. This is not true. In fact, the internal Google PageRank (the one that impacts SERPs) is constantly updating. The green toolbar PageRank is simply a rounded snapshot of data pushed to the toolbar.
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by Bryan on September 26, 2008
In recent months the internet has experienced a meteoric rise in the popularity of Micro-blogging. Twitter.com has nabbed the top spot in the space and has become an essential tool to many high profile bloggers and internet marketers. Twitter’s service provides 140 characters per post and allows users to follow others and be followed similar to an rss subscriber (more about Twitter). We all know bloggers and internet marketers aren’t using the service just for kicks, which begs the question, why are they using Twitter? Let’s take a look.
5 Good Reasons Bloggers Should Use Twitter
1. Attract New Subscribers
By allowing users to follow and be followed, Twitter proves to be an excellent tool to find and attract your target audience. Conversing on your topic can net you followers through Twitter search channels and through the profiles of followers or people you are following. Twitter allows you to add a url in your profile so there is a good chance your Twitter followers will make their way to your blog if they like what you have to say.
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by Bryan on September 25, 2008
I’m going to start this post off with a few blogging statistics.
- Technorati has indexed 133 million blogs.
- Only 1.1% of blogs online have posted in the last week.
- Approximately 130,000 new blogs are launched every day.
Looking at those numbers it sure seems like new blogs are almost set up for failure before they ever get started. So many blogs to compete with and and at the same time so many that seem to have already failed. The truth is blogging is not easy and every blogger will face numerous failures. Whether it be a missed opportunity, a post that gets criticized by commenters, a hosting outage or a factual oversight, failures are going to happen. How a blogger manages failure is what is important.
Notable Failures
To get us started in the right direction lets take a look at a few failures of successful people.
Michael Jordan - Cut from his high school basketball team.
Rush Limbaugh - Dropped out of South East Missouri State University his freshman year after failing 2 speech classes.
Walt Disney - Fired from a newspaper job because he didn’t bring original ideas and lacked imagination.
Kurt Warner - Worked at a grocery store stocking shelves for minimum wage after being cut by the Green Bay Packers.
Abraham Lincoln - Defeated in 8 elections and had 2 failed businesses.
To add some blogging perspective lets look at one of the top internet marketing bloggers Jeremy Schoemaker. Jeremy recently posted some of his failures at Shoemoney.com with a notable tongue in cheek comment that he is, “about 5 for 500 when it comes to successful ideas vs flops”.
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by Bryan on September 23, 2008
Have you ever registered on a blog to find login and user pages with the WordPress backend look that just don’t fit the flow of the blog’s design? If so, you’re not alone.
Rae Hoffman recently enlisted the help of expert WordPress plugin creator Joost de Valk to ditch the WordPress look from the subscription user pages and create a seamless built in look. The result is the Customize Your Community plugin.
While I don’t offer user signup on Blogging Review currently I decided to go through the process to see if this plugin was as good as advertised. I wasn’t disappointed. The install was very easy and setup took just a few minutes by inserting some DIV tags into custom backend fields. The DIV tag additions allow you to match your new user pages to the blogs current layout. I really like this method as it ensures maximum flexibility of the plugin. I can see how it would be a bit confusing for the beginner not familiar with code, but with a little time everyone should be able to get it done.
Here are some screen shots showing user pages before and after installing the CYC plugin
Default User Registration Page
Registration Page With The CYC Plugin
Default User Page
User Page With The CYC Plugin
As you can see the plugin does a fantastic job of bringing the user pages into the theme of the blog making the experience much more seamless. I highly recommend this plugin for any WordPress blog that allows open registration.
Get It Here
Customize Your Community Plugin Page
Don’t forget to donate if you decide to install CYC. 
by Bryan on September 22, 2008
If you are a WordPress user and you are utilizing the WordPress stats services you’ve probably noticed that the service also comes is a very small smiley face addition to your blog footer. The smiley was added as a visual way to ensure the stats are tracking and is not something that can be removed directly from the plugin code.
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