The problem is that not everyone can be an Olympic level blogger. Not everyone can place first. Not everyone can be internationally known and respected for Aardvark Eating Habits… or, you know, the Parallel bars.

The fact that we as the underclassmen of the upper echelon of blogging have a lot to learn and so many are willing to teach… but not teach everything… and not for free. It seems that all these high class bloggers hold back the holy grail of their methods. Sure they reveal what tools they used, they even share a few tips here and there… but let’s see the full business model eh? Or at least a near facsimile.

Enough of my rant…

Question to the Campers:

What are some of the things that you wish the upper ranks of blogging would actually unveil for you… or do you think they’re doing just fine like they are?

Bernie Mac, Dead at 50

One of my favorite comedians, Bernie Mac, died from complications of pneumonia at the age of 50. He will be missed.

In other, more personal news. I’m quite irritated at University of Phoenix right now. I just started my first class (2 weeks in) and my transfer credits have been combed over by their “expert”. I attended a local community college here in Omaha and have taken over 115 quarter hours of classes. Mostly being technical courses (internet technologies and general computer courses as well). 115 quarter hours = 76 semester hours… they only took 18 of those. This gives me, according to their time frame, a little over 2 years left on my bachelors degree. 5 week courses, 72 credits left, 3 credits per course = 1 pissed off student.

I’m in talks with my couselors and I’m hoping for the best. Wish me luck.

I created a lens based on an older holiday entry of mine “Top 10 Christmas Gifts for Bloggers” – I’ve titled it “Best Gift Ideas for Bloggers” It’s nothing special, but after publishing it, it has climbed to a Overall LensRank of 6,365 and 686 is the shopping category. Not bad considering it’s only been published for about a week.

The only publicity I’ve done aside from this blog entry, is to post a link to it with Stumbleupon. I have yet to see any revenue from it, but I’ve received a few hits to bloggercamp from it.  I’m looking to add a few more lenses on subjects I’m interested in and I’ll try and show you all how to get in some of the top spots as I personally climb the ranks.

So join Squidoo and make a go at it.

Dilectio by Design Disease

DEMO | DOWNLOAD

Dilectio 1 Review:

Another great theme from Elena. Great colors and contrast. Amazing attention to detail… all in a tight little package. The only two issues I have with this theme are as follows:  When you have several menu items (top level pages)… it distorts the layout if the width is too great. The footer is pretty bland, it could/should contain more information… perhaps additional information about the blog, it’s users, etc.

Elena, if you’re reading this thanks!

Recommendations:

• Fluid Width Options in Panel… with such a nice theme, having the option for fluild width would be nice.
• Fix the page menu issue.
• Reconstruct the footer.

Rating

Here is a little trick to to remove categories from the main loop. Yes, you can display these elsewhere; in pages (view custom template), the sidebar, the footer… wherever you want them and I’ll show you how.

Complete code

1. <?php
2. $themes = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT term_id FROM wp_terms WHERE slug = 'themes'");
3. $plugins = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT term_id FROM wp_terms WHERE slug = 'plugins'");
4. $posts = query_posts($query_string . 'cat=-' . $themes . ',-' . $plugins);
5. if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
6. ?>

Explanation

Line 1:
Opening PHP Statement

Lines 2 and 3:
The $themes and $plugins are the variables I’ve set up to pull the category id’s by name from the WordPress database. WHERE slug = ‘themes’ and WHERE slug = ‘plugins’.

Why did I setup those queries like that?
It’s a lot easier to remember a category by name than ID number isn’t it?
You can quickly change which category to remove from the loop and not have to look up the category id.

Line 4:
The $posts variable is internal to WordPress and the rest of the statement tells query_posts() to remove the categories by cat id (which we pulled from lines 2 and 3).

Line 5:
Our familiar loop is executed.

Line 6:
End of php statement

How to Add your Removed Categories anywhere you want them!

So now that you’ve removed some categories from displaying in your main loop… where do you want to put them?

The following code is how to display posts from a single category that we removed… I’ll show you how to add additional categories if you removed 2 or more from the main loop like I did in the previous code.

Complete Code

1. <?php
2. $themecat = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT term_id FROM wp_terms WHERE slug = 'themes'");
3. $get_themes = new WP_Query('cat=' .$themecat. '&showposts=10&orderby=post_date&order=desc');
4. while ($get_themes->have_posts()) : $get_themes->the_post();
5. $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>
6. <h3><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
7. <?php the_content();?>
8. <?php endwhile; ?>

Explanation

Line 1:
Opening PHP statement

Line 2:
The $themecat variable retrieves the category id WHERE slug = ‘themes’. One of the categories I removed in the above code.

Line 3:
The $get_themes variable initiates our variables for posting, here I have it setup to show 10 posts ordered in DESC fashion by date.

Line 4:
While we have posts with the $get_themes ID then start our loop!

Line 5:
Tells $get_themes not to show duplicate posts (very important).

Line 6 and 7:
You can basically put anything in here that you want that relates to the inner workings of the loop. I personally decided to just list the title and the content for illustration purposes.

Line 8:
Ending our while loop.

In order to put multiple categories (that you’ve removed from the main loop in the first portion of this tutorial) you must duplicate line 2, and change $themecat and ‘themes’ to $categorynamecat and ‘category’.

Then within line 3 replace .$themecat. with:
.$themecat. ‘,’ .$categorynamecat.

And you should now have 2 categories removed from the main loop and displayed anywhere else you’d like!

If you need any help or guidance please let me know via comments!

DEMO | DOWNLOAD

PerfecTOM Review:

Upon first sight of PerfecTOM it looks very girly by nature and isn’t very easily customizable. The background image is an entire JPG image “766×811″ at that. With some optimization and clever css work, this theme could be a lot more lightweight, and a lot more appealing to the masses.

The color choices however are very safe and appealing; blue hues, pinks, and whites make this an attractive design. Overall I can picture this theme (how it stands now) as a blog for shopping, winter topics, or even a gossip blog.

Recommendations:
Let’s face it, PerfecTOM is far from Perfection. It doesn’t seem like a “premium theme” as it stands and doesn’t appeal to a large quantity of users, but with some work it could be much better!

• Rework the background image and the css file to condense the weight (kb) of each page
• Offer some alternative background image/color schemes

Rating

On that installation CD was Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, and Google’s semi-recently acquired Picasa. I’m all for bundled software and what not but why is Google going to great lengths to push their tools… which are ALL readily available online. Just looking for some insight/thoughts here.

That’s not to say that those A-List bloggers don’t have something to offer, I subscribe to all of them, they have some great advice and tips… but like it would be invaluable to have them walk us through every step they took to make $X amount of money with just one specific website. If they have done that, then point me to that post… I’m here to learn AND to teach.

1. Say no to Paid Links
If you sell a few links in your posts, you are not only reducing the value of your content, you are selling yourself out. Don’t you think Kontera (or otherwise) links in a post distract from the article? Who cares right? You’re in it for the money… and in it for the wrong reasons.

2. Appeal to your Readers
Made any changes to your blog lately regarding monetization, format, or otherwise? Let your readers know exactly why you did it. You’ll allow them the opportunity to see how you operate and in turn they will learn to trust your character, as well as you on the whole.

3. Don’t Buy Links
I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and have recently stopped. So it is okay to advertise (where it’s expected) such as the 125×125 pixel ad blocks that Darren Rowse has made famous. However, buying keyword links from a PageRanked website just in hopes to increase your own… where’s the honesty in that? Earn your links with your content not your money.

4. Don’t Blow Smoke Up My Ass
If you make a decent living through online ventures, don’t just show me your statements from your Google Adsense account etc… walk me through what you did to get there. Don’t skirt around the explanation with vague terminology and cloak and dagger bullshit. Walkthrough, step by step, prove it with PROOF not a single image capture of Adsense.

• Dosh Dosh covers 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank. Some of these tips are a little underhanded or not worth the time, but there are a few gems that do infact work.
• Dan, of The Wrong Advices, explores how to Increase Your Alexa Rank with Post Excerpts, definately worth a read.
• Mike Busson discusses some of the nuances of using Alexa across different types of websites and how to Use Your Alexa Rank to Make Money.
• The famous Aaron Wall, of SEO Book, released 10 tips on how to Increase Alexa Rankings. Follow his advice.
• JDavidMacor (where has he been!?) covers Surefire Ways to Boost Your Alexa Traffic Rank same as dosh dosh here… be weary of some of the tactics – be honest.

Am I focusing on the milk or the cow?

I apologize for the JohnCow style reference but your readers, the bearers of milk, are very much your cash cow and it’s very hard work to start the milking process. In order to milk your audience (sorry people this is getting graphic) you must first have an established herd. So just how do you do that?

Provide a Product and/or Service

To establish an audience AND make money online from them you must do one of two very basic things; provide a product or provide a service. A service, for example, is bloggercamp.com. I blog for bloggers(new and old) on a variety of topics to help get them started or, at the very least, rolling in the right direction. A product is something like a book, a gadget you’ve invented, or otherwise. In some small cases a product can also be your service(wordpress themes come to mind).

In order to make money online with a product or service you must have certain value assigned to your inventory. I personally put value in a majority of the helpful articles(inventory) that I write from time to time. Individually an article may not be worth much more than a penny(or less) to anyone but I am providing a free service and increasing my value through a collection several of my articles. Take that $0.01 for each article and multiply it for each person that visits each of those articles and you can easily see that milk money can be made here. In this case the real trick is for you to consistently provide valuable content and to keep that content rolling.

Your Readers Comes First

Ideally if you have a happy audience then you have a happy pocket. If you focus on the pocket your audience might just dissappear. In other words; if you are too busy focusing on the results of blogging(your milking money) your failure rate will undoubtedly increase. Unless your only motivational factor is to collect money, and lots of it… you just might succeed if that’s the case. Unfortunately, in this case, to collect some milk money you might just have to get a job on a farm.