Previously Espreson discussed on “Sitemap plugin, its installation and configuration“. Now, the second part of blog optimization is Blog/Feed Directory submission.

Our ultimate goal is to get more readers. To achieve that you have to submit your blog in different Blog/Feed Directory. This job can be done in two way,

1. Paid submission
2. Free submission

1. Paid submission: Paid submission has better control and better result compared to Free submission, because you have paid some money to get listed in the prospective directory. Here is a list of paid blog directories,

• Fededshot (It lets you submit your RSS or Atom feed to a large collection of search engines and news services at one time charge of $1.99)
• Big Web Links (It ranks listings by the amount of dollars you have contributed to the listing, which offers more control for web site owners. Minimum of $29.90 USD for new submission and contribution amount increase as per your choice, starting from $1 minimum)
• Best of the Web (The Blog Directory Express Submit is a service for bloggers, blog marketers, and blog owners to quickly have their blog reviewed for inclusion in the Best of the Web Blog Directory. One time cost of $39.95)
• Joeant (Get listed as par your blog category. One Time Fee of $39.99)
• WoW Directory (World, local and regional directory. Express Submission $43 w/ Anchor Text and Sponsored Listing $65 w/ Anchor Text)
• Seven Seek (Listing type Web Page & Web Site costs $40. Sponsored Listing costs $99.95 )
• Skaffe (One time fee of $44.49)
• Aviva Directory (Regular links cost $49.95 and featured links costs $74.95)
• Directory Critic (Its a link building resource. Here you will find a list of search engine friendly web and article directories for webmasters. Its list include general, niche and article directories)

Note: To submit the blog in blog-directories, you need to submit it at appropriate category on that particular directory. For that, find the category as Blog or Weblogs and then add your blog on that category or in sub-category.

So, this is all about paid category lists. If you know any good paid blog directory then please let me know. Shall Espreson continue? Not now…Its too much..
Get in touch, because big hits are coming. That is Free Submission!

Disclosure: All the fees written above may change as per directory owner.

Technorati Tags: good blogging practice, paid directory list, web site directory, blog directory

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So, Good Blogging Practice has completed its 10th post. And its getting good response around the corner. Previously Espreson discussed on basic plugins. Now it is time to move towards non-basic plugins and widgets.

Blogger wants their blog to be read by more readers. So, if you get more readers, it will automatically increase rank/position of your blog. For that you need to optimize your blog in different way. Then how to optimize? Here is a guideline,

• Generating sitemaps
• Blog/Feed Directory submission
• Social bookmarking
• Pinging
• Other methods

First our discussion will be on Sitemaps.

Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.

Google Sitemap Generator for Wordpress is a kind of plugin which helps you to generate sitemaps. To view your site performance you can use Google’s webmaster tools. It shows how Google indexes and crawls your site, what are the problems in your site, how is your site performing etc.

Now the task is to install the plugin in your wp-content/plugin folder and activate it. For that you will also get detailed installation guide in Downloaded plugin’s readme file.

After activating the plugin, go to options –> sitemap, here you will find lots of optimization options like,

• Additional pages (if you want to add new page other than your blog then this is necessary otherwise not needed)
• Basic Options (here check all the options except Write a normal XML file (your filename), because normal XML sitemap is big in size compared to compressed gzipped XML sitemap, so, better left it uncheck)
• Location of your sitemap file (Go for automatic location and enter filename of sitemap as sitemap.xml, if your blog is in root directory otherwise go for manual location if your blog is in subdirectories)
• Includings (here check all the options)
• Change frequencies (as par the updation of your pages like Homepage, Posts change the settings)
• Priorities (as par change frequency give them priorities)

After doing all the changes don’t forget to click update options. Then press Rebuild Sitemap. When you find there are changes in your blogs posts, pages, categories and archieves press the Rebuild Sitemap as needed. Thats all.
So, your sitemap is ready to get crawled by search engines.

Now the task is to get detailed report of your blog performance and for that Google’s webmaster tools will be helpful. Here is the guideline how to add your sitemap in Google’s webmaster tools,

• Now go to Google’s webmaster tools and sign up with your Gmail username and password. Here you will be asked to add site.
• Just add your site on Add Site box and press OK.
• After adding the site go to Sitemaps option. Click on Add a Sitemap.
• Then choose Add General Web Sitemap. Put your sitemap URL (if your sitemap is gzipped then URL should be http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.gz otherwise http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml only). Sitemap URL depends upon the Basic Options of the Sitemap Generator plugin, which I have already discussed sitemap optimization options.
• Now you will get message like this You have added a Sitemap to http://yourdomain.com/. Reports may take several hours to update. Thank you for your patience!

So, sitemap generation and Google’s webmaster tools configuration are over. So, other blog Optimization topics are left..
Will be continued soon…

Posted in Good Blogging Practice | 3 Comments »

Good Blogging Practice is going to complete its 10th post. Previously it has been discussed all about new theme installation.
Now the very task is to make your blog more productive, reader friendly, flexible, robust. Then how?
So, this can be done by,

• Plugins
• Sidebar Widgets (This is a plugin and comes under Presentation , it lets you to add more elements in blogs sidebar section)

First our discussion will be on Plugins. There are numerous plugins available but it depends as par your blog category and your need of different plugin. Some of them are necessary and some are not. But some plugins are necessary, like,

• Akismet (Filters out spam comments)
• Sidebar Widgets (Adds expandability of your blogs sidebar content)
• Wordpress Database Backup (It backups your database)

Among them Akismet comes integrated with wordpress but other two plugins sometime needs to be installed if you find they are not integrated.

Now the task is to Download them(from above link) –> Upload them (WordPress plugins directory inside of wp-content) –> activate them(login http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php –> plugins).

To activate Akismet plugin you need WordPress.com API key. To get API key here is a simple step,

• Go to http://wordpress.com/signup/
• Check the box Just a username, please
• Sign up with your blog domain name as username or as par you choice
• Continue the signup process
• Login with username & password
• Go to My Profile
• Note down your API key
• Go to your previous blog
• Activate the Akismet plugin
• Go to Akismet Configuration
• Put the key no.
• Press Update options

Now your blogs comments spam filter is ready to work..
If the other two plugins are not installed then download them with following link provided and activate them from plugins.

So, basic plugin are installed. Now what next? To add more goodie goodie plugins and sidebar widgets to make the blog more productive, reader friendly, flexible and robust. But not now….Next…

Posted in Good Blogging Practice, Wordpress Plugin | No Comments »

Espreson has discussed how-to’s & resource of quality themes in Good Blogging Practice Part8. Now the point of discussion is uploading the new theme successfully. Your wordpress blog files and folders are generally located at httpdocs or public_html at hosted server. Sometimes this folder are hosting provider dependent as par where they want to put site root folder. If you don’t find your site root folder as httpdocs or public_html, then no need to worry,  just ask your hosting provider where is sites root folder. So, here is the process how to get ready with the new theme,

1. Download the desired theme on Desktop
2. Generally downloaded theme comes zipped, so, unzip it
3. Open up your FTP manager(SmartFTP or FileZilla or any other you prefer)
4. Locate httpdocs or public_html or root folder as per your hosting provider
5. Go to wp-content folder(comes under root folder)
6. Then find themes folder under wp-content
7. Upload the new theme into themes folder (If you are using FileZilla then from there go to desktop –> select theme folder which you have unzipped then drag-n-drop it into the themes folder or if you are using SmartFTP then minimize it –> drag-n-drop your new theme folder into themes folder)
8. Now login(http://your-domain-name.com/wp-login.php) using your username and password to wordpress control panel
9. Go to Presentation and select the newly uploaded theme
10. Now you are ready to see the result by clicking View site

So, your new blog is up. Now its time to customize the blog to make it more versatile and effective.
How to dot that? Will be continued next..

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, Good Blogging Practice

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Installation of Wordpress has been discussed in previous part of Good Blogging Practice. Now its time to groom the blog. When the grooming part comes in consideration, a simple question arises, that is
Why Should I groom it?

• To look beautiful
• To represent your thinking
• To represent your view
• To represent your personality
• Your thinking comes here!

Espreson is representing Theme as Grooming. Lets come to the next vital question and its answer.
How would I groom it?

This grooming part is simple and vital task. You need bit of patience to search different themes then select and then upload it. There are different sites which are providing beautiful & large database of grooming material. But before choosing the theme always keep in mind & opt for,

1. Widget-Ready Themes
2. Max of 2 or 3 column themes
3. Space on main blogging section
4. Simple but eye catching
5. Standard sized title banner
6. Left or right sidebar or bottom liner sidebar(try to avoid this kind of sidebar, because sometime your blog reader might miss good goodie of sidebar)
7. Elastic width, fixed in the center, or fixed width against the left margin
8. etc.

After considering above guideline, now it is time to search the right one. So, here is a list of sites which are providing themes,

• Wordpress theme lists
• 83 beautiful wordpress themes
• Theme Viewer
• Thats all

One important suggestion: As you look around various themes you get confused, don’t look too much. It is my personal experience. You could double check this experience.

Then what will be next…? Big & interesting things are coming. This is just beginning…
Keep in touch…with Espreson.

Technorati Tags: Good Blogging Practice, Theme, Wordpress Theme

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Good Blogging Practice Part6 has given solution over choosing best and cheap hosting provider. Different methods are been discussed on that post. So you could have chosen a good domain name and completed your hosting. Now the very next task is to setup the blog site. It is been assumed that your hosting provider has integrated solution of Fantastico or FREE Add-On applications with your hosting account. So, its consideration of just a minute. Your blog will be ready. Follow this simple step..

• Find Fantastico or FREE Add-On applications in your hosting account
• Find wordpress
• Press install

Blog is ready! How simple. For Espreson it took only one minute. An question could come-up in our mind that why Wordpress? Not other blog publishing platform. You find your answer at wordpress on Why should I use it? Espreson’s concern is not to put down others blog publishing platform you can choose other platform also. Do you know that,

Espreson respect each and every entity in earth
Its also belong to human race and respect each human being

By the way, you are ready with Wordpress. Now the next part is to groom your Blog. Why Should I groom it? How would I groom it?
Shall I continue? definitely, but not now….
See you soon…With lots more goodie..

Technorati Tags: Good Blogging Practice

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Good Blogging Practice is getting good response. In my experience I don’t have got any guidelines to blog effectively. So its my motive to give to those who need to know the basics of good blogging practice. How a blog should be? By the way, previously It is been discussed the basic requirement of hosting. Now the concern is to give the tips and source where we could judge the different hosting provider. This issue can be solved in different ways like,

1. Searching over Google or any leading search engine
2. Web host directories
3. Other tools

1. Searching over Google or any leading search engine:- This method could be done with search engine. If you are looking for cheap and best host just type cheap hosting in search engine will give many hosting provider. Sometimes categorized searching gives best result, like, to find hosting provider in Canada then typing cheap hosting canada gives good specific result.

2. Web host directories:- This method is the best way to find the hosting solution. With this method you will be able to find most appropriate one as par your affordability and choice. Here is a list of the Host Directories,

So, this are the directories from where you can find the best suited one.

3. Other tools :- * Domain Bot, with this tool you can search your desired domain name, its availability, whether it expired, expiring or for sale etc.
* Ajaxwhois, it is also works in a same way as Domain Bot but with little more difference.

Apart from the above there are good host which are also can be taken as good consideration like Greenlush, Godaddy, Downtown Host, Znet India etc.

So, you got a list of methods to find your host.
Now after choosing the host and hosting your blog the next part is to work on Blogging..
Shall I continue or later….See you soon..

Technorati Tags: Good Blogging Practice

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