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Can I switch? Should I?

  1. thewhitelilyblog
    Member

    I hope this isn't covered in FAQ! I DID search for plug-ins and got a few hits but they didn't answer some basic questions. I need to try to promote my blog a little and heard about a thing-y that would make my blog show up higher on search engine, a certain "plug in." They call it the XML plug-in. But I don't know if I can use it, because I have a blog in .com. Do I understand correctly that I must be "in" wordpress.org to use it? Do I understand correctly that I must have a 'host' to be "in" wordpress.org? (I don't know what any of that means! Take "host." I actually have, pay for, space--a domain--on hostmonster, that I haven't developed yet. Is that what they mean by a host?)

    Well, hope you can help and hope I can understand your answer! Please try to use little words and no abbreviations!

  2. justjennifer
    Member

    Being on WordPress.COM gives you a serious advantage in terms of search engine returns. No plug-ins needed. Period.

    A few thoughts after looking at your blog:
    1. Post regularly. The blog you link to in your username has but a dozen posts over seven months. If there's little or no new content to view, readers are less likely to come back.

    2. Use more Categories. You are only using the default category "uncategorized". Both categories and tags help your blog appear in the WordPress.com tags and categories pages and connect you to other bloggers.
    http://faq.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/whats-a-category-how-do-i-add-and-manage-categories-screencast/

    3. Your blogroll is empty. Are there no blogs out there with similar interests that you'd like to link to?
    http://faq.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/the-blogroll/

    4. Do you comment on other people's blogs? Blogging is about being part of a community. If you stay quietly at home, no one will know you're there. :)

  3. thesacredpath
    Member

    There is also a huge amount of great information about promoting your blog and gaining readership on this blog: http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/category/promotion/

  4. teck07
    Member

    First off very nice site.

    With categories I would post one per post with some tags
    this will help the search engines to be able to index your
    blog faster...

    Blog promotion

    Leaving meaningful comments on other poeoples blogs
    that fit in the Niche as yours will also benefit you
    in the long run...

    Adding the Get social, bookmark bar to articles
    will also help your readers promote your blog.
    GetSocial Video Tutorial

    Adding your blog to blog social network directories
    will also help improve your readership in the long run...
    Like » http://blogcatalog.com

    Also last but not least here is some blog promotion articles
    for you as well as a free blog promotion Page I created.

    Teck~Line
    Top 6 Ways To Get Your Blog Noticed Fast On The Interweb:

    Few Tips On How To Make A Successful Blog

    How To Lock In A Potential Audience

    promote your blog here for free [This is not ad post]
    Teck~Line » Blog Wall

    Also perform a froumsearch there is plenty of great ideas in the forum

    Teck

  5. thewhitelilyblog
    Member

    Wow, thanks for all the input! I'm gonna work my way through each one! I actually was using one site called How to Increase Your Blog Traffic that recommended using WordPress.ORG and the plug-in. So that's why I asked.

    I don't see any substantial difference between categories and tags. But I guess I'll do it. But don't you hate categories? I mean, it would be so much easier to find things in music stores if they DIDN'T categorize music so tightly and then make the consumer guess which box they fit the music into. (There's so much cross-over!)

    I do read and comment in other blogs very often, although I do not always link to my blog, in fact hardly ever (isn't it bad manners???).

    Am gonna to work on that Blogroll, too. But in truth there are very few blogs with my particular politics.

    I write fiction mostly, that's why there's so few entries. Am working on a science fiction series.

    I'll check out your blogs, too, and thanks again for your suggestions!

  6. teck07
    Member

    Your welcome! thewhitelilyblog,

  7. thewhitelilyblog
    Member

    teck07, I like your site. It's attractive and uncluttered, functional, multi-media, and rich in content.

    You don't have any categories to your posts and in your content area, that would be helpful for someone wanting to use the site to the fullest.

    As someone who lived in Mexico four years, I would like to say that the translation box, although a wonderful idea, may not yield the results you'd like in practice. Most of the time the resulting translations are a hoot! Do you speak another language you could check it with? Working in Mexico, I found Babel Fish to be virtually useless for real prose, either English to Spanish or vice-versa, and it was the best I could find. You might want to check this feature with a second bilingual person? Space is a valuable commodity on your blog, with all the good stuff.

  8. justjennifer
    Member

    Late you're welcome from me, too. And good luck with your writing.

  9. teck07
    Member

    @thewhitelilyblog

    First off Thank you for the compliment... :)

    As for the categories not being in a post this well could be a over sight
    on your end because there is one category in each post as you see
    in this Screen shot 1
    The category in each post ties back into the
    categories page were you will find all the active categories on my
    site. Screen shot 2

    You can also see in this short screen cast how I promote the categories on my site
    so the categories become useful for the readers... Short screen cast

    Thanks for the input

    Teck

  10. thewhitelilyblog
    Member

    Oh, I see--I was looking for the word Categories in a side-bar! (So there's more than one way to do it, hmmm...)

    In Jennifer's blog, I like the 'Places to Go' and 'Things to Do' lists, instead of the usual designations for these typical items. It's kind of amazing how she's made her blog look and sound just like a (younger, cooler) Jewish mother. You wouldn't think it possible in pixtels. (I wonder when we'll be able to add smells!)

  11. teck07
    Member

    @thewhitelilyblog

    In Jennifer's blog, I like the 'Places to Go' and 'Things to Do' lists, instead of the usual designations for these typical items. It's kind of amazing how she's made her blog look and sound just like a (younger, cooler) Jewish mother. You wouldn't think it possible in pixtels. (I wonder when we'll be able to add smells!)

    Those are great ideas but they don't refer to her categories or tags
    those are sites she finds useful.

    Teck

  12. thesacredpath
    Member

    She simply changed the title of her Links/blogroll widget to "Places To Go:". The "Things to do" widget is a text widget, and again, she simply added that title to it.

    You can change the title of widgets by going to design > widgets and then clicking on the "edit" link on the widget, entering a title, clicking "change" and then clicking "save changes".

  13. justjennifer
    Member

    Hi gang, my ears were burning; now I know why. :)

    @thewhitelily-Glad you liked what you saw. I haven't used the Categories widget in my sidebar, but if you look at the "What You Saw" tab, the categories appear there. I have very few categories compared to some bloggers since I prefer to use a combination of category and then refine it a bit with tags. And text widgets are really quite flexible; you just have to learn HTML. As for being young, I was once. :D

    @tsp-I'm not quite that masochistic. :) That entire thing is the blogroll/links widget, but I've used link categories (people to see, places to go, things to do) instead of the default "blogroll" category, which divides them up in the sidebar.

    (And if you visit my blog as a result of reading this comment, please let me know there if you can see the blog styled or unstyled. I'm having a problem with Cutline's style sheet disappearing for me. You can read all about it on my Post. Thanks.)

  14. thewhitelilyblog
    Member

    Just Jennifer's theme appeared to load okay this morning, for me. I don't knw what 'unstyled' looks like, but if styled means the masthead and all the categories appear to be there, they are. I have an older Explorer version that sometimes sees things differently.

    Communicating used just to mean did you arrange the words, and the little marks of lexicography like periods and commas and apostrophes, in such a way that a meaning emerged in the mind of a reader. You could work quite a bit of magic with word choice and well placed pauses.

    Now it includes so much more, though! If VS Naipaul (sacredpath might know him, he disses India) had a blog, it would have a Savage theme. Which would reveal much about the civility of the tone. I am thinking of how the real meanings of authors would again be embedded, this time in code. I bet they'd be good at it. How would irony affect the placement of a sidebar? Etc.

    Ah. The possibilities.

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