Ezine Articles requires that we use a domain name with a redirect to the sales page
we are targeting – does that mean doing a redirect for each of our affiliate campaigns
and how do we do it?

Fran

Ezine Articles requires that we use a domain name with a redirect to the sales page
we are targeting – does that mean doing a redirect for each of our affiliate campaigns
and how do we do it?
Fran

Yes Fan, you’ll need to do a redirect for each affiliate campaign.

How you do it is to login to your cpanel.

Look for “Redirects” icon.

That’s where you do redirects.

It’s easy to do.

Yup… You’ll need to get your own auto responder separately.

For hosting, get the cheapest account. I suggest and recommend baby account
You can always upgrade later if needed.

For your auto responder aweber is what i use.

Craig

I was wondering how you track your page rankings for the search engines?

One of my sites I have is with sbi and they have a section that lists your rank on the search engines for all of my sites. I find it very useful, but was wondering how I’d check such stats on non-sbi sites??

Thanks,

Carey

Hi Craig,

I was wondering how to post video on my blog?

Thanks! Karla

Hi Ken,

I suggest you add a sub folder to your website’s main URL and call it test.

It will look like this
Yoursite.com/test/

Install a wordpress blog in the test folder.

Open up your theme’s header.php (Admin blog panel > Design > Theme Editor > header.php > file and Add this meta tag

You’ll see other meta tags so just stick it between the ones already There.

Go ahead now and install your theme.

Once this is done, you can play with the theme all you want.

Once you have the theme the way you want, back it up to your computer And delete the test blog (or leave it)

Now install the theme on your main site and you should be good to go.

Hope this helps.

Hello Craig,

Thank you. I just found you a couple days ago, downloaded your blogging guide. Have gotten a blog started on my own, thanks to you. So far I haven’t really had a problem.

Till now.

I want to put my aweber autoresponder box, but in following awebers directions to do this, there is no sidebar 1 to use. They say to have the html ready then…

Open up wordpress control panel, click on Presentation menu options, then on widgets in the sub menu. Scroll down to available widget section, locate box with a label of text or text 1. Click and drag that box into sidebar 1 box above.

There is no sidebar 1 that I can see. Can you please make this simple so I can comprehend what they’re saying.

Thank you,

Sam

“

Hi Sam,

I’ve sent you a detailed email with some resources.

If you have not downloaded my report “your First Wordpress Blog”
let me know because I’ll send it to you. It has a detailed “How to FTP” walk through.

I just started this blog at the above address and when I installed a plug-in (I think it was feedburner-feedsmith) I got these error messages. I don’t have a clue what to do. Can you help? I have since installed the primepress theme and changed my header images, but I can’t seem to get rid of these error messages. Diana is the admin name. I SO appreciate your help thank you

Linda Woods

here are the error message:

Warning: include_once(/home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/__MACOSX/) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: Success in /home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-settings.php on line 465

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘/home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-content/plugins/__MACOSX/’ for inclusion (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-settings.php on line 465

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-settings.php:465) in /home/diana/public_html/blog/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 850

Hi Craig,
Your WordPress install guide was a huge time saver. It worked almost perfectly I think the rest is mostly using WP and getting to know it.

I want to upload a large number of graphics (maybe 7 or to the first page of my new blog. What’s the best and quickest way to do that. I have them stashed in a folder, ready to upload. Each one will have an affiliate link behind it.

Also, in addition to the one I made a ’sticky’ on the first page, I have 24 other articles about my main topic ready to go. Should I post them on the blog or spread them around to ezine sites? How about the social sites (Twitter, etc.) Combination of all?

We built 17 web sites in the past two years, and never made a dime on any of them. Obviously we didn’t do it right, altho a lot of them were really good looking sites, with articles and a lot of the features the guru’s say you have to have. Still no sales. I want to avoid that situation this go round. We need to make some money like, now. We’ve decided to use WordPress as the site creation tool.

I have to say, thus far, the learning curve has been substantial. I have emails from experienced marketers who say they can slap a WP blog together in n hour and get top or close to it Google rankings in two hours. I don’t know. I’ve been working on this one for 4 days now and, while its up, it’s no where near done.

Guess I’m not very bright, and not smart enough to quit. Anyway, I’ll just keep plodding along til something good happens. Meanwhile, will appreciate any help/suggestions you and/or your visitors care to provide. Thanks.

Wes Nathan

Hello,

I just finished reading your guide – very helpful but I have a few questions.

1. I am wanting my API Key but I go to my profile under user and I cannot find it. I did not create and install my wordpress blog so I do not have the original email. So I do not know where to find it. Any ideas?

2. I would like to put my contact form down in the footer, right now it is on the side bar with my posts – a little confusing. Anyway how would I get it down to the footer of my page?

Thank you,
Nancy

I’d get off the free host you’re on first and then Google “How to make a membership site with wordpress.” because that’s the only way I can think of doing what you want to do

Craig

I got a link in my mail about downloading your ebook on your first wordpress blog.I clicked it to open,but it wouldn’t open the zipped information.Instead,I got a blank zipped.So,what else do I do to get this information?
jide2day(AT)yahoo.com

Hi Craig,

I have more than 100 articles written by myself on my website http://www.mydomain.com, which is an article directory.
Now I have made a decision to move these articles to my blog http://www.mydomain.com/blog for them to easier to be found by search engines.

I have a couple of questions:
1) is it smarter to move them to a new domain, http://www.mynewdomain.com/blog instead of having them on the same domain as my articledirectory?
2) can I use the same articles and publish one each day and without having to rewrite them in some way?

What´s your suggestion? I will appreciate all answers that can help me moving forward. Thank you.

Jan

[...] Ask Questions Here [...]

I’d post a few per day Jan.

I’d also put the blog on it’s own domain name or replace the article directory with a blog.

You’re trying to get free traffic to your “whatever” to convert it into paid coaching clients it seems. If so, your whatever has to be built with that purpose only.

If it where me, I’d drive traffic to a page where they can download something helpful and that something makes them want more which is where the backend coaching comes in. this way, they get to your page and have two choices, 1. give you their email address (Join your list) to get that something, 2. Leave.

After joining your list, they get redirected to your blog. There you give lots of whats but not hows. The hows are in the paid backend.

The blog will attract more traffic and on the blog, you again give away that something in exchange for an email address.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about which I built for a client
http://www.askrogerdrummer.com/

Join his list and take close note to each step you get taken through.

Hope this helps,

Craig

Dear Craig,

Please help. I am a newbie in self-hosted blogs. I was with the free wordpress until a couple of weeks ago I decided to move to a self hosted domain.

I did not do anything- but now my permalinks(?) are not working. Every time I click on the recent post – it will just take me to the latest article on the HOME PAGE. Even the PAGE LINK on the horizontal panel do not work anymore.

The only thing that works is the BLOGROLL… except for the first one -I get a 404 on it.

The widget called ONLINE visitors still appear even if I had that widget deleted already.

Please help me – my blog is dying with all these technical dilemmas. I tried reading the instructions but they are way too technical for me at this time….

What did I do wrong? I deactivated all the plugins because I thought they were messing up my links but to no avail.

Please help me.

Rex

Hi Craig,

it´s me again, Jan

I have had problems with my Internet connection during the last two days so I haven´t been able to comment on your last reply until now.

I have a lot of people coming to my main site every day so I don´t think I´m ready to just take it away just now now. Yes, I will replace it with a WP blog within time and you suggested that I post snippets of the original articles and if they want to read more, then they have to go to the main site. I think that´s a good idea.

I also agree I will have some free stuff like reports to give away on a landing page to get them to sign up with their email address.

I will have a lot of work with this before I have it up and running since it will be my first blog. Everything will not be perfect from beginning but most important is to get started.

Thanks Craig for your genuine interest in helping me.
Jan

Hi Diana,

Download the themes you like. Upload them to your blog, activate one at a time and try to add widgets. If the widgets show up on your blog, you’re good to go.

Most themes these days come widget ready. If they don’t chances are you’ll have other issues with the theme.

You’re welcome btw.

If it’s the theme I think it is, you can’t. Anything you want to put in the sidebar has to be hard coded into the sidebar.

it’s me again – I see my post didn’t include the html instruction I
had in it! Anyway my problem is identifying where to find the
right spot to do that… is it next to the post where it says “sticky”?

Fran ?

Hi Craig,
Thanks for your answer – I’m able to quit worrying about that now!
I have another question, about the message I copied below,
that’s the second such message I’ve received and they go on to list
a name and a email address… I can’t find those registrations anywhere,
I know there’s a “Register” invitation at the top of the blog and I read
somewhere that anyone who registers will get a password…

WordPress to me

New user registration on your blog Apprentice Marketer Gazette:

Do I go ahead and email those two people?

Thanks Craig,

Fran

Hi Craig,
I really would prefer to not have this Register function… as it is the visitor,
after clicking on Register at top of Header, sees a page asking for a username
and email and is told that a password will be sent.

To the registrations I received I sent an message asking the questions that
the new user would fill in if I would send an email… first and last name and
password… so far I have not received a reply from the 4 who registered.

I would rather eliminate the Register function and this is the code in the Header
page:
<?php
} else {
echo ”;
echo ‘Log In‘;
if (get_option(‘users_can_register’)) { ?>
<a href=”"><?php _e

Would you please tell me what I should take out?

Thanks,
Fran

Hi Fran,

Send me an email with your blog’s user name and password. I’ll do it for you

I need the user name and password in a zip file. You can go to winzip.com and download a trail. Do not send me that info in the email with out it being zipped up. As soon as I’m done, you need to change your sensitive data.

I can’t teach you how in this comment box because it does not except code.

Craig

I have just started a new business, personalized scripture cards. I like the theme Christian Sun and was thinking about using it for my website. My question: If I use Christian Sun, can I upload one of my images, and use it for a header? (instead of the one that is there with the cross)
My website is still under construction, it looks “rough”.

Thank you,

Lynne

Hi,
I’d like to give free reports to folks on my blog, much like you have, what would I use, and could this be used in the ad boxes wordpress provides?
Or could I just send them to another page I have setup on the blog?

I have Wordpress 2.65 and was going to upgrade to 2.71. Clicked on Fantastico, then on Wordpress but their is no upgrade link. I’m lost, please help. Thank You!

All for Blogging tags John

Be careful however. Tags are used to pick one word or more that best describe your post/content. I do not subscribe to tag stuffing: Adding crazy amounts of tags dilutes the purpose.

Hey John,

The more focused and narrow the better. So avoid 20 30 tags. I like under five. Think about it, you have a post, how many focused words can you come up with that describes your content best?

Check all my posts, how many tags do I use? Not much.

you may also Google “How to use tags?” to get more options.

Hope this helps,

Craig

Hey MIzzCindy,

I only use All-in-One-SEO-Pack. This converts my post titles into page titles. Plus I also add to the title “How to start a blog: Blogging Guides Ask Blog Question Here” Go ahead and click on any of my posts to see it in action.

As for using both plugins, I don’t. All-in-One-SEO-Pack is just fine. Do this, search in Google “how to start a blog” and you’ll find this blog of mine on page 2 out of 776,000,000 but don’t let this fool you. It’s not just because of All-in-One-SEO-Pack. It’s because I have very good back links with the phrase “how to start a blog” in them.

For question five, I’m not even using All-in-One-SEO-Pack function while posting content. I just add tags over to the right. But doing both can’t hurt.

I suggest if you want good search engine rankings, you focus on back links.

Here, I’ll show you one more of my results, search “firepow” in Google. Then look for firepowreviewed.com . I should be in spot two or three. That was mostly done with good back links which is called “off page factors”. Everything you’ve been talking about is called “on page factors”. Most of your rankings will result from “Off page factors”.

Hope this helps,

Craig

Craig – something you should know!

First off, I love your ebook (Your First Wordpress Blog – The Beginner’s Definitive Guide). Nicely updated for wordpress 2.7. However, I think there is an issue with the contact form plugin you recommend from green-beast.com (PHP Contact Form v.2.OWP).

I had already built my sitemap and submitted it via google’s webmaster tools before completing all my individual page descriptions…not sure if that has any bearing on the following or not…

My new blog was indexed sometime yesterday (again before all page descriptions were complete).

Imagine my surprise, when I noticed the following ditty under my contact form url:

“Note: The input below should not be filled in. It is a spam trap. Please ignore it. If you populate this input, the form will return an error.”

Ummm…what the heck?!

On a hunch, I googled that phrase almost 31,000 sites were returned. After a bit of spot checking, they all appear to be using this particular contact form plugin.

I sent an fyi email to Mike Cherim, but in the meantime I thought you’d like to know as well.

Since my site was indexed, I have put my page description on the contact page. If I google the specific url for my contact form (not site:mydomain.com/contact, just entering mydomain.com/contact), I don’t get that nifty little message.

How often does google update that index listing? Is there a way to force an update for my site? Or should I delete the contact form and go with something else?

Isn’t this stuff fun?! Maybe more fun some days than others.
MizzCindy

A lot of the Wordpress themes seem to have a lot of unused space on the screen on either side. I thought I had seen blogs that span the entire screen. What is the reason for this, and is there a way to change a theme so that it takes up the entire screen?

Hi Sandy,

Go to my main page http://www.idiotproofblogging.com
The first post you see is a sticky post. this means, no matter what i post to the blog they will be filed under my sticky. Why do I want a sticky? So who ever comes to the blog for the first time sees the free guide and takes me up on it. Sticky posts can be your welcome message, an offer or whatever you want it to be.

Go here to get the sticky plugin http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-sticky/ . then install it.

When you go to post new content, you should see a box over to the right of the screen asking you if you want to make this post a sticky. Check the box and publish your content. Then go to your blog’s main age to see it.

About FTP, you only need it if you are uploading themes. Or other files. I strongly suggest you do not use FTP but SFTP. Write your host and tell them you want SFTP.

I’m coming out with a Security Tutorial for wordpress soon and will be covering SFTP and other security related solutions for Wordpress. Wordpress blogs get hacked a lot. Keep your eye open for that

Looks like you missed the add code step.

No problem…

1. Create a new “Page” and title it “contact” of whatever you want. Then within your editor you have two tabs at the top, look in your left side navigation bar for “Tools” under that is a link “Contact form 7″ Right click on it and select “Open in new tab.”

2. Within your contact form 7 page find something that looks like this [contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"] and copy it.

3. Now click on your browser tab that will bring you back to the page you just created for the contact form.

4. You have two tabs at the top. 1. Visual and 2. HTML. Click on the HTML tab. Now paste your code in there.

5. Hit publish and then test your mail page.

EDIT: There is a step I missed: See MizzCindy’s comment below.

I want to know what to do to update my blog with fresh contents from time to time.

Hi Brain,

I wouldn’t go wider than 1000. Think about your users… How wide are their screens?

Why not reduce your header image size? I believe this site here, is 1000 wide.

Up to you

Hi
Like David I also need auto feed on some pages on my blog. I have tried wp-autoblog but find I need to fetch the content manually. Can anyone suggest how I can set this on auto update please.

Thanks
Wilson

In your email you said “…Real wide if you can because most header images are 800 to 900
pixels wide…”

so, how do I know what picture to download for istock to use as a banner. They show sizes like s,m,l, xl, etc…

Hi, First off, let me say thanks for all your hard work & helpfulness. It’s great for us “newbies”. My question is, I am starting a blog about diet/fitness & I see these other sites that have a wall of relevant YouTube videos at the bottom. How do I get that? Also could I put 1/2 video on each new post & if so how? Thanks, Becky

Great questions Brian!

Q. 1 I’m sure it can be done. Have no idea how besides having a rotating script rotate header images.

Q. 2. Is that a questions?

Q. 3. Yes there is a master CSS file. It belongs to your theme you’re using. Within your admin panel, click on “Appearance” Under it will be “Editor” click on that and look for StyleSheet CSS in the right hand sidebar..

Q. 4. Yes you are right but can’t do it for just one page. Any changes you make there will change all pages and posts.

I’d just get building a money maker if I were you… Any changes you’d like to make can be done on the fly as you go.

Susan!! You are a star. You have no idea how many people have not gotten as far as you have. Congratulations!

Don’t worry, it takes a little time for your domain to propagate. If it’s not working in 24 hours (which is what the proper time frame is) send me a message and I’ll have a look for you.

Hurry, get blogging, the water is warm out here

Craig

First of all, let me say how much I appreciate your help Craig. It is SO appreciated. I have a friend who has his domain hosted on Google. He wants me to help him set up a WP blog attached to his domain. Is there some way to set up a WP blog on Google? I can’t seem to find contact information for them anywhere on their site. Thank you in advance for your answer.

Well, I understand now. He was referring to “google apps. (see address below)

Actually, he hopes to find a FREE place to host, (like Godaddy) where you have to accept advertising in exchange for the hosting, but I checked with Godaddy and they do not offer cpanel. Any suggestions from you would be most appreciated .

This following would be the address to what google provides :

http://partnerpage.google.com/www.yourdomain.com

Hey Matt,

I would not do it

Dennise,

fist of all, congratulations for taking action and getting your first blog up!

That’s big stuff.

Inside your blog’s settings, look for permalinks and click on it then once on the page for permalinks, click the button at the bottom “Update” this should sort out the 404. I’m guessing.

As for the thing to delete, delete that contact form plugin I suggested.

I’m getting the new tutorial together so just have fun blogging, OK? We’ll get this sorted out for you.

Hi Craig,
I’m not sure what slugs are – could you give me an example of one?

Thnks
Diana

wordpress says this “Please, do not edit this Codex Page with the settings for your own server as you are giving the world access to your website’s MySQL password, and will not make your install work. ” what does that mean?

after i install wp can i go back to the wp-config.php file and change the database password to a fake one so know one can see it? if i use a fake password will wp still function?

also i wish you had a search function here, seems like good info i would like to find and read.

thanks.

You’re welcome

the first thing I’d do is to change themes to test if this happens in other themes. If it does not, your theme is not handling the more function. If this is the case change themes or find someone to play with the theme you have to fix it. Off the top of my head, I don’t have a fix for you.

This is not a fun one… http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/rss-feed-does-not-validate

Hi Craig

Have asked a question on 17/3 which has gone unanswered.
To be specific now how do i upload images having affiliate links as shown in the above site(example bottles)
Could you guide me step by step

Atul

Does it matter in terms of purely Search Engine Ranking where you host a blog? Is there something special about a blog that works differently than a website in terms of SE ranking?

I have a blog at blogger.

I have a blog through my website hosting at SiteBuildIt
and one through another website company.

To be honest, the one through the other hosting company is the easiest to deal with, but I want to consolidate and pick the hosted area BEST for SE. So, does it matter or is content/keywords still the key?

Thanks Craig!

Jackie Ulmer

Im having a problem adding a theme, and using filezilla, it says the them is installed but incomplete, the style sheet and template is missing,, what does this mean and what do i do next? so im trying to use a default blog template, no luck yet, the site is up, but i havent gotten to the part of what and where and how to add content, I reall ycould use some help, thanks, Tim

Hi, I do have a question about your blue ridge 1.0 theme. I am using it for my site and I would like to know if there is a way to widen the entire theme. There are 3 columns, however it leaves very little space in the middle. Is it possible to make the middle part bigger so maybe I can insert an image?

Hi again, what I meant was, is there a way to widen the entire theme? here is my blog still in the making: http://www.gain-serious-muscle.com/blog/muscle-building. You see the middle part with the text? I would like it to be wider and a way to make it wider is to widen the entire theme itself. I don’t know if that is possible, but if it is, it would be great. Thanks.

I started making a blog with the instructions from your book, I got to the contact age section and started getting this message instead of trhe page. What do i do to fix it,? Tim
contact

Fatal error: Cannot access empty property in /home/timothyw/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 452

Here is something to follow. If you need help, just post your comments under this post
http://www.idiotproofblogging.com/blogging/you-may-want-to-use-audio-on-your-blog.html

To add audio to HTML pages, I use http://webaudioplus.com/

Hi Elaine,

If I’m around, I try to answer questions fast

Podpress plugin is the way to go. They also have a good tutorial on their site.

Maybe it’s time to make a set-by-step for adding audio to blogs.

Craig

Podpress may not be working well with your blog… It happens.

You can disable it than delete it. And use http://wpaudioplayer.com/

that’s what I use on this blog.

I saw your blog btw. Nice pic of you. I’d change the theme if I were you and have one that takes me down one path.

The theme you use now has many things competing for my attention. When this happens, people leave fast. Just my thoughts.

Craig

Craig
Has there been a problem with WP blogs…my new one that I just set-up but not done much work has gone…but the one that is a week old and had several posts on it is coming up as broken links. Since they were so new, I did not have time to back them up…have I lost everything??? OMG…I could cry but then I also can’t login to my cpanel on my hosting site which has always been so reliable…are the 2 things related.

Please help if you can

Thanks
Diana

I’d not bother upgrading yet. I did and lost my whole blog. It was a nightmare. Please wait until 2.8.1 is out of beta. Personally, 2.7.1 rocked.

Hi Wes,

I think you need to find a theme that is compatible with Wordpress 2.8

Spending a lot of time to get going is the way it is. You’ll soon be moving on.

Hi Terry,

Congratulations on getting your Wordpress blog up and running!

The issue you are having is because the theme / template you are using is not compatible with Wordpress 2.8. You’ll need to find yourself another.

Hi Dianne,

It can be done but it’s really not worth the effort when the theme can just be changed with a new three column theme.

You can download http://www.artisteer.com/ and make a new theme or hire someone to look at the site and then come
up with a three column theme for you. Whatever you do, test everything on your own servers not the client’s just
in case something goes wrong which most of the time it will, you’ll be safe.

Hey there Cindy, I use http://www.mutube.com/ and it’s been working for me. Give it a go and let me know

I read your views about wordpress 2.8….ijust want to ask now that when 2.8.2 is released…should i update my wordpress blog or still 2.7.1 is best???? i dont want to loose anything thats why i am asking you to guide me about new version….
thanks

I received the email post about the 2.8 release for wordpress. I was waiting til I had time to check to see if anyone else was having problems with it. Thank you Mohit for asking!!

My web page: My Journal – I would like to put a video clip with sound into my right hand margin, when clicked on, I would like it to open to about 1/3 of the page. It would be great to click on it again, so page goes back to normal state. I would change the clip once a week. Most clips would come from youtube, but I would also like to put in international video clips with sound – but how?. I would also like to write short international news items to the same margin. You click on the headline which then opens up my, say , 20 line news item. I know I’m asking a lot, but if you can help would be great. I have just installed your comment box 13/8/09 it was so easy, Thanks.

Hi Paul,

I suggest you go to rentacoder.com and have one hand made.

There are other sites as well… Just Google “Outsource”

Craig

Hi Craig
how do I get comments on pages and not just posts? much like you have here which I assume isn’t a post but is a page but the comments and your answers stay on the page.

Thanks

Hi Craig,

First, I want to express my gratitude for all of your wonderful help.

I would like to know how to put in a box for visitors to sign up for my list. I would particulary like one that is viral.

Any comments that you may have about my blog so far?

Thanks,
Jay

HI Craig, thanks for your answer, but I have your template and there is no comment box automatically appearing on pages just posts. Is there something I need to tick in the admin part to make the comment box appear on pages within wordpress blog template?
Thanks Elaine

Hi there, Any word on mailchimp for an autoresponder? Its expensive but is it better than aweber?
Also-
If anyone like to tell me where my 2 side bars went for my widgets in the dashboard, Im all ears.
Thinking of reinstalling. I try pressing buttons from which I thought I had pressed..but no luck. Strange.

Hi Craig – Just a general question about traffic numbers. How many hits per week or month should one aim for in order to attract advertisers? Currently I am at just under 1000/week and I’ve only been live for a month. I’m waiting until I have enough traffic to approach advertisers, but I don’t know what kind of numbers are considered good. As always, many thanks!!

Thanks Craig!! You are so helpful – how do I take a screen shot?

Another question…and maybe you answered it here, speaking of theme layouts.

I LOVE my theme colors and simplicity – BUT, I am starting to wish I had a another sidebar and areas for ads.

Any tips on altering/customizing a theme or do I need to start over from scratch…(something I REALLY don’t want to do!)

Thanks a bunch – just read your guide and put some of your permalinks and blog title tag advice into action.

Amy

Finally have WP on my hosting account (just finished your report too and boy does that help!). But I have a question about Widgets. How many is too many and what’s the important ones, besides Akismet to have?

Thank you for this little book, at least I won’t blow something up.

Hi Craig,
Another question for you – I’ve tried to submit this to both Wordpress Support and my Theme Support (StudioPress) – they’ve either ignored me or gone over my head…..can you help?

I’m trying to figure out a way to include Links by Category and Posts by Category on each of my Pages. So far, all I’ve read is a bunch of real technical instruction on the code but I have no idea how to write the code to fit each individual category.

For example – on my site, http://thepranamama.com, I have different pages that are static with some basic information – one of them is Yoga for Kids. I post on lots of things and categorize them accordingly. I also like to link to outside articles as they relate to the topic as well. I categorize the links accordingly as well. So how do I get my “Yoga for Kids” PAGE to include a list of POSTS categorized as Yoga for Kids, as well as a list of LINKS, also categorized as Yoga for Kids? And how do I do the same for my other pages on other topics?

Thanks – you’re usually my last stop….hope you can help, or recommend if this is something I need to “rentacoder” for.

…The PranaMama…

Hey Craig,

Got a question for you… I just noticed that there are new versions of Contact Form 7 and Google Analytics available for me to upgrade to my blogs. However, when I click on Upgrade Automatically in the Manage Plugins page… I get a unclickable url like this one:

Downloading update from http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/contact-form-7.2.0.5.zip.

What gives? Is there something wrong with my blog or I need to go to WP and download and install these plugins manually?

Thanks man,

Matt

Hi Craig,

When wordpress have new updates, after updating wordpress, do I need to download the theme and update the theme too? Will the current old theme that I am using always work with latest wordpress update? I am wondering what will happen if the theme author do not update his themes.

Is it a must to update wordpress? Is there a way to configure wordpress to “set and forget” like static sites?

If a plugin does not work with a new update, what will happen to the previous work done with the plugin? For example one day the seo title tag plugin or ads plugin is no longer updated, so the old work I have done will be disappeared, title tag missing and ads will not be displayed? I must replace it with a similar plugin and redo everything that I had done before?

Thanks

Hi Craig

Not sure if this question has ever been asked forgive me if it has.
I have had wordpress blog on my site for some time now but only recently decided to make it work for me, It is hosted on a paid for company on a shared server.
I started to get posts on the blog and then registered for a reader account attempted to put an RSS link on and installed some plugins but and this is the crunch within 24 hours my whole hosting account was suspended with the following comment.
“Your account was utilizing excessive resources, causing a significant
degradation of services on the server.”
Is this something you have come across if so which plugins should I use and which ones not?
Regards
Ray

Thanks Craig I do intend doing that but my subscription to this company is paid up for a year and as I could only get my account up and running again after I took down my blog
because I am not sure which plugins caused the problem

Ray

Hi Craig,

my question is about adding a blog to my domain Fran-Civile.com…
the title of that blog is Fran-Civile’s Blog but blog is not part of the
domain name.

I want to use Fran-Civile.com/recommends/affiliate program instead
of use affiliate links for my promotions.
I just came from Hostgator cpanel where I looked for a tutorial but
didn’t find any so I was inspired to go to The Answer Man

Thanks Craig, Fran

Can you please tell me what is the basic difference with Posts and Pages?

Hi Craig,

Thank you for your book it has been very helpful for me and enabled a better understanding of the steps needed to start a blog.

I am now trying to understand SEO and have a question about header tags.
I have just put up a blog and managed to get the keyword in the title tag, url and description, but not the header tag (head)…now this is where I am very confused.

I read somewhere ‘the head is h1 h2 etc tag within the page content’…now on reading that I thought it is the title of the content, but I think I am wrong in this assumption and cannot find anyway to put an h1 tag in my blog posts.
Craig could you explain what a header tag is and how to get the keyword in there.

Thanks
Linda

Hi Craig,

Thank you for your answer. I have decided to take on board a little of what you said about best use of time. As a newbie to the internet world it is sometimes hard to know just what is important and what can be put aside for the moment.

Thank you for putting it in perspective.
Linda

Hey Linda, As far as I know the blog really needed the spam plugin from day one. Installing one now will not allow you to delete the spam.

What can you do? You can log into the data base and delete all comments. This will delete the SPAM and any other comments. Small price to pay.

Hi Craig,

The author of a product that I created a blog around changed his name recently and I have to rewrite all my blog posts that mention his old name… (95 blog posts!)

Is there some way that I can replace the old name with the new name without having to hunt and edit every blog post?

Thanks,

Matt

About the avatar, if it’s the one in the header image, you need to contact the person that made the them http://masnikov.com/emerald_stretch/

Deleting pages has nothing to do with themes.
“I get a message that I don’t have permission to do so” is interesting because you should.

If you have not fixed it, give me a user account with admin ability (Do this within your admin panel) send me my user name and password and I’ll have a look.

Hey Lance, hop all is well for ya.

I only upgrade if it’s a security issue not more bells and whistles.
Always read up on the upgrades being offered.

I have some Wordpress blogs running 2.0 and are running strong with no hacks.

Upgrading does not effect any changes made from blog lock down system.

Hi Simon,

It’s not the theme. And it’s not IE.

What’s happening is, you’ve posted all your content as “PAGES”. When doing this, Wordpress will add links to that content in your header navigation bar. You’re not the first to do this and not the last I’m sure.

Easy fix, content needs to be posts not pages.

Pages are used for contact form, about, etc.. Stuff that is static.

Best

Don’t worry too much about that Simon.

I’ve checked your blog and I could be wrong but your Alexa rankings are so low (meaning not much traffic), worrying about losing traffic is a bit premature. Your pages indexed in the search engines will be corrected.

Just make sure your 404 page has an offer to join your list or buy your stuff

Your blog is still messed up in IE and in Firefox, you still have way too many Navigation links. If you’ve moved your pages to posts, you now need to delete those pages.

Hi Brain, What is fe-create? What is it you want? A free report to give to people to get them to join your list?

sorry about the typo. I meant RE-Create. The box you have at the top of your sidebar that says “Your Free Blog Guide” I have a free guide that I would like to giveawy in the same manner. I want to have it be customized like yours is. I also do not know how to set-up so the whole process is automated. Meaning once the people give their name and email and hit the “click me” button, they will automatically get the confirmation email and link to a page that they can either donwload the guide or automatically email it to them. I am new to this so I hope I am making sense. Can you help with that?

Hey Craig,

Thank you for your response! I did take a look at your video and thank you for that as well! The video and your WP blogging guide have been very helpful for me! I have figured out how to get the parts to working for my guide giveaway. I found a plugin “WP Email Capture” that handled I guess what you could call the mechanical part of the double opt in.

I really like the way your opt-in is customized with the pic of the guide and the animation. Do you mind sharing how you put that part together?

Thanks again

Hi, I am new to this and contemplating ideas… can you use a blog to sell physical items with a PayPal Buy button… if so where would I learn this (free?)? Also, do you have a specific recommendation of someone who can customize the look of the blog? Thank you!

Craig …

I am stumped and I can’t seem to figure out what I have done. I have a blog http://www.bestairpurifierscleaners.com – I have activated the Adsense Plugin for this blog, put in the right Adsense ID number but the Adsense ads are not appearing. I view the source page and the adsense seems to be there but nothing is showing, not even public service ads. The site is indexed. I have been messing with this for the last week and a half. Can you tell me what I did wrong? I have another blog and followed the same steps and it is working fine … this one isnt.

PLEASE … any help would be appreciated. I LOVE “Your First Wordpress Blog” I use it for all my blogs when I am just starting out. I also get a lot out of reading the posts from others as well … THANK YOU!!

Dennise