Blog Content Provider .com

You know I have been doing Internet Marketing and have been on the web for a long time. When social bookmarking and social networking first got started i thought it was pretty much a fad or something that people with too much time on their hands did.

However, I did decide to try it and one of the places that I really like is propeller.com. It’s a little addictive. You really do meet a great bunch of people at propeller.com and I’m sure at other social networking sites as well.

You know I must have a good group of friends at propeller because I run so many blogs I end up submitting and sharing a lot of stories and they put up with me.

So this one is just a little show of appreciation for those that participate, share stories, vote on stories, visit blogs, and comment on stories submitted at social networking sites like propeller.com. And it’s also a shout out to those who put up with all the stories I submit.

From an Internet marketing point of view, if you run a blog and are not yet doing social bookmarking, you should start. Traffic to my blogs has increased dramatically, I’ve made new friends, and I’ve found tons of new blogging ideas from stories other people share with me.

So join propeller.com or at least one of the other social bookmarking sites and watch your stats improve while having fun.

If you like to bookmark your websites and blogs then I have a new social bookmarking website that makes it easy. It’s called Socialmarker.com.

What makes Socialmarker unique is that you can bookmark your web pages at several bookmarking sites at the same time real fast. You don’t have to go to each social bookmarking site that you are a member of and log in every time you want to bookmark a web page. You can do it all from one source - easy and fast.

I’ve used Socialmarker and I can vouch for its ease of use and speed. It has saved me a ton of time in the last week alone. Social bookmarking sites that you can bookmark your web pages on through Socialmarker include all the big ones and several small ones as well. Here’s a list of sites that you can bookmark at through Socialbooker:

• Propeller
• Slashdot
• Digg
• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Newsvine
• StumbleUpon
• Technorati
• Twitter
• Fark
• Blinklist
• Mister-wong.com
• Spurl
• RawSugar
• MyJeeves.ask.com
• Google Bookmarks

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’s a good list. I’m going right now to set up accounts at some of these bookmarking sites that I don’t have accounts with yet just so I can use Socialmarker and save myself some more time.

I run an seo business and manage blogs for a variety of clients. I need coders who are versed in wordpress installation and problems associated with them such as permissions issues, cgi errors, MYSQL problems, etc. I need a problem solver I can count on when needed.

This will be an ongoing relationship. If you have strong php skills and know how to edit wordpress, you are definitely in the running.

I have other scripts that need to be installed often like contact forms, newsletter scripts, etc.

I am also looking for programmers that want to help me create new programs or edit existing programs to make them function differently.

My immediate need is needing 5 wordpress blogs installed manually, not using fantastico which anyone can do. @ have technical issues that need to be resolved. One has a cgi error and the other has a permissions issue. The other 3 installs should be straightforward.

If you can resolve these, then there will be much more work to come every month.

Email namecritic@blogcontentprovider.com if interested.

Now that is a headline that grabs your attention. It goes to the point we make here all the time about taking the time to create a headline that grabs the readers attention.

But enough about that. You want to know about Google and your passwords right?

Forgotten your password? Google can find it for you. Unfortunately

There’s a certain amount of crowing associated with hacking the blog of a security team - which might be why a hacker, apparently Russian, broke into the blog of the Cambridge University security team at the Light Blue Touchpaper blog.

He did it via some weaknesses in their Wordpress installation, upgrading himself from a plain “can post” user to an admnistrator of the blog using a zero-day (that is, previously unnoted) vulnerability, via SQL injection.

You shouldn’t, in theory, be able to extract the original text from an MD5 hash. That would take millions, or at least thousands, of computers running all the time.

But Steven Murdoch began thinking. Who is there out there who has thousands of computers running all the time? Um, everyone. And some might be generating MD5 hashes and putting them on the web…

He took the hash - 20f1aeb7819d7858684c898d1e98c1bb - from the database and stuck it into Google. Lo and behold, it turned out to be “Anthony”.

So far, so trivial. Except this: if someone does the same trick on a site that you use, they might be able to get read access to the database. They’ll be able to see the username and email associated with the MD5 hash. And, on the assumption that you use that password repeatedly, such a hacker could trawl the web looking for places you log in.

I took this little quiz about blogging. I thought you might find it fun to take as well. Here are my results;

Come back and post your results here. I’d really like to see how absorbed others are in their blog/s.

Article Content Provider has a great ebook on article marketing and you can get it for free when you order articles to be written by their ghostwriters.

By now, a lot of Website Owners have learned the term Article Marketing, but what is it really? Why do I need to do Article Marketing? How will it help me? Even many of the writers who ghostwrite for clients do not truly understand article marketing. They are good writers. They even may know a little about SEO and can put all the keywords and phrases into your article. But do they really know about article marketing and what the benefits are for their clients? Do you?

Blog Content Provider can train you to be a professional blogger in a very short amount of time. Our Blog Management Staff reviews your blog posts and makes recommendations on how you can improve your blogging skills.

How much money can I make as a Professional Blogger? How many blogs can you post to each day? The amount of money that can be earned is limitless. It depends on how motivated you are.

I already know how to blog: There is a big difference between knowing how to write a personal blog, an adsense blog, or an opinion blog and blogging professionally for companies. You would still need to learn our blogging system so you can be effective for our clients. The first thing we ask is that you be willing to learn more.

Okay, I want to try it. How do I get started? it’s simple. You just fill out the form on this page and we will contact you and go over everything from how and when you get paid to what is required of you.

This is a continuation of Part 1 of setting up your wordpress blog.

1. Install wordpress software, create database, admin username, etc.

2. Upload standard plugins to the plugins directory. Akismet usually already installed with wordpress. We add google sitemap generator, google analytics, (customer must supply code), addthis plugin, dd-add-sig plugin, feedburner plugin, and backup database plugin

3. Upload themes that you want to try out into themes directory.

4. Under presentation, try each theme out and choose one. Once you have chosen the theme you will use, delete all other themes from the server except the one you are using, classic, and default.

5. Download the theme and the htaccess file you chose into a client folder on your hard drive for editing purposes.

6. Header image. If the theme comes with a header image, you may need to customize this. If you do want to customize the header graphic, you must find the graphic in the client folder inside the theme you downloaded, in the images file.

Once you find the graphic, open it in photoshop or paint shop pro. The new image you create must be the same size as the header that came with the theme.

Also once you create and replace the old header and upload it to the proper directory, you need to see if the wordpress theme is laying text over the header you just created to see if it looks ok. If it looks bad, go into the wordpress admin area under options and take out the weblog title.

The title will have to be put back in later using your html editor in header.php. Where it says title, you will have to take out the php for the title and manually add the title there. That will be discussed later in this document.

7. User Accounts, In admin, go to users. Create your admin account. Edit each account after creating it. Uncheck visual editor. Choose a display name for each user, hit update.

After typing in the display name, you will need to still go back and choose it from the dropdown menu and hit update again.

8. Options. General tab. Set time to -5 gmt or whatever your time settings are where you live and make sure the options are checked as displayed here.

Anyone can register should be checked.
Users must be registered and logged in to comment is something I usually check.

New User Default Role: subscriber

9. Options. Writing tab. Add ping list below.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

10. Options. Reading tab. Set the feed on summary. Check the gzip option.

11. Options. Discussion tab. An administrator must always approve the comment. Check the option as displayed here.

12. Options. Permalink structure. First check date and name based so it will put code into the custom field below. Then change the custom field to the following.

Mainkeyphrasewrittenasallonewordhere/%category%/%postname%/%monthnum%/%day%/%year%/

Now hit the update button and copy the code it gives you. Download the .htaccess file from the server or you may have to create one and add that code to the next available line in the htaccess file.

Then upload the htaccess file to the server. View the blog, hit shift+refresh, then click the post title for the first post. Make sure you get no errors and check the permalink structure in the browser address bar to see if it is correct.

13. Manage Tab in admin area; Click pages. Choose the about page and click edit. Put in the text and links you want. Make sure keywords are used here.

14. Manage Tab in admin area; Click categories. Add categories using key phrases.

15. Blogroll. Check all default links and delete them. Add the links you want. Use good anchor text in the link names.

After adding a couple and choosing categories for them, view the blog to see if it is putting links into categories or putting them all into blogroll. It’s ok either way, but you will at least know whether you need to check categories for the links or not.

Also look to see if you are using too much anchor text and making the blog look sloppy. Alter as needed.

16. Editing Files. You should have downloaded the theme so now you can open all the php files you may need to edit. Usually, header, footer, sidebar, index, single, and page.php are the only files you will ever edit. Although there may be other files you want to look over and see if changes need to be made like to the stylesheet.

17. Header.php. should be the first part of the title. By default it is last. Move it to the front and make sure you put a dash or space before the next item.

Another part that will be there might look like this Now this is whatever you put into the admin area under options, general tab as the name of the blog.

If you had to put nothing in that field due to graphics issues then delete that and put the title of the blog you want there instead. That is all you really need to edit in the header so upload it and view it to see if it works the way you wanted it to. Click a post title to look there also. The title is what appears at the very top of your browser.

18. Sidebar.php. If you are careful, you can move things around here.
Maybe you want your categories at the top, the search at the bottom, whatever. Just make sure you know what you are doing there.

Backup your file first so if you upload and it screwed things up, you can always upload the backup and start over.

Delete the validation links in the sidebar. Wordpress never validates, so they are useless. You should leave the wordpress link since you are using their software. You can add images or anything else you want in your sidebar like widgets, affiliate buttons, etc.

19. Footer.php. You should leave the designer’s name and link, but if you left wordpress link in the sidebar, you can delete it here. If you didn’t leave it in the sidebar, you can leave it here. Once is enough.

That’s pretty much it. All questions are welcome.

I’ve set up a guide for installing ands setting up new wordpress blogs and thought I’d share it with you here. I’m going to do it in parts because it’s a long document.

So here is Part 1 - What you will need to setup your wordpress blog.

1. FTP Access. Full access, not partial permissions or temp folder access.

2. Cpanel Access if possible. If you do not have Cpanel or Cpanel with fantastico, then you have to manually install it. I prefer manual install, but doing it through Fantastico is ok as long as it has the latest vcersion of wordpress. You can check what the latest version is at wordpress.org

3. 3 – 4 themes you like so you can choose the one that works the best from the choices you make. Sometimes a theme does not work the way you want it to. Sometimes a theme will not allow you to create categories for instance. By choosing several you like and uploading them to the wp-content/themes directory, you can choose each one and test them before you decide which will be the theme you are going to use.

4. Plugins that you will be using. The standard plugins we use are DDAddSig, Google Analytics Plugin, Adsense Deluxe if you will be using Adsense or Yahoo Publisher code, Wordpress Backup Plugin, Akismet, and AddThis. There are literally hundreds of plugins available for free all over the net, so choose a few you will want to use and upload them to the wp-content/plugins directory. They can be activated through the admin plugins area of wordpress once you have it installed.

5. You will need an ftp client to be able to upload everything of course.

6. You will need an html editor if you plan to edit any of the php files that come with your theme.

If you have everything I listed here, you are ready to install wordpress and your theme and plugins. In part 2 I will talk in detail about how to setup your wordpress blog.

I love it when someone famous validates what I do. Such was the case recently when Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim fame printed a list of the most used blogging platforms:

1. Blogger - 34,104,000 users - up 58% from last year
2. Wordpress - 11,440,000 users - up 444% from last year (wow!)
3. Six Apart TypePad - 10,601,000 - up 20 % from last year
4. TMZ.com - 7,107,000 - up 10%
5. LiveJournal - 3,366,000 - up 27%

The numbers are according to recent Nielsen ratings. But you can see that WordPress is the fastest growing blogging platform on the market right now. Over 400% growth in one year. If they grow at the same rate this year (not likely, by the way) then WP could overtake Blogger within a year-and-a-half.

These statistics are not why BCP uses WordPress. We use the blogging platform because it has great features that allow us to serve our customers so well - to provide the SEO benefits we offer and to make writing and posting the blogs easier and more manageable. The validation from Beal came when he said:

Blogger has a huge lead but I wonder how many of those are active and not spam scraper sites? I remember the days when it seemed LiveJournal was the tool to use for blogging, but I instead went with Blogger. Now I’m a true Wordpress convert.

I agree with the statement about Blogger. I’ve got two Blogger accounts that I don’t even use any more. One has just been sitting there since August 2004. It’s still there and no one has used it. That begs the question, How many other abandoned Blogger blogs are out there that are being included in these user numbers? It’s possible that WordPress actually has more active users than Blogger. And it would be easy to see why.

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