These two plugins are going to change the way you blog, I promise. The way the wordpress admin panel is set up is time consuming, you have to click on options, wait for that to load, then click on what you need, unless of course it isn’t there and you have to go to manage instead. You may not know it yet, but the minute you install these plugins, you will understand.

The first is “Tiger Style Administration” they finally made it to work with the newest versions of word press, so if you liked it before, you can now get it again. Just like any other plugin, you need to download it and upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder, go to the plugins page a hit activate and you will see part one of a beautiful admin area.

That is all there is to it, but wait, you still have to click on the ‘Options’ tab to get to the ’second level’ options. Well, thats where the Admin Drop Down Menu comes into play. Simply download it just like any plugin, go to the plugins page and you get all pretty drop down menus.

This will save so much time, I cant imagine not having these two. The picture belos shows the drop down plugin on another theme, it looks much better with the Tiger Style. Feel free to ask any questions, I am glad to help!

wordpress, plugins, tiger, admin, drop down, menu

One thing you hear over and over again is that you want to build your authority as an expert in your field. Sounds easy right? Just talk about what you know and link to related things. Then hopefully those related things will be linking back to you as well.

Unfortunately, authority also comes in the form of good links versus bad links. And no one wants bad links. A site may look good when you link to it and later turn into a spam fest. But who has time to go around double checking links every week? I sure as heck don’t. Neither do you.

Courtney Tuttle found the easiest way to know if you’re linking to bad sites. How easy is it you ask? So easy all you have to do is know your own website’s url and enter it into the bad neighborhood tool, click submit, and wait.

As you can see that wasn’t too painful. I had questionable links from one of my sites, and I’m investigating that to decide if it really is questionable or not. Sometimes a link will be questionable just because of it’s topic, such as gambling. You get a nice little list at the end that shows the links, their link density, questionableness, and flags those that might be accused of blog spam (meaning the majority of their links come from blogs - which can be a natural thing you have to use judgment)

Remember this is just a tool to help you find things that might be questionable, it is not intended to tell you what to link to or not link to. It looks for certain patterns and topics that might be questionable and could bring down link authority. And just because it comes up in the list as questionable does not mean that it is questionable. It means that is is possibly questionable and you might want to go have a peek at it. Who you link to and when are totally up to you at all times, that’s the greatness of the internet.

So, who do you link to?

courtney tuttle, bad neighborhood, bad links, link strategy, linking, blog linking, authority linking

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and yesterday was one of those days. My husband took part of the day off yesterday, and we ended up going out for most of the day. It was a nice break, but before I knew it, Wednesday had passed! So here I am on Thursday morning posting the next review about another paid blogging company!

We’ve previously looked at paid blogging companies: PayPerPost, Blogitive, Blogsvertise, Sponsored Reviews and Loud Launch. Today, we’re going to look at ReviewMe.

ReviewMe is based on a directory search. People can go in and request a review from a particular blog. Your blogs are rated based on rank, traffic and other factors. If an advertiser is interested in a review from you, you’ll be notified via email that there is an offer available. You can then choose to accept or decline the offer. Again, each post has it’s own set of rules, so be sure to read what is required of you before you accept the job of writing the post.

One of the things I like about ReviewMe is that you can adjust the pricing on your blogs. You decide how much you want to be paid for a post. Remember that they will take 50% commission, so if you set your price to $60, you’ll see $30, and the other $30 goes to Review Me.

Another thing ReviewMe has started is offering jobs in a marketplace. Sometimes advertisers will choose to place their opportunities in the marketplace. These jobs pay a flat $5 fee to the person writing the post.

One nice aspect of ReviewMe is they have a tag cloud on the left side of the page, so you can see what topics are hot if you’re an advertiser. You can then look at some of the top blog offerings in that topic and make a decision easier. If I click on the tag “Business”, a list of blogs come up that meet that tag. They show me the price range they are offering, along with blogs ranking in their system. With 36 pages of blogs to choose from with all different styles and price ranges, the advertiser is bound to find the perfect fit for their job. Of course, if you are looking for this topic feel free to keep my own business blog BizMark Tech in mind!

If your an advertiser, “ReviewMe” also offer custom proposals, which may help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Happy Blogging! Deb

Lynne asked how to go about hosting a carnival. Now, I have to admit that I have not been very successful in the carnival arena, and I think my major problem has been in follow through. But that’s in steps three and four, and we need to begin at the beginning.

1. Decide on a theme. Ideally, this will be related to your blog in some way. Like, you maybe wouldn’t put a goth music carnival on a classical music blog. OTOH, you might get away with Baroque.  make a page explaining your carnival.
2. Set a date for the first carnie, and publicize it. Don’t be afraid to ask for submissions.
3. Make sure the people who submit to the carnival link back to you! This is paramount, and part of why I had trouble with my own carnivals. I wasn’t insisting on the linkage, and so word was not spreading.
4. Publicize, publicize, publicize. The linkage above will help, but you will still need to remind people, mention it on message boards, post reminders on your blog, etc. You will need to continue to do this even after the carnival has gotten off it’s feet.
5. Write your own post.  Yeah, you;d think that would be a no-brainer, but I have forgotten now and again.
6. Publish the carnival.  To do this you will need to read the submissions and link to them, so your readers can find them.  When you do this, ask the folks who entered to link to the carnival post, too.
7. If your first carnival is a smashing sucess, great!  If not, give yourself time to think about what went wrong, regroup, and try again.

This week I want to touch on a topic that was brought up at DoshDosh. The topic there was The Problem with Meta Blogging, and goes on to discuss the saturation of the field when it comes to blogging about blogging (aka metablogging!)

DoshDosh is a great site and I enjoy reading there quite often. The anime pics in each post might throw off a new reader at first, but they add color and something interesting to look at on the blog. You’ll find all sorts of info about making money online, and DoshDosh is great at exposing web scams and warning people about them.

So the topic again, was The problem with metablogging: Being unique in a saturated niche. One of the first things we have to do in this conversation is ask ourselves, is the metablogging arena really that saturated? This question alone really had me thinking, and I mean sitting here with my laptop at 4:00 in the morning wondering, is it? Am I wasting my breath and typing time sitting here right now talking to you about blogs and blogging? Technically our whole team here would be considered metabloggers, we’re blogging about blogging and all things blog.

Then I realized, that’s why we’re not just your average metabloggers. Whew, that’s a relief. We’re not just talking about blogging and rehashing the same old things over and over again. We’re dissecting blogging into all it’s little parts and hopefully finding ways to improve the blogging process and motivating and helping others in some way. We are united in a common goal to make the blogosphere a better place one step at a time.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the metablogging niche isn’t saturated. It may very well be. A quick Google Blog Search will bring up loads of blogs that are about blogging, making money with a blog, etc etc etc… But, just because they are there doesn’t mean they are good, doesn’t mean they have readership, doesn’t mean they are active. I cannot be frightened away by a simple number when it comes to competition. It’s like my age ~ it’s just a number. Hopefully the small number of great metablogs add value to the blogosphere to compensate for the large number of boring, dull, colorless, metablogs that might exist out there.

So, the second thing we need to ask ourselves is, are we unique enough to stand above the crowd? Can our voices be heard over the roaring metablogging crowd? Is there anyone still listening. I hope that there is, and I think all of us here are passionate about blogging and helping others to do so.

Now as bloggers we all can take a moment to look at our writing and think about what we can do to improve it and keep it fresh. DoshDosh gives some great tips on this. I want to point out one in particular.

#3. Don’t Think Like a Blogger. If you really still want to blog about blogging in general, look at blogging from the viewpoint of someone with another agenda. Occasionally put on a designer, CEO, entrepreneur or advertiser’s hat.

Stop thinking like a blogger or blog reader. The change in perspective is crucial here, particularly if you want to create content that is unique and yet relevant to your blog’s theme.

This is interesting and valuable advice for any blogger on any topic. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in “blogging as work” that we lose our focus and we stray from the path a little. Of course just like taking a nature walk, straying off the path a few steps is okay but we don’t want to get so far away that we lose the trail completely.

Maki at Dosh Dosh says that he is personally tired of the metablogging genre as a whole. So I can totally understand why in his personal writing he wants to get away from writing about blogging, afterall who wants to write about something that is boring them to bits? That alone is great advice that he gave without even realizing he gave it. If you’re bored then you’re likely to write boring material. Once something becomes boring to you in any way it’s time to step away from that topic and stick with relevant things that still ignite passion for you! Afterall, a blog without passion is just a blog.

doshdosh, maki, blogging, metablogs, metablogging, boring blogging, meta-blogging, niche blogging