Does that sound to you a little tempting? Though everybody says working on Wordpress is a breeze, but for a person who has never blogged before or for first time wordpress user, getting through the Wordpress and its jargon can get a bit overwhelming sometimes. And support for Wordpress out there is mostly community based and searching for the right answers can be a bit time consuming and tedious at times.

Well I am now providing you with a unique Wordpress Install and Support Service which will help you with setting up of your first wordpress blog, getting a cool theme for it and a set of essential plugins/addons for it. I will also submit your blog to major search engines. I will also optimise it for SEO, Adsense and setup feed subscriptions on your blog and even email notification for new posts. Also I will coach you about Wordpress so that you become comfortable in using it. On top of it, I will provide a 20 day Support and Maintenance service.

A Recap of the services I provide:

• Brand New Installation or Migration of Wordpress’s latest version (Currently at 2.8).
• 15 Plugins installation and configuration.
• 5 Theme Installation of your choice.
• Setting up of Feed Subscription and email notification
• Full Wordpress Coaching and Support via Messenger (Yahoo|Hotmail|Gmail|AIM)
• Submission of Blog to Google, MSN and Yahoo! Search Engines
• SEO Optimisation of Blog with Suggestions for Optimisation
• Google Analytics and Adsense Code Suggestions and Optimisation
• Blog Consultation with Various Suggestions for Improvement worth $79
• Unlimited Support and Maintainence for your Blog for 20 days worth $129

All this for only $70 if you have hosting already.

And if you don’t have hosting, then you can buy hosting using Hostgator. I will give you a coupon which will give you first month for just $0.01! If you buy hosting from us, this service only costs $20!

Buy without hosting for $70

Buy with hosting for $20

After payment, you will be contacted with further details about the service.

FAQ

Q. Will you provide design services for the theme or logo?

A. Sorry, we are not into design at the moment. But we will guide you to getting the right theme and to the right designer.

Q. What are the modes of payment?

A. We accept payments via Paypal. You don’t even need Paypal account to pay, just use a International Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard or Diners Club) for payment.

Related posts:

1. Get a Wordpress Based Job Site
2. Webhosting from Dragonara
3. Post Theme Install Checklist for Wordpress
4. Blogging from Mobile
5. Wordpress Theme Directory Launched

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments

There are times when you want to host some files but want people to download them instead of getting them opened by the default browser defined action. This situation arises in cases when you are hosting pdf, image or music files.  If you are using Wordpress, you may use Download manager plugins for this effect but what happens when you are on a static website. There are .htaccess file hacks or apache tricks to achieve this. But not all webhosting companies allow such mods or hacks. The one hack I am going to tell you will work no matter which webhost you are using and will work on both blogs and static websites as well.

Step 1

First make a empty file and name it as download.php. Paste the following code into it:

<?php
//$fileName = 'myfile';
//$fileExtension = 'pdf';
 
//$sourceFile = $fileName . ' . ' . $fileExtension;
$sourceFile = $_GET['file'];
$outputFile = $sourceFile; // the name they save as can be different to the existing file
 
// required for IE, otherwise Content-disposition is ignored
if(ini_get('zlib.output_compression')) ini_set('zlib.output_compression', 'Off');
 
 switch( $fileExtension)
 {
    case "pdf": $ctype="application/pdf"; break;
    case "exe": $ctype="application/octet-stream"; break;
    case "zip": $ctype="application/zip"; break;
    case "doc": $ctype="application/msword"; break;
    case "xls": $ctype="application/vnd.ms-excel"; break;
    case "ppt": $ctype="application/vnd.ms-powerpoint"; break;
    case "gif": $ctype="image/gif"; break;
    case "png": $ctype="image/png"; break;
    case "jpeg":
    case "jpg": $ctype="image/jpg"; break;
    default: $ctype="application/force-download";
}
 
session_cache_limiter("");
 
header("Pragma: public"); // required
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: private",false); // required for certain browsers
header("Content-Type: $ctype");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".basename($outputFile).";" );
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header("Content-Length: ".filesize($sourceFile));
 
 
@readfile("$sourceFile") ;  // This is the bit that prompts for the download, supress errors for niceness
exit();
?>

Step 2

Now upload the file to your website … for example I am considering the location as http://www.domain.com/download.php

Step 3

Now for linking to the file you want people to download forcibly, just point their links as http://www.domain.com/download.php?file=Filepath

Now, all files you link to like this will be forced to download from the visitor irrespective of the browser the user uses and of the webhosting you use.

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2. Download Google Chrome Browser – Offline Version
3. Direct Download links of Yahoo! Messenger for Vista
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5. Blogging from Mobile

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | One comment

If you have got your blog a new design recently, then this Checklist is for you. Just making sure its working properly won’t complete your task of installing a new theme on your blog. You should take care of few points which will help improve the performance of your theme which I am listing below:

1. FeedBurner Links Across the Theme: 99.9% Chance is that you are using Feedburner for your site. Though many themes have an option page nowdays asking for your feedburner id but even sometimes their implementation is incomplete. Incomplete Implementation refers to that these themes update feed link on the frontend of the blog but don’t touch the autodiscovery feed links. Even if a theme have such an option or not, you should manually check the feed link across the blog. For making your feedburner link uniform across your site, check my post on proper implementation of Feedburner url.
2. Analytics and Other Service Codes: If you are using services like Analytics, Infolinks, Kontera or any other service which requires you to add a code into your site’s header/footer, you need to place these codes manually in either header.php or footer.php wherever required. There are few themes who ask for analytics id which will update only analytics code but there are themes which ask for full analytics code. Here in such case along with your analytics code, you can also embed all such codes in same option box.
3. Test All Pages of Site: Make sure that all pages on your site are working. Start by visiting all pages like Index, Single Post, Pages, Category archive, date/month archives, Search, 404, Sitemap, Contact Page or any other explicit page which you are using.
4. Website Speed and Optimisation Test: You should also test your website for speed and loading times. Some themes include a lot of javascript and css which can add to the loading time. I would recommend two of the following services:
   • PingDom
   • Web Page Analyzer from WebsiteOptimisation.com

Though the second service provides all features plus even more than the first, still I would recommend using Pingdom too as it allows you to save reports of your website and you can know about the progress you are making in your site better. Web Page Analyzer gives lot of recommendations and details about your website’s loading time and size details. If your theme starts becoming heavier, I would also recommend using Script Compressor Plugin which compresses the CSS and Javascripts loaded with your blog.

5. Plugin Compatibility: And last but not the least, don’t forget to add the respective plugin codes into your theme. Some themes require certain plugins to be preinstalled for working. Check for such plugins. If you don’t require such plugins, remove their codes from your theme files. Also check for plugins that need a bit of modification of css of your theme.

Related posts:

1. Wordpress 2.7 Checklist
2. Wordpress Theme Directory Launched
3. Theme Thursday Series No 2
4. Hide any Category or Asides from Main Content of k2 theme
5. Category descriptions in Wordpress

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments

From my own 2 Years of Blogging experience and of reading hundreds of such articles, I can say that there are certain category of posts which no reader would like to read. Here is a list of such post types so that you can avoid writing such type of posts which will make readers go away or be put off.

1. Personal Posts – Unless its your personal blog, posts about yourself, your life or your joys or sorrows will put off a reader instantly. Readers want content and information for which they come to your blog not to know what’s happening in your life currently. So avoid talking about yourself.
2. Excuse Posts – Readers don’t want to read why you are not posting regularly or why you are posting too much. I have made few such posts and belive me, they are useless. Just maintain a flow of posts and keep writing without such excuse posts. They may work for very big bloggers but not for everyday blogger like us.
3. Prewritten Review Posts – Many bloggers inorder to make a quick buck just copy paste prewritten review posts available on forums like DP or even review sites. Such posts only fetch you $5-10 per post and are too general, biased and look automated to praise a service. Such posts don’t have any images and contain only 2-3 links with heavy keywords. They may fetch you money but you loose respect from readers bigtime.
4. Sponsors Thanks or Commentators Thanks Post – Just to please people so that your site remains popular, such posts are made regularly by many bloggers. I find them pretty useless. Sponsors already get too much adspace around the blog’s real-estate, I don’t think a thank you post on top of it is necessary at all.
5. Essay Type Posts – Avoid posts which exceed 750 or 1000 words. Beyond a point, reader loses interest and if you give away too much of information. Mind you that you are not writing a encyclopaedia’s article but a blog post. Such long posts also reduce the chances of discussion since you have covered almost everything about the subject.
6. Unformatted Posts – Posts which are unformatted or poorly written with a single long paragraph or without any image, bullet or lists put off a reader. Readers like to scan and read and it is easier to understand if the post is properly formatted.

If you have any other type of posts to share which should be avoided, please comment about them. These posts types are those which I observed in last few years of blogging.

Related posts:

1. How to be World’s laziest blogger – Part 2
2. How to be the world’s laziest blogger? – Part 1
3. Subscribe to your own feed
4. Top 5 things I hate seeing in a new blog
5. Get Comment Form Under Blogger posts

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments

Well it seems Wordpress 2.8 is coming out with a lot new features which cannot be explained in 1 lines or a codex page. Many bloggers have started posting new feature details and tips and tricks which would make blogging easier with the upcoming Wordpress 2.8. So here I am making is a detail Wordpress 2.8 Tricks and Tips Page where I will list some cool tips and tricks which others have posted about. The following list will also contains reviews of Wordpress 2.8 from different perspectives.

1. Create Custom Taxonomies in Wordpress 2.8 with minimal code
2. Tag Descriptions in Wordpress 2.8
3. Build a Wordpress 2.8 Compatible Widget
4. Wordpress 2.8 Body Class
5. Bye Bye My-hacks.php
6. Change Admin Pagination on Posts, Pages and Comments
7. Wordpress 2.8 Feature Password
8. 2.8 Small Insights
9. Jcrop in 2.8
10. Wordpress Plugin Path
11. Wordpress Proxy Support
12. Drag and Drop Widgets
13. Exciting Wordpress 2.8
14. Using Body Class to Detect Internet Browsers

This post will keep getting updated as more and more posts keep coming with new things about upcoming Wordpress version.

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1. Wordpress 2.6 RC1 Released
2. Google Chrome Tweaks, Tips and Easter Eggs
3. Wordpress 2.7 Released
4. Wordpress 2.7 Checklist
5. Integrating Coppermine Gallery with your Wordpress

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 11 comments

Well, I have setup a new blog which required putting up a lot of photos (to start with 100+ pics in 2 days), so the obvious and the easiest choice was to go with Coppermine Photo Gallery. But then I realized, it does not go down well with Wordpress and there is no official Wordpress plugin or Coppermine bridge available on their respective sites. Though this had been tried a lot of times, but never anybody was successfully able to integrate Coppermine into Wordpress or vice-versa.

Well for this, fortunately there exists a plugin which you won’t find on Wordpress Plugins Directory. Find the plugin at MesSouvenirs.com Blog. Installing the Plugin is simple. Extract the zip file and upload the \coppermine-4.6.2.7\wp-content\plugins\ directory to your wordpress blog. I am using CopperMine Gallery version 1.4.x so upload the two files from \coppermine-4.6.2.7\cpg\1.4x\ to your gallery root directory. In my case, gallery was installed on the same domain as the blog. Example if the blog’s url is www.blogurl.com then gallery was installed at www.blogurl.com/gallery/

Activate the plugins: Coppermine, Coppermine Widget and Coppermine – Lightbox2 plugins. Well widget and Lightbox plugins are optional. Widget plugin is required if you want to display the images uploaded in gallery in your wordpress sidebar and Lightbox plugin is to show the images on your blog with lightbox effect.

After activating the plugin go to Settings>>Coppermine Integration and insert the Coppermine gallery details manually. For me the automatic search somehow didn’t work even after it detected the gallery’s configuration file at /gallery/includes/config.inc.php – You will also find the details to insert at the page at the above file only.

Now after inserting details and saving, just test the connection. And if its ok, just reload the same settings page and you will see a long page with plethora of options.

If you want to insert the images in your post, just enable the integrate editor option and now you can upload and insert images from your Add New Post Page inside your wordpress.

Hope you will find the plugin useful as much as I found it.

It would have been great if somehow we could show complete gallery in a wordpress page without compromising on any of the features of Coppermine. I know, there have been many wordpress themes ported to Wordpress but that still does look good. It would be wonderful if Coppermine developers could come out with something like this.

Overall this plugin is pretty useful for your basic needs on integrating Wordpress with Coppermine. One more thing, this plugin can also share Wordpress and Coppermine users. I didn’t need this functionality hence I have not mentioned about it here.

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2. Wordpress Theme Directory Launched
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4. Wordpress 2.8 Tips and Tricks
5. Wordpress 2.6 RC1 Released

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments

I don’t usually buy books because I don’t think they are highly necessary. And the book which I am going to review is not an exception either. This was a book which I won in a giveaway held by Chetan Bhawani on his blog. The book I am referring to is Blog Blazers by Stephane Grenier.

This book contains 40 Interviews by Top Bloggers Around the World which include: Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ ), Aaron Wall (http://www.seobook.com/blog/ ), Neil Patel (http://www.quicksprout.com ), Jeff Atwood( http://www.codinghorror.com/ ), Dharmesh Shaw(http://www.onstartups.com/ ), Anita Campbell (http://www.smallbiztrends.com/ ), Alex Papadimoulis (http://www.thedailywtf.com/ ) etc.

Well after going through this book, you will really get inspired to take a new look at your blogs and instill the died passion among you. And after reading the book, one also realizes that there are a lot of things common amongs them. None of them gained success overnight which most of we bloggers don’t realize. If we were to calculate the average time of the big blogs to become successful it comes to 1-1.5 years. Most of their blogs were not started as a tool to make money but to share something useful with the world.

I am sure that everybody will benefit by reading this book. You can get this book easily from Amazon. I hope you like the book as much as I liked it.

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2. Gadget Advisor Review – Gadgets Galore
3. Edubook – Article Blog
4. Top 5 things I hate seeing in a new blog
5. Posts to be avoided by a Blogger

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments

With the changeset number 10537, Wordpress 2.7.1 final is out.

Download it from here.

It seems I am the first blogger to report this.

Official Post regarding 2.7.1

Related posts:

1. Wordpress 2.7 Released
2. Wordpress 2.7.1 RC1 Out
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5. Wordpress 2.6 RC1 Released

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 12 comments

Well no official confirmation is out but this Changeset done by Ryan just 25 minutes ago confirms it. Download it from here. To Automatically upgrade from 2.7 Control Panel, just open the file wp-includes/version.php and change line number 11 from

11

$wp_version = '2.7';

to

11

$wp_version = '2.7.1-beta';

And now autoupgrade.

This version fixes some long time bugs such as timezone updates for revisions and saved drafts and index.php problem if incountered in a plugin directory.

Related posts:

1. Wordpress 2.6 RC1 Released
2. Wordpress 2.7 Released
3. Akismet Wordpress Plugin 2.1.7 version broken
4. Integrating Coppermine Gallery with your Wordpress
5. Wordpress 2.7 Checklist

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments

Well that is a question I asked myself a lot during past 1 year. I see so many blogs using private ads and with most of ad spots filled with something or other. But I could never get my ad spot filled with something useful. Still I kept the ad spots. But then I realized that what I was missing by keeping those unpaid ad spots all along.

In between I tried several methods to show them partially filled such as using affiliate links, sponsoring ad spots in other contests or even rewarding space in contests. In the end it helped with nothing but some hiked Technorati and Incoming links values and nil in terms of monetization.

Now I think that its better to put something paid into empty spots than keeping them filled with unpaid and illusionary ad spots. And thus you are seeing Adsense on my blog back again. Even if it does not pay too much but something is better than nothing.

My Suggestion would be the same. Fill the unused empty space with something that’s useful for you too. Handing free adspots constantly won’t help much. Your residual income will still be zero. Don’t just use private ads just for the sake of it or just because everybody else is doing so.

And if you think you will never be able to get private ads by replacing the spots with Paying Ads like Adsense, you are wrong. Try to get more traffic(not links), and keep working. When Adsense starts paying you well, you will automatically have a proof that your ad spots are working good. This revenue can be a big proof to show to others that you can handle private ads pretty well. You can email potential advertisers and show them your potential and ask for private ads and can always replace Adsense with private ads if the advertiser is convinced.

So, I don’t think bringing back old forms of ads is bad that much. Adsense is still the easiest possible source of residual income online.

Related posts:

1. When you are not making money
2. Adsense for feeds and feedburner – please note
3. NSpeaks Goals For 2009
4. Monetise your 404 Page
5. Adsense clarifies ad sharing concept

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 17 comments

One thing which I have seen many bloggers missing completely(including me uptil now) is the category description field. Most bloggers I have seen create relevant categories but forget to fill the description field either due to ignorance or delibrately to save time. But this field can also be important both in respect to SEO and also user experience enhancing effect.

In terms of user experience enhancing effect, many times users are not able to understand what type of posts are included in the category you have created. So its better to give a proper description to each category. And in terms of SEO effect, most SEO plugins of SEO including All in One SEO and Platinum SEO Pack pick category description as meta description tags for the category archives.

Now the question arises how to to show category description on the category archive page. The following code when used in your theme file pulls the category description and shows it to the user.

<?php $description=category_description(); echo $description;  ?>

Now this code should go into the archive.php of your theme file which is responsible for generating the category list of posts. Check with your theme for the proper location where you should insert this code.

And for SEO effect, if you are using plugins like All in One SEO or Platinum SEO plugins, they will pick up the category description automatically and if that’s not the case, you can use the following code in your header.php

<?php /* If this is a category archive */ if (is_category()) { ?>
<meta name="description" content="<?php $description=category_description(); echo $description;  ?>" />
<?php } ?></meta>

Remember this code should appear before </head> in header.php

So now I hope you will use the above method to make your site even more user friendly and SEO optimised by giving useful descriptions to each of your category. I am yet to do it on this blog though since this thought came when I was working on one of my blogs.

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2. Post Theme Install Checklist for Wordpress
3. Wordpress 2.7 Checklist
4. Integrating Coppermine Gallery with your Wordpress
5. Wordpress 2.7 Released

© NSpeaks, 2009. | Permalink | 24 comments

Those who missed the opportunity, Ninja Affiliate Plugin is for $50 discount for next 1 day and 14 hours from the time of this comment..Hurry now. Buy Ninja Affiliate Plugin at $47 only. And if you want to help me, pls use my link to buy.

Ninja Affiliate Plugin Contest has ended. Here is the screenshot of the winner which was selected using random.org.

I have contacted the winner. Thanks to everybody for entering. I have replied to few commentators who didn’t subscribed in the original post and those who unsubscribed during contest have been replied as they were not counted.

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1. Win Ninja Affiliate Plugin by MaxBlogPress
2. MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate – Ultimate Plugin for Affiliate Marketing
3. Prizes worth $1500 from BloggingTips
4. Winner of Adobe Illustrator CS3
5. Win 2 copies of Adobe Illustrator CS3

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 12 comments

Well, Christmas is only one day ahead and many of you must be preparing for your holidays and new year ahead. Well Merry Christmas to all and a Wishing you a successful and a happy new year ahead.

Well, not these holidays but after the new year, I am planning a trip somewhere after new year.

How are you planning to celebrate the holidays? Care to share?

Related posts:

1. NSpeaks Forum for Bloggers Launched

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 13 comments

I seem to be getting good at missing deadlines. This Sunday was no excuse either. Ok..not getting into that, here’s a recap of what’s happened in the last week.

1. Seems Jason from TheUniversityKid is still finding trouble selling his site. Even after a relist, it has not met the reserve. I wonder where’s the problem when recently SlyVisions got sold for $9,500 which was a utter shock and even a very high price according to me.
2. Everybody knows about the contest of winning Ninja Affiliate plugin running here. But if you can’t wait that long or don’t think you have that much luck, then before Friday Midnight, you can get the plugin for a amazing $50 Discount! So buy now to save a lot. This offer is only till Friday midninght. So you have only around 2 days to avail the offer. If you want to know more, read my review of the plugin.
3. Windows Live Writer 2009 is out. It includes Multiple Image Upload, Tag Suggest(this is somehow not working for me), Search All Posts, Photo Gallery feature, direct upload of videos to youtube and lots more. If you want to know more head over to my review.
4. Noupe came out with a Nice List of Some cool features of Wordpress 2.7. Hell, I also learnt one new thing out of them too. I thought, I knew it all.
5. 200 GPL Themes removed from Wordpress.org Extend Area. Read some of the reports about it. Unless Matt himself clears the controversies officially, it seems to be the beginning of a never ending debate.
6. Mashable has finally announced the Open Web Awards 2008 Winners. Check out what’s hot and what’s not in blogging and web!
7. Lastly a resource filled post. If you are a designer and is looking for a wordpress theme for showing your portfolio effectively, head to this post by WPhacks which has a list of portfolio based wordpress themes.

So that’s all in this week’s roundup of link love. Till the next, happy blogging.

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1. Sunday Link Love Series is back – No 6
2. Theme Thursday Series No 2
3. Wordpress Theme Directory Launched
4. Posts to be avoided by a Blogger
5. Wordpress 2.7 Checklist

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments

So finally Wordpress 2.7 gets released. Delayed only by a day as it was expected to come out on December 10. When Wordpress 2.7 RC2 was announced yesterday, speculations began that 2.7 final release maybe pushed further but final build just one day after 2.7 RC2 was unprecedented. Titled as Coltrane, there are lot of new things in Wordpress 2.7 which you will experience.

For those who want it as a simple upgrade, just use Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plugin. This plugin will upgrade your install to 2.7 without any hassles. It worked for me too.

There were two glitches I faced. So here are my advice regarding to it.

1. If you are using Ozh’s Admin Drop Down Menu Plugin, disable it prior to upgrading your blog. It won’t work and is not needed in your Wordpress 2.7 install.
2. If you are using Simple Tags plugin then open the file simple-tags.php and find the line:

   35	if ( strpos($wp_version, '2.5') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.6') !== false ) {

   and replace it with

   35	if ( strpos($wp_version, '2.5') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.6') !== false || strpos($wp_version, '2.7') !== false ) {

So these were the two glitches you will face before upgrading your Wordpress 2.7. And do make a database backup before upgrading. And final thing. After upgrading to Wordpress 2.7, pls disable the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin since Wordpress 2.7 has already that feature built in.

I am yet to incorporate Wordpress 2.7 specific theme features here at my blog. It will be a long task since making changes in already a tweaked theme can be a pain. And do read my Wordpress 2.7 Checklist before upgrading. It might help you too.

Update: Some developers are so fast. Coincidentally, both the developers of Simple Tags and Ozh’s Admin Drop Down Menu have upgraded their plugins. Download from their urls mentioned above to get 2.7 compatible version. This clears even the two glitches I mentioned. Happy Wordpress 2.7 to you!

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2. Wordpress 2.6 RC1 Released
3. Wordpress 2.7.1 RC1 Out
4. Akismet Wordpress Plugin 2.1.7 version broken
5. Wordpress 2.6 is out

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 23 comments

Well, 2009 is around the corner. And I think its the right time to make some analysis. I can’t say 2008 was not a good year for NSpeaks but it was ok. I did some design changes, reached 150 subscriber mark, broke alexa’s 1,00,000 mark, broke 10,000 uniques in Analytics, sold few private ads, got 110+ authority on Technorati. Well still I am not satisfied because I failed in other aspects like a regular posting schedule, earning some good money, giving quality content on every post, establishing trust with readers and making NSpeaks a respected and talked about blog. So here I have come up with some realistic goals for 2009 which I would like to achieve next year:

1. Cross 350 RSS subscriber mark.
2. Write atleast 5 posts a week
3. Write atleast 3 good quality posts a week out of above 5
4. Establish trust with my readers – Get a loyal readerbase
5. Try to keep ad spots filled every month – currently going empty a lot – even at $8/spot
6. Optimise Content Placement and other features to reduce bounce rate to 50%
7. Get featured on atleast 3 big blogs for a good and valid reason
8. Guest post on some good blogs
9. Invite 1 or 2 guest writers here
10. Generate a stable income from my blog

I think the above goals are reasonable according to my standards. There are more goals but then those are not related to this blog alone. Their are some personal goals of mine too. I hope to print out all goals and stick them to my desk so that I keep myself focussed towards them.

Though I didn’t came out with such a last in 2007, a good reason I am doing this now is because of a Group Writing Project launched by Daily Blog Tips. Please be a part of it and try to set some goals for yourself too. Afterall if there are no goals, then what will we look up to achieve?

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1. NSpeaks v5.0 is Live
2. 50+ Things I have learnt from Blogging
3. How to be the world’s laziest blogger? – Part 1
4. Posts to be avoided by a Blogger
5. NSpeaks Forum for Bloggers Launched

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 15 comments

Yeah, Just while I tried searching upon my contest blog, I reached my 404 page. It’s the worst ever 404 page with just a line saying that oh..you have reached a 404 page. Now, lots of screen space gets wasted over a silly sentence. Now there are many ways of filling that 404 page. Here are three ways:

1. Fill with Related Content – You can use some php to extract the url by which the person reached that error page and try out handing some related links. This will ensure, that visitor stays on your site despite reaching a dead end.
2. Fill with Ads Only – Now, your site does already get a lot of traffic and you don’t bother even losing that visitor out of your site. But before he does that, why not get him to make some money for us? Sounds interesting.
3. Best Method – Use a bit of both.

Content Aspect

I will suggest you to use a mix of both. In related content, you can show a list of your best posts, related posts to the search term the person used, search button and a list of your categories. Now link to your sitemap page won’t be good here because you don’t want him to jump upon a next page after this. You would like him to get direct to some content which can be possible if you redirect him to list of categories instead of sitemap link. Now you don’t have to use all of this and cram into your 404 page, but a intelligent mix of this can achieve your goal.

Monetisation Aspect

Now comes the monetisation part. Here I would suggest putting your CPM ads here. CPM ads benefit if you give them more pageviews. Considering that you get almost 30000 page views a month and out of them 5000-6000 get lost while browsing a 404 page, putting your CPM ad there gives you a better revenue earning ratio. Also you can try putting a banner which also appears sitewide. Sitewide banners should also appear on 404 page apart from other pages. Also you can try using a bit of link ad units from Adsense here as the provide a sense of showing related content to your lost search which resulted in that 404 page.

Conclusion

Now its not a sure shot formula on which type of 404 page works best. But you need to experiment a bit. With revenue sense, you should use special category or channels for ad which should be marked so that you can track the revenue coming from 404 page too.

So, experiment and check whether you can successfully gain visitors and money from your 404 page or not. And don’t forget to share your findings once you test them at your site/blog.

Related posts:

1. Increase your Adsense revenue with a simple tip
2. When you are not making money
3. Performancing Ads – What’s that?
4. Best method of commenting on Blogs to get noticed
5. 50+ Things I have learnt from Blogging

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments

Sharing Links among bloggers is essential. And realising this, this series is back. And rather than picking links from my commentators, I will also scan the blogosphere for some quality posts made in the last week. So for this sunday, here’s a recap of blog posts from last week:

• The University Kid is for Sale. I could not believe my eyes when I first read it. And the BIN Price set is $15,000. Anybody interested? If I would have that kind of money, I would have still not bought it since I know I could not carry his legacy the way he took. Current bid is only $4,500 and reserve price is $7,500. So you may get it at lower price than BIN since sale ends in 3 days only.
• Jeff at Performancing highlighted the fact that link exchanges don’t work anymore now. Well this is a hard known reality now. Earlier link exchanges were cool method to get a good traffic, linkbacks and even a solid PR. But not now. Now only good content works.
• Tushar Dhoot tells how much Facebook Ads sucks. I have tried advertising at Facebook and its a fact. Their CPM and CTR’s are extremely poor even when I tried with a budget of $250!
• Yuwanda Black from Blogging Tips shared that how can a blogger be noticed by Big Bloggers! Hey, I am also waiting to get noticed by any biggie. Anyone interested?
• Time for some quick formulas to write some great Post titles by Syed Balkhi. Read them for they sure looks promising. Need to try a few.
• And finally Blogging Idol 2 Winner was declared. I supported Suzanne Franco and she got into a tie for the first place. I will definitely take part in Blogging Idol next year.

So here was our quick recap from the Blogosphere.

Related posts:

1. Sunday..oops Link Love Series No 7
2. Comment Tuesday Series No 3 – Free 125×125 Ad
3. Theme Thursday Series No 2
4. Posts to be avoided by a Blogger

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments

So, you have written some cool posts on your blog. You have advertised a lot using commenting, guest posts and various social bookmarking techniques. You have setup your blog nicely and setup an advertising page highlighting your stats and everything. And now its over a month and you have not even received a single penny worth of your efforts. What do now in cases like these when you are not making money? Don’t sit idle is the technique here to be followed. Follow some steps mentioned below to get out of this mess:

1. Switch to AdNetworks as an alternative. Just Keeping Private ads won’t make money for everybody. You may be receiving 300-500 uniques daily but still without money. Then don’t wait for private advertising to kick off, start with some public adnetworks like Adbrite and Adsense.
2. Sponsor some contests. Blogosphere is filled with lots of contests. Sponsor some contests offering ad spaces at your blog. Though this won’t make you money but gives your sites good exposure resulting in few ad sales too afterwards.
3. Put Some Affiliate Banners. Unless you get some good private ads, you can put some default Ad banners from the affiliate programs where you are taking part. This will make you money too apart from keeping your ad spots giving a filled look too.
4. Exchange Banners Now this is something I have not seen but this idea came up in my mind. Why not exchange banners with your friends? Its definitely better than exchanging links. Try this and both of you get benefitted.
5. Highlight your best posts You can even use your empty banners to highlight your best content on blog. Get a good banner designed for one of your best posts, link it up and put it in the empty ad spot. It will ensure that your best post too receives good traffic.
6. Try some cool widgets Ok..some people can go overdrive especially those blogspot blogs. But having a cool widget can also take up the ugly space being used by empty adspaces. Try Skribit for instance. It will even allow you to get feedback on your blog.
7. Put up a Chipin.com Widget Ok this may sound stupid but this came to my mind from a recent example. One of my friend has taken the tedious task of hosting Kaspersky AV’s Offline updates. And he is constantly updating them. Imagine the server load…he needs over 150GB bandwidth per month which no shared or VPS hosting is able to bear at the moment. And his current ads are not helping much. So I asked him to use this widget to ask for donations to help support him. This may work for him, though its too early to say as its not even 1 day since widget is live. And if you also want to download KAV Offline updates head to ChotoCheeta.com And do support him if you appreciate his efforts.

Hope you like some of my ideas to use when you are not making money.

Related posts:

1. TheUniversityKid – A unique money making blog
2. Does Private Advertising helps always?
3. Performancing Ads – What’s that?
4. Monetise your 404 Page
5. NSpeaks Goals For 2009

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 14 comments

Those who missed the opportunity, Ninja Affiliate Plugin is for $50 discount for next 1 day and 14 hours from the time of this comment..Hurry now. Buy Ninja Affiliate Plugin at $47 only. And if you want to help me, pls use my link to buy.

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I am not asking anything more…just subscribe to email feed via email and comment here. Now this is different from previous contest. Your email would be counted only when you comment here. Unless you comment here though you are subscribed or not, your email will not count.

Only 1 Requirement:

Subscribe via email and Comment – Do both to get counted.

You don’t need to blog about this contest to get a entry though you are most welcome if you do blog about it.

Contest runs till 25 December, 2008 11:59PM IST.

Winner will be announced on 26 December 2008.

Related posts:

1. Winners of Ninja Affiliate Contest
2. MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate – Ultimate Plugin for Affiliate Marketing
3. Win 2 copies of Adobe Illustrator CS3
4. Winner of Adobe Illustrator CS3
5. Sunday..oops Link Love Series No 7

© NSpeaks, 2008. | Permalink | 37 comments