I am not sure what is going on, but two of my blogs are not getting updated in Technorati, whilst a third one is successfully showing latest posts and the Authority is climbing.

Of course, I have checked all three blogs to make sure that all three are setup the same way and to make sure that all three are submitted the same way. I did make a couple of changes yesterday to one of the at fault blogs and the other was only submitted yesterday, so maybe I need to be patient and hope it is all fine in the morning.

But, it does not feel like that! On my mind is, “What if tomorrow morning when I check the account, both blogs are still showing an Authority of 1 and no recent posts?”. I know that Technorati Authority doesn’t really mean much, or not that I have yet discovered, but it is one of those badges that you just have to get. Plus, by being listed in Technorati’s directory, there is a chance of other bloggers coming over this way.

Ironically, the site that is listed is the one that I thought would struggle the most! It is only about 8 weeks old and not yet showing many incoming links! You never can tell!

We have had a few people contact us recently, stuck trying to sort out the basics for WordPress!

Don’t stay stuck! Part of our main business activities is our web design business, Janric. If you want us to help you get started blogging, just call in and tell us what you need.

For those wanting a full installation, we can provide secure hosting and database space, upload of WordPress and advice as to where to look for themes. We will also include our favourite tried and tested plugins, which include stats, most popular posts, post to Twitter, a contact form (and a valuable captcha plugin to go with it) and more.

We also want all our customers to succeed, so we’ll help you with plenty of hints, tips and tricks. On our Janric blog we also have a new marketing Ebook available, for free download. Grab a copy by visiting http://www.janric.co.uk/blog/ and learn a few essential tips for getting more traffic to your site for free!

Whilst you are there, you will also discover that is my main base for sounding off about whatever I feel like at that time. I’m not sure whether that is a good or bad thing! You’re welcome to join us!

What is a plugin? Are they essential and what are they for?

Blogging platforms such a WordPress provide a uniform set of features and functions. These include adding and editing posts and pages, maintaining comments, being able to update a theme and so on.

Everything that your blog is capable of doing is controlled by the software that runs your blog. But, what happens when you want to add an extra piece of function or change the way something works?

With a piece of software such as Word or Excel, you have little choice in making changes. But with blogs you can make these changes. You could, if you wanted to, actually update the WordPress code. But you would need to reapply these changes every time that you updated the software.

Instead, WordPress and other blogging platforms allow you to add on extra code in the form of “plugins”. These are little routines that include many instructions, from when to run to what to do. For example, a simple plugin just removes rel=”nofollow” from all comment author’s links. One of the best known plugins is Akismet, which protects your comments from spam.

There are thousands of plugins available, from simple devices to shopping carts, stats packages, contact forms and probably just about anything you might want to add on!

Do not be bewildered by the terms you might come across in blogging, just ask!

I’ve written a couple of times about the translation tool and how good it is, but now the problems are creeping out of the woodwork…

I thought that it was all too good to be true. Increase the amount of pages on the blog by re-writing in 48 different languages.

For the first couple of weeks it seemed to be running perfectly, but over the last few days, now I am seeing odd visitors arriving to the website, I’m having a few timeouts and errors on the admin system, caused by the translator. I’m hoping that it is just the admin system and not the front pages that visitors are reading, but instead of 48 language translators, I am now just translating to the 5 most popular European languages.

I will have to see how it goes. I can see at this rate the plugin being pulled, but if it starts to behave then maybe I will leave it with the 5 languages, but I don’t have the patience for time outs every time I add a new post if that the way the plugin is going to work, or not work!

I always thought that getting correctly listed in Technorati was as easy as with search engines – sit back and do nothing! I was wrong.

Getting listed in Technorati is the start of improving your Technorati Authority level. The Technorati Authority is basically your ranking within their system. On the whole, it does not really affect much and it is a bit like Google Page Rank – a good ranking is something to show off and wave about, but not really much else.

Except Technorati does provide a degree of traffic and the theory is that with a good enough ranking combined with being listed on their directory, users of the system will stumble onto your site and maybe become your own readers.

Is this the case? Well, I don’t know. But it is an easy enough process to try out and certain benefits should follow getting an improved Authority rank.

To begin with, your Authority is 1 – that’s a step up from non existant site! But as links into your blog are uncovered through other listed blogs your ranking can improve. Quality of posts also affect the rating, in some way. But it is mainly links that matter.

So, how do you start? Well you sign up to Technorati for an account and then they get you to post a random string of digits, such as X665NQUKC8XU to “claim” your blog. That’s it!

One of the most popular paid to blog systems available must be the new version of Pay Per Post (PPP v4), but what does the blogger get from it?

Pay Per Post is a marketplace of bloggers willing to sell posts on their blogs to advertisers. You sign up as a blogger, claim your blog and add a description and set your desired prices.

There are then 2 ways for advertisers to send you work, or opportunities as they are known. The first is to just accept your asking price and send you an opportunity. There is no compulsion to do the work, but you have up to three days to decide to accept it or to turn it down. If the opportunity does expire (and the advertiser can set it up for 1, 2 or 3 days) then you lose the chance of that work and more importantly, your figures for responding to opportunities drop. This is one of the key metrics that advertisers can select blogs on (the reason being people who always ignore opportunity are wasting advertisers’ time), so either accept or reject each opportunity.

The other way to get work is that an advertiser will create a lead and you see the basic details. You see what they are happy to pay per post and can either accept that price, reject the lead totally or accept it but make your own price offer (more or less than they suggested). Personally, from a bloggers’ perspective this is not very successful, but I think it does work for advertisers. I know I accept loads of leads and only a couple ever turn into work.

Pay Per Post expect you to keep the post live (on the same URL) for at least 30 days and after this time your account balance is credited. Once you have $50+ you can withdraw, via PayPal.

Overall, I do like the system, although I have noticed recently that the most work & income comes from PR2 blogs, with even the PR0 blogs getting more work (number of opportunities and total value) then PR3 blogs. Maybe it is just one of those random quirks, or maybe the advertisers currently on the system are limiting themselves to the PR2 price.

There is no minimum blog age, so you will be competing for work against brand new blogs with no followers, which is good if you are just starting out and in that position. As a new blogger, this is the place to start. As an existing one, you should make a decent income, I’m sure the higher PR blogs will attract some advertisers soon!

It was fairly easy to install the translation widget and I’m not noticing any problems, but does it do any good?

Well actually, although I am not seeing great levels of traffic on this site yet (I’m too busy on other work to write often enough), I am starting to see a trickle of success through the language widget.

There isn’t huge amounts of traffic, but there is some. I am starting to see within the stats package the evidence of a few searches in other languages finding my site. Sometimes they are surprising and take me a couple of minutes to realise what is going on, but there is definitely a flow of traffic originating from other, non-English speaking, countries.

And it only takes a small proportion of extra readers arriving on the pages to make it worth while. Say I could increase the readership by 10%, then that would be fantastic! And I am, at the moment, probably seeing more than 10% of search results in foreign languages.

I suppose the telling point will be whether these people hang around and come back again in the future. Would be lovely to see. So, if you are reading this page in a non-English language, please do drop me a comment!

InPostLinks is one of the many available sponsored posting systems on the market. But what does it offer to the blogger?

With InPostLinks (IPL), you are given a link to write to and it is up to you what you write about, as long as you use the link in a natural sounding sentence. They do ask that they posts are at least 200 words long, but do say that as long as the post has plenty of content, then anything above around 150 words is acceptable.

That’s how it is described anyway! In practice, it is very close to that but the post must be closely related to the link text. It is not sufficient to write an unrelated post and then slot in the link naturally.

What I like about this system is that the system is more open to the way bloggers work. There aren’t so many reviews of the post and you are not allowed to review the website or product, so disclosure is not needed. Best of all, 30 days after the post goes live you get paid the agreed fee straight into your PayPal account. No waiting for a minimum balance. If the offer was $1.50, then $1.50 arrives, PayPal charges pays, 30 days later.

But that is where the downfall of the system is – the payments. It is quite often difficult to find the higher paying posts. It could be because I am UK based and many require US blogs, but also a lot of the opportunities make silly offers, such as $2 for a post on a PR5 closely themed blog.

This means that when the $2 / $3 offers come through for PR3 blogs they are grabbed up in seconds. There is no allocation by the advertisers of which bloggers the opportunities go to, it is just a free-for-all first come first served. So although I often see good opportunites appearing on the screen, they are all usually greyed out as they are already taken.

To join, your blog must be 90 days old and have at least 20 posts of 200+ words. If you submit multiple blogs then only 1 blog can take each opportunity, which with the speed they vanish at is a good thing.

I would expect that the most work would be available for those blogs with a good PR that want lots of opportunities, but are not too worried about not getting the full value with each posting. A good way to build up an income, but with a low PR blog (PR1 and below), I don’t think you would get much work. Definitely not if you are not US based!

Voucher code blogs are very popular as a money spinner, but I haven’t, as yet, found the best of the tools…

Voucher code sites, love them or hate them they are about and serve a useful purpose. For the consumer a discount, for the affiliate an income. But many voucher code affiliates do not have the technical know-how to build a suitable website from scratch, so that is where the blogging comes in to the system.

The Issues
The problem is, in the UK if you are displaying voucher codes you must clearly mark them as out of date when they expire and you must not use click to reveal when there are no codes to display.

You could avoid click to reveal, but then consumers find your site, read the code and avoid clicking your link. They have the discount, but you do not have your commission.

Click to reveal is an evil necessity. I know, I’ve tried working without them to little conversions!

What To Use?
But, I can’t find any suitable click to reveal widgets for blogging, worse still nothing that will remove it when it is expired.

Is it a big problem displaying out of date voucher codes? If you are in the UK, then yes! Be found out as a serial offender and you risk being removed from all affiliate directories and your chance of earning becomes zero.

Coming Soon, The Plugin To Solve The Problem
So, what can you do! Well, that is why this site has been quiet this week and will be quiet for a while, as I develop the WordPress plugin that will hopefully answer these problems.

I’ll publish it to a test site that I have already been running for several months and on these pages share the secrets of the success, and failures, of the different marketing methods employed.

If you have any interest in voucher codes, then keep an eye on the updates! The plugin will be made available on these pages once it is ready.

We are excited to announce that we will shortly be making available for *free* download our very own new ebook – How To Start My Blog.

You may have read about it elsewhere or seen the page, but our new ebook How To Start My Blog is in progress and will hit the pages very shortly. It will be packed full of ideas on home jobs to do and how to do them. It will be invaluable to home workers, both to read and to pass onto their readers!

You can even use How To Start My Blog as a bribe to get more people to visit your own website if you want to!

So that you do not miss the publication of this masterpiece, either follow the RSS feed, join our newsletter or make sure that you are calling into the website regularly.

It will be an invaluable piece of work. You will learn lots from it and you can distribute it to your own readers and visitors as well, to help your own website work better.

Whatever you do, make sure that you are following our progress so as not to miss the book!