Entries from September 2007 ↓

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During the month of August, I participated in one of the best online experiences that I have ever had. I joined the Thirty Day Challenge. The Thirty Day Challenge is a free program created by Ed Dale and Dan Raines to teach people about Internet Marketing. The goal of the challenge was to make $10 online within 30 days. While not everyone won the challenge, many did and everyone learned a ton of stuff.

Each dayEd Dale would post a training article and usually an audio or video. The training materials were some of the best things that I have ever seen on the Internet. Here is the latest one that Ed did regarding Twitter.

This is just one of probably 60 videos. I cannot recommend joining this more. Here are some 3rd party resources for the Thirty Day Challenge:

• 30 Day Challenge Action List - This is a great checklist to use while you do the challenge.
• Mike Mindel’s 30 Day Challenger - Mike provides an unbelievable diary of each training lesson

Whenever I start a new WordPress blog, one of the first things I do is install Google Analytics so that I can monitor my stats. However, when I first started using WordPress, I found this task to be very confusing. So as my first of many WordPress tips, here is my guide for how to install google analytics.

Step 1 - Download the Semiologic Google Analytics Plugin. If you need other WordPress Plugins, here is a recent article listing places to find WordPress plugins.

Step 2 - Extract the Plugin Folder from the .zip File

Step 3 - Upload The Plugin to Your /WP-contents/plugins/ Folder

Step 4 - Activate the Plugin in Your WordPress Administration Panel

Step 5 - Login to Google Analytics at http://google.com/analytics

Step 6 - Add Your WordPress Blog to Google Analytics

Step 7 - Copy Code Snippet Generated By Google Analytics

Step 8 - Go Back To The WordPress Dashboard and Add Code Snippet to Options > Google Analytics

Step 9 - Go Back to http://google.com/analytics and Verify That It Has Found the Code

I hope that this has helped!!

If you are anything like me, then I guess the answer to that question is YES!!!  However, now with CoComment there is no reason ever to forget which blogs you have left comments on.

It is very easy to join CoComment.

First, go to CoComment and register.

Once you have registered then, either install the Firefox extension, which I highly recommend, or install the bookmarklet.

The last step in the setting up process is to go to CoComment’s test site and verify that CoComment is working.  Once you enter your comment on the test site, you can go to the “My Conversations” page and see your comment that you left on the test page.  Now everytime you leave a comment on a blog CoComment will record that comment in the “My Conversations” page and you can go back and check to see whether anyone has responded to you.

Here is a screenshot of my “My Conversations” page.

Like any good online service today, CoComment also has some very good social networking features.  You can join groups to share common interests and share conversations that you have found interesting.

Reading forums and participating in forums is a great way to become a better blogger. Forums focused on blogging are the best means to get questions answered and become known within the blogging community. I don’t suggest that you participate in all of these, but instead pick one or two and become a valuable member. The real power of forums is to become well known within the forums’ community. You want to establish yourself as a valued member of the community and an authority blogger.

Here are my favorite blogging forums:

1. Authority Blogger Forum:

The Authority Blogger Forum is a forum created by Chris Garrett, the author of Chrisg.com. This Forum is pretty new, but I am finding it to be a great community of bloggers. It is also great for new bloggers.

2. Blog Traffic School Forums:

The Blog Traffic School Forums are forums provided by Yaro Starak. Yaro is the author of Entrepreneur’s-Journey blog. In addition to this blog, Yaro runs the Blog Mastermind blog mentoring program. If you are interested in being a professional blogger, I highly recommend join the Blog Mastermind program. I have been a participant since Yaro started it.

3. The Blog Experiment Forums:

The Blog Experiment Forums are an extension of The Blog Experiment, but the forums are the focus of the community. This is an excellent community of bloggers. The forums are very active and very helpful.

4. Bloggeries Blog Forum:

The Bloggeries Blog Forum is one of my favorite forums for blogging. Bloggeries has an awesome revenue sharing program with its participants. Participants earn 50% of the Adsense revenues generated from their threads. Bloggeries’ revenue sharing program is designed to create a very active community.

5. Blogger Forum:

The Blogger Forum is one of the most active forums. It is a great forum and I highly recommend participating in this forum. If you are new to blogging the Newbie Section is a great resource.

6. Bloggst Forum:

The Bloggst Forum offers a lot of great forums. One of the coolest things about Bloggst is that you can submit your blog’s feed to this site and they will publish your posts to their forums. This is a great way to generate traffic and exposure.

7. Blogging Tips Blogging Discussion Forums:

The Blogging Tips Blogging Discussion Forums are an extension of Kevin Muldoon’s blog, Blogging Tips. The forums are fairly new and at this point not too active. This presents a good opportunity to become a leading member of this community. Sometimes it is better to participate and establish yourself at these newer forums.

8. Performancing.com Forums:

The Performancing.com Forums are an extension of Performancing.com Blog. I read the Performancing.com Blog everyday.

9. Digital Point Blogging Forum:

The Digital Point Blogging Forum is a section of the famous Digital Point Forums. Digital Point is a hub for people making money (or hoping to make money) on the Internet. I encourage you to check out all of the forums at Digital Point. The amount of information on these forums is absolutely amazing.

10. The V7 Web Development Community Blogging Forum:

The V7 Web Development Community Blogging Forum is part of The V7 Web Development Community. The V7 Web Development Community focuses on Internet Marketing, Web Design and Blogging.

One of the best things about using Wordpress is the great plug-ins that are available.  Because Wordpress is an open source blogging platform, the community of Wordpress users are able to develop some awesome plug-ins.

If you ever need a plug-in, these are the first sites that I go to find them.

• Wordpress.org Plug-in Directory
• weblogs tools collection
• Wordpress Plugin Database
• alexking.org Wordpress Plugins

If you still can’t find your plugin, you can always try a google search.