B³H³ Blog Network

What’s one of the easiest ways to make sure that you are talking about the topics that your readers want to read about?  Invite questions from your readers and answer them! 

This is a simple tip but it’s under-used on the Internet nowadays, which is a real shame because it’s very effective for a number of reasons:

• You’re addressing real issues that your readers have.  Chances are, it one person has a question, many others will have the same question.  Think about it, how often do you address the same question by email?  Why not answer it once and put it on the web and make the answer that you composed work for you!
• It saves you time.  Like I said just now, many people will probably have the same exact question.  Compose an answer and post it onto your blog.  If anyone who asks the question again, just refer them to the post you made.  This can be a real timesaver!
• Question and answer posts rank well in search engines.  When you compose a Q&A post, remember to include the Q - the question.  Many people when using a search engine will search based on a question - “How do I do X?”  “What’s the answer to Y?”  How do I cure Z?”  Take advantage of this by including the question you were asked (modify the question if you want to make it clearer - most people write rambling emails - or for SEO purposes).


• It makes you seem approachable and personable - vital if you are to be a successful blogger!

Take a look at this link to Google News (the screenshot of how this looks right now appears below).

Notice how there’s an image next to the story.  The interesting thing is that that image doesn’t come from the story that’s being linked to but from another, related story.  Check it out for yourself - the image comes from a separate story.

How do you get your image there?  Well, what you need to do is place an image near the top of your page/blog post.  Ideally this should be small (120 pixels wide by 160 tall seems like a good number) and the ALT text for this image should be the same as the title of your page/blog post.

This trick doesn’t guarantee you placement, but it does give your page a second chance to appear in the news!

Good news!  The AdSense team have clarified the removal of the competitive ad policy in the terms and conditions - now AdSense ads can now be run on the same page as other contextual ad programs!  This from JenSense:

I spoke with Brian Axe, senior product manager on the Google AdSense Team on the issue. “As you and others have noticed, the AdSense Terms and Conditions haven’t been updated since 2005, and we’re working on an update to the Terms to bring everything into line. Traditionally, we don’t update the Terms as frequently, since all publishers must re-agree to the Terms whenever they change.”

“When it comes to enforcing policies on third-party contextual ads, we’ll be following the updated program policies instead of the T&Cs on this point. That is to say, publishers may now display other contextual ads on the same site or page as Google ads as long as they don’t have the same look and feel as our ads,” Brian Axe tells Jennifer Slegg of JenSense.

This is good news for those who have been juggling AdSense and, say, YPN.  However, the ads have to look different and you’ll need to spend a lot of time optimizing the locations for the ads - but it still allows bloggers to have multiple streams on income.

Great news!

WordPress 2.1 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download.

WordPress 2.1 has a load of new features:

• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions
• Autosave
• Tabbed editor
• Lossless XML import and export for moving between WordPress blogs
• WYSIWYG spellchecker
• Search engine blocker for private blogs
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else
• Links can now have sub-categories
• Redesigned login screen
• More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, etc all instant
• Pages can now be drafts, or private
• Minor admin redesign
• Upload manager
• Faster dashboard

It also has some cool stuff for developers:

• Psuedo-cron functionality
• Users admin can now comfortably handle thousands of users
• New WP_Error class
• Javascript loader
• Many new hooks and APIs

Beware though, not all existing plugins will work with WordPress 2.1.  A list of known compatible plugins appear here.  Also, upgrading to WP 2.1 is a one-way operation.  If you think that you’ll want to go back to a previous version then you’ll need to make a database backup (that’s probably a good idea anyway).

AdSense have again made tweaks to their Online Program Policy.  Some of these changes are good, some are going to mean a lot of extra work for existing publishers.

The Good:

Referrals - You can now have two referral links (or images) per referral product.  For a blog this means that you could have, for example, a Firefox referral in the sidebar and another embedded in a relevant post.  This is a good move!

Copyrighted material - The AdSense team have clarified their position on the use of AdSense ads on pages containing copyrighted material:

“Website publishers may not display Google ads on web pages with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display that content. Please see our DMCA policy for more information.”

So if you see your content on someone else’s site, surrounded by someone else’s ads, you can do something about it!

Sites selling/distributing student essays - Can’t have AdSense on these sites now

The Bad:

Use of images around ads - This is now a big “no!”

• May not direct user attention to the ads via arrows or other graphical gimmicks
• May not place misleading images alongside individual ads

Ads on search pages - If you use Google Search on your site, the results page can only have 1 ad unit on it (apart from what’s shown by the search results).

Competitive ads - Do you use Google AdSense and, say, Yahoo! Publishing Network (YPN) ads on the same site?  Well, now you need to be careful:

“Competitive Ads and Services In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.”

Basically what this means is that you’ll have to make ads from different providers look different to your AdSense ads.  This could mean a LOT of work for some users.  If you are faced with a lot of work it might be easier to go with one publisher and ditch the others.

Further reading:  Problogger | JenSense

Does using the AdSense Beautifier break AdSense terms and conditions?  This plugin can give you a significant boost in clicks but can using it get you kicked off the scheme?

In a word, yes.  Late last year Google clarified their position on the use of images to draw attention to ads.  Now images cannot be lined up with ads in any way that suggests that there is a relationship between the image and the ad.  Even adding a space or a line between the ad and the images still means that you are breaking the terms of the agreement and you risk getting the boot.  However, if you set it up so that the ads and images don’t line up in such a way that implies a connection, you’re safe.

There’s no doubt that AdSense Beautifier is still in use on many blogs and websites out there, and use it in such a way that clearly breaks AdSense terms.  If you value your Google AdSense revenue, we recommend that you don’t use this plugin or use it with great care.  If you’re in doubt, ask the Google AdSense team.

Ten days since the 2.0.6 update and 10 days before 2.1 is released, the guys behind WordPress have decided to release a stop-gap security update.  Seems sensible to install this if you ask me.

Six files are changed:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/post.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

This means that if you don’t want to upgrade the whole install, you can just upload these files and get full protection.

Good news from the WordPress team too - even though 2.1 is due out at the end of the month, they’ve said that the 2.0 branch of WordPress will continue to be maintained for several years. Excellent stuff!

On Jan 1st Guy Kawasaki reviewed his first year of blogging.  It’s an interesting read:

1. 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.
2. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post.
3. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.
4. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm.

This post prompted a lot of reactions and many people to asked one question - why was his earnings so low?

It’s pretty simple really.  His blog is aimed at professionals and professionals just don’t click on ads.  Period.  Actually, things are a bit worse for Guy because his ad placement also leaves a lot to be desired.  I have no doubt that it could be improved on dramatically.  But the bottom line is that Guy doesn’t blog for cash.  Not everyone does.  I agree with him, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

Keep up the blog Guy!  It’s one of my favorite reads!

It seems that there’s a problem with WordPress 2.0.6 and FeedBurner.  You’ll notice this problem in FeedBurner’s FeedMedic screen which will give you an error such as:

Your server disconnected us before sending the full source feed content. If your blogging platform is TextPattern, this is a known bug, and a fix can be found here: http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=11247

There’s a simple workaround for this issue - it involves editing /wp-includes/functions.php.

Find the following:

if ( substr(php_sapi_name(), 0, 3) == 'cgi' )
                @header(”HTTP/1.1 $header $text”);
        else
                @header(”Status: $header $text”);
}

Replace the above code with the following:

//      if ( substr(php_sapi_name(), 0, 3) == 'cgi' )
                @header(”HTTP/1.1 $header $text”);
//      else
//            @header(”Status: $header $text”);
}

Save the file and resync your feed at FeedBurner.  

These changes will be rolled into WordPress 2.0.7 so there’s no need to worry that these changes will break anything.