These 5 videos introduce how Google discovers, crawls, indexes your site’s pages, and how Google displays them in search results. It also touches lightly upon challenges webmasters and search engines face, such as duplicate content http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/03/22/5google-webmasters-video-tutorials/

If you are using a WordPress.com theme good SEO is a given. However, going beyond the theme what the blogger has done within that structure is worth evaluating. Whether you write informative, persuasive or controversial content learning how search engines work, and how to apply basic SEO to you content will benefit your blog as it will increase traffic from targeted readers. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2011/10/21/two-seo-videos-for-bloggers/

See also http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2012/10/08/6-ways-to-make-google-your-blogs-best-friend/

Please read WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

There is no FTP access to our free hosted WordPress.com blogs and we bloggers cannot install plugins or upload third party themes.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/#uploading-custom-themes

FTP access, plugins and third party themes are available only for VIP bloggers http://vip.wordpress.com/our-services/ or for those with WordPress.ORG installs. WordPress.com and WordPress.org are completely separate. As I said above there is no upgrade aside from being VIP hosted http://vip.wordpress.com/our-services/ that you can purchase to install plugins. They cannot be installed by bloggers on any free hosted WordPress.com blog. if you require plugins you hire a web host http://wordpress.org/hosting/ and set up your own WordPress.org install. http://wordpress.org/ Then you move your content from the free hosted WordPress.com blog into the WordPress.org install. http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/

I just published my site a few weeks ago, and wanted to ask a couple of questions, as I am a little stuck on how to move forward on customizing my site to function how I would like...

A few facts:
1. I purchased the "Custom Design Package" and the Domain name to my company.

2. my site is: http://www.themindfulcenterknoxville.com

Wondering if you can help me with:

1) As you will see, my pages and posts are the same. As far as functionality, does this make sense? I (think) know the difference between "pages" and "posts", but any advice on whether this is a good move would be welcomed.

2) How do I add plugins to my site?

3) How do I make sure my site is optimized for SEO? Where do I check?

Any help, advice, wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

That being said, you could probably do a Google search for that very question, and get a zillion good ideas.

Spend time on your comments and think about whats in your comment, do NOT spam comment anyone..

If your comments are well typed out and truly thoughtful, then, surly like-minded people will see the comment and read your stuff..

Also, read this http://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-more-views-and-traffic/ :) :)

http://wordpress.com/#!/read/topic/poetry/

...you'll find other poetry blogs, comment on their work, and chances are they'll come back and comment on yours.

I am a young writer (highschool age) and I am looking for platforms and ideas to help me grow. I've been writing poetry regularly for a little over a year, blogging, and entering a few competitions.

I would really like to expand: receive feedback from published poets/writers who teach and write poetry regularly and gain experience presenting my work on a solid platform. I am open to suggestions, opportunities, and resources! Thank you for your time!

Adding extra options for everything suggested would bloat the software too much in the end

Underneath it all, I suspect it is a layout issue and a global function task to add to images. I bet it could be done in a few hours by the team and rolled out. I expect, going forward, folks want more customization and not less. By so doing, you empower your customers.

I added two ideas for you guys:

http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/image-discussion-settings-should-match-the-post-where-they-are-uploaded

http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic/add-bulk-editing-for-media-discussion-settings

You should rate each idea so the core WordPress developers (who are volunteers like you) can see how popular a request like this turns out to be.

For right now, the fastest way to disallow comments on images is still to make your default setting to not allow comments on your entire site and then add back commenting on a per-post, per-page basis. Like before, this will only affect new posts created after making the change.

My preference, if a new option really were to get added, would be to have a bulk editor on the Media page similar to the bulk editor on Posts and Pages.

This would be an equally good alternative!

So, a suggestion for the future: add an allow/do not allow Comments pulldown to the "Create a new gallery" options (after the Link To, Columns and Type pulldowns).

This would be an update to the core WordPress project that would need to go through WordPress.org.

I know the core WordPress developers actively work to keep WordPress really easy to use and simple. Adding extra options for everything suggested would bloat the software too much in the end. They're more likely to want to remove options than add them. I think your solution sounds good but only for a small subset of people. Also, it seems like your solution would require adding an extra setting to the database on a per gallery basis while the current way of doing it depends on a per image setting that's already there. If you were to ask for a new option inside the gallery settings, I would expect the core team to ask whether adding more options is really really really needed, and I'm not sure it would be in this case. My preference, if a new option really were to get added, would be to have a bulk editor on the Media page similar to the bulk editor on Posts and Pages.

In the meantime, I noticed that one must scroll all the way down to the bottom of the "Edit Images" to:

uncheck the options for "Allow comments" and "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page," and save changes.

Going to "Settings" --> and disabling "Allow comments" and "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page" is not enough to disable comments in galleries. You have to do both.

Thanks, everyone for your help!

Michelle
https://floundah2013.wordpress.com/

... to turn off comments for a given image, go to Media → Library ... and click on the image you'd like to update, click the "Screen Options" tab at the top right and make sure the "Discussion" option is checked, [Emphasis mine] then find the Discussion box on the same page, uncheck the options for "Allow comments" and "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page," and save changes.

Cleared cache. Rebooted computer. Nothing changed. This gallery https://floundah2013.wordpress.com/our-community/ shows comments, yet the second gallery does not. I removed the gallery on the first page, then rebuilt it. Nothing works. It seems to make no difference whether the "Discussion" option is checked or not. "Allow comments" and "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page," are unchecked, so comments in the rest of the site have been disabled.

I am missing someting, but I don't know what.

The site is https://floundah2013.wordpress.com/

Thanks, Michelle

Having said that, I don't have any "Appearance>Media" menu, but I do have Media>Library

That was a typo! You're right, it should have been Media → Library not Appearance → Media (I'm so used to typing out things for the Appearance menu!). :)

On a quick check, I can't find detailed info about the screen options for attachment pages in the support site http://en.support.wordpress.com/ I'll add a note to se if someone can update it next time there's a round of documentation edits.

Having said that, I don't have any "Appearance>Media" menu, but I do have Media>Library and then click to edit any image and on the Screen Options tab on that screen you can enable the "Discussion" Module, and there it is!

Is this written up somewhere in the Support docs?

Looks like I have my work cut out for me this weekend. :)

Where is the "allow/disallow comments" setting on Media located? While I know that you can control "Likes" and "Shares" on Media, I haven't been able to find the setting for commenting.

Does it only affect Attachment pages or does it affect the Photo Carousel as well? (I would assume so.)

@justjennifer, attachments pages were updated a few months ago in 3.5 to have their own enable/disable comments checkboxes.

@annemariesanderson and @bohemianweasel, to turn off comments for a given image, go to Media → Library [UPDATE: had the wrong page ref before, thanks for the tip @justjennifer!] and click on the image you'd like to update, click the "Screen Options" tab at the top right and make sure the "Discussion" option is checked, then find the Discussion box on the same page, uncheck the options for "Allow comments" and "Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page," and save changes.

@bohemianweasel, there's an option on the main Settings → Discussion page that let's you control whether comments are on or off by default for any new posts, pages, or media you add. Controlling comments on something already uploaded has always been done on a per item basis after that.

So I just uploaded some new images, and it's better! The comments box still does pop up but then it disappears again a few seconds later, hurrah.

This means I'll need to delete all my previous images and re-upload them all.. eep. Oh well, any improvement is an improvement, so thank you for that. :)

In order to disable commenting in the Photo Carousel or on Attachment pages you must disable commenting first for your entire blog under Settings>Discussion Settings>Default Article Settings before you upload any image.

So, if you've already uploaded the images...