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As this blog continues to grow and evolve (and as I get more familiar with what WordPress is capable of, particularly all those free plug-ins that are floating around the internet), I will work to provide you, my valued readers, with the best experience possible, while at the same time, I’ll be working to monetize and actually make an extra few bucks from Beyond the Rhetoric.
I’m probably quite a ways off before I’ll make $7k a month like John Chow, but the goal is there and I strive to reach it. He always did say, though, that you should write for your readers first and not for SEO or monetization. Write good content and the money will follow.
I’m working to make this blog better, so here are a small handful of features I have implemented over the last little while:
Bookmarks: One of the best things you do for your blog traffic is to get a particularly interesting post hit the Digg front page. You want to encourage your readers to Digg you, Delicious you, and so on. You’ll notice that at the end of each post, I now have a series of clickable buttons that will let you submit any given article to those popular social networking sites. This WordPress plug-in was probably one of the easiest to install. Feel free to try it out.
Top Commentators: Not entirely new anymore — I plunked it in before the end of February — but I’ve noticed a slight increase in the number of comments I get on this blog after implementing it. People like seeing their name in print and more people love getting the free linkback. To further encourage commenting, I might toss in a contest or two in the future. Suggestions?
Related Posts: I have been doing this manually for some time for a good number of my posts, but automation is the way to go (if it works). You won’t see the list of related posts when you visit the main page of this blog, but they’ll show up when you go into each individual entry. The problem is that you will see some duplication because, as I mentioned, I did this manually before. Extra bonus for you: more related posts. Special thanks to Ajith of Simple Informations for suggesting I add this plug-in.
Akismet: I don’t know why I didn’t activate this plug-in right away. Within 24 hours of moving over to WordPress, Beyond the Rhetoric got bombarded with comment spam. It was mostly ugly trackbacks from, ahem, adult web sites. Akismet is a pretty good comment spam blocker and has done an excellent job since I activated it a couple days ago.
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I agree with you Michael. I write with no ideas of “SEO or monetization”. You can note that I have neither advertisement, nor affiliate links anywhere on my site. Ultimately, content comes first, and once readers appreciate what you write, you can kick-start from there.
WP is perfect for the multiple plug-ins that you can put in. It is akin to a Huge playground for us ‘kids’. 🙂
It’s like a sandbox (no reference intended to Google). You can build new toys, remove them when you grow tired of them, and interact with the other ‘kids’, exchanging tips on how to best enjoy the sand. 🙂
I like the developments with your blog Michael! Akismet has to be one of the best inventions ever!!! I’m sure you have plenty of people to ask that are waaaay more qualified than me, but if you need any help with any thing…just shoot a hollar 🙂
One suggestion, I went to reply to a comment, and noticed there wasn’t a button there. You may want to get it from Chow’s site to increase comments. You saw what it did for John 😉
Thanks for the pointers Jane (I visit Career Ramblings daily). Yes, I don’t have threaded comments yet. Maybe that’ll be the next plug-in I’ll install… THERE’S SO MANY! 🙂
So how much do you make now (approximately) Michael????????????
Threaded comments is a great plugin to make your comments more tidy. Easier for readers to see who is responding to who.
Due to popular demand, I have now installed threaded comments. It was glitchy for the first few moments, but it seems to have cleared itself up. Let me know if you discover anything strange.
I’m not quite as open about my earnings as John is, but I make next to nothing on this blog (as of right now). Last month I only got $20-something from Adsense. All my money comes from my freelance writing.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if you tried to push this site to the max. traffic-wise that is. I can tell that it has alot of potential and i’m sure you could be raking in the cash from adsense ect.
Thanks Jake. Yeah, it’s not like I haven’t been actively trying to increase traffic to the blog (joining MyBlogLog, commenting on other blogs, etc.), it’s just not a main focus for me at this time. I hope to keep growing though 🙂
The related posts plugin is a good one. I noticed a big jump in pageviews after I installed it.
Threaded comments I’ve been meaning to add but I haven’t got around to it yet. I want to add the mybloglog avatars plugin at the same time.
Thanks for the mention Michael