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A Trip Around The World – Another Week in Review

(Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes)

The first week in November 2009. Amazing.

>>>NOTE: Catch “Upcoming” below for new comment policy, etc.

On the InterWebs

We’ll start close to home. Here’s an OK video on WordPress permalinks. His scheme is fine, certainly better than leaving dynamic URL structure. But what all these SEO experts don’t seem to understand is that just about any particular “SEO-optimized” scheme to increase index ranking (Drive Traffic!) is at the complete mercy of whoever controls the search engine algorithms. Which is why I don’t worry about it over much. Good content in your article trumps everything else long term, dynamic URL or no. (You can find such pages easily on StumbleUpon.)

On a related note, the /%category%/%postname%/ convention, which I like, is deprecated as being too slow on lookups. Whence the obvious question: “Why not change how lookups are done?” Exactly. There’s an issue on the WordPress development Trac pages somewhere. You can dig it up if you’re interested.

Off to Australia: Josh Kohlbach provides us with very short, concise article on shared versus dedicated hosting. If you have visions of problogger-ness, you need to understand this difference, because you’re going to have to have dedicated hosting to handle enough traffic to make money. This especially important if you’re selling to a list: if you can’t handle traffic spikes, you’re dead meat.

Next stop, Philipines, where Elmot shares his passion for blogging. Elmot’s passion is contagious! Check out the Pinoy Sounding Board. Learn something.

From England, via Julie’s comment on Ittybiz, never forget, it’s just the internet.

And back to Texas, where Blake Waddill gives us some Feng GUI. So much to know. Just when I think I have it all figured out…

New articles

First, do you like to share recipes? If so, the new version of hRecipe Plugin for WordPress was released earlier this week. This version features an improved editing interface for adding recipes to your WordPress Posts and Pages.

Check it out: hRecipe is in the feed at Planet WordPress, coming in from the mention at Weblog Tools Collection.

(Alexa *cough* planet.wordress.org)

Here’s the posts for the week:

Update! Update! Update!

The process works, Website In A Weekend is getting some vampire luvin’:

Getting some Vampire SERPiness.  Fair is fair!

Getting some Vampire SERPiness. Fair is fair!

Updated posts

Added a link to a superb article on teasers by Demetris at op111 to WordPress Excerpts Are Not Teasers.

This is still a good read, and I’m going to keep bugging people to read it.

From the Archives!

Back at the end of last May (2009), I attended WordCamp San Francisco. One of the sessions I attended was hosted by Dave Gray of XPlane.com. This was a fantastic talk, and I took enough notes to write How Building a Web Presence Is Like Fishing In The Rain. Use the magic math of compounding to get ahead and stay ahead. Find out how little it really takes to dominate… if you’re willing to “fish in the rain.”

Upcoming

A brief look into the near future…

  • Andrew Caldwell (Self-proclaimed Leader of the Free World) recounts jumping into blogging… he took the plunge all at once! Coming to a browser near you on November 9 2009.
  • Commenting: Watch for “dofollow” commenting in the near future. Just a time thing for me to root out a decent plugin and make it happen.
  • Along those lines… watch for one of those “Reactions” hoohas. Seems like all the Big Boys are implementing “Reactions.” Far be from me to swim against that current. (I’ve got other currents to swim against.)
  • No more Sunday articles! I don’t mind working on Sunday, but I have other projects needing more attention.

The WIAW Week In Review Series

Last WIAW Week in Review
Put Your Pity Party Week in Review. You feelin’ sorry for yourself? Sorry to hear it, and we’re here to help. Check out the blind boy who uses echo location. Inspiring. More good stuff inside.

Next WIAW Week in Review

News of the New – Another WIAW Week in Review. Lot’s of new bloggers roaring onto the scene. Prize winners too! Check it out, another WIAW Week in Review.

Put Your Pity Party Week in Review

(Reading time: 7 – 11 minutes)

It’s Friday. Almost Halloween. Are you dressing up? I’m not. Not this year. Next year for sure. I said that last year. And the year before.

This week’s blah blah blah

Lessee, what went down this past week…

My next step in blogging evolution: I’m attracting link exchange requests now. Here’s my policy:


You write cool stuff and I like it, I might link to you.

Basically, if you have to ask, you haven’t been reading along, which means your probably not going to be interesting to my readers. On the other hand, I don’t expect anyone to link back to Website In A Weekend unless they find real value here. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. A few very good links spread out over time are better – to me – than a bunch of worthless links all bunched up.

More super secret stealth stuff. No, really, I’m working on something I think is really cool, and I hope everyone else does too. If not, I’ll be back at the drawing board. Newsletter subscribers get first look of course (email to wp-weekend.wwsecret@aweber.com, remember to opt-in).

Dangerous Curve has finished the next round of typesetting for “How to Really Publish a Blog Post.” More on that after I merge changes.

The weather is superb! Fall in the San Francisco Bay Area is truly beautiful. Sunny, warm and still. No fire danger from the Diablo Wind this year thanks to the Pineapple Express that came through a couple of weeks ago.

I’m doing some typesetting experiments in this article. HTML/CSS is miserably awful at real typesetting. I’ll do the best I can this week, and work out the kinks in the week ahead.

The Echo Chamber…

Here’s some news from around the web. Nothing new, just new to me. And maybe new to you too.

Have ever heard of a blind person who could navigate using echo location like a dolphin? This was a first for me. If you haven’t seen this, you should. Johnny B. Truant really lays it out here: if you even read a computer screen, you’re in better shape than you feel. No excuse for pity parties! Once you finish reading Johnny, jump over to No Pity City. Read. Buy stuff. Above all, remember that if you’re reading this, you could be doing a lot worse!


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Ok, I don’t really think that list posts suck, at least, not in general. But I might go so far as to say it’s way too easy to write a really bad list post. In any case, it’s a great article and food for thought.


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I think every WordPress blogger should write one of these: How to Start a WordPress blog. I’ve written 2 or 3 myself, buried way back in the archives now. This one by Gabe Young is pretty good. Have you written yours? Get after it!


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You shouldn’t read these 50 tips on gaining RSS subscribers. It might make you cry. So much to do! And so little time… should we just commit mass suicide now? Nah… there’s always time for that later.


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Have you watched the Internet Marketing for Smart People seminar yet? I have to admit, I just read Blake’s transcript so far… but will probably have watched it by the time you read this. (Watching it now. Just getting the notion of the “3rd Tribe” is worth your time watching.)


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Aw man… another 50 lessons from yet another list post. Makes my eyes cross just thinking about all that work. We should have a contest here on Website In A Weekend: who here has done all 50 of those items listed in this article? What could possibly be a prize for such a contest? Tell me… seriously… we might be on to something.


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If the truth were to be told (always a risky business), it might be found I wasn’t big fan of Mr Godin. I always have the experience of reading his little snackable blog posts and feeling “Like, Wow!” followed by “Wait… what the hell is he talking about?” But… the theme of overnight success is making it’s rounds, and Godin exposes several traps for the impatient and unwary. Good read. Snackable, as usual.

New posts

From the Archives!

Each week, we’ll showcase a great post buried down in the archives, useful material you can use right away.

Last week we had factors for blogging success, this week, Factors Contributing to Blog Failure: 3 big factors control whether your blog succeeds or fails, and you have almost complete control over these factors. Handle these, find the road to success.

Upcoming

Let’s poke around in the Drafts queue… what do we see…

One mongo polemic on internet marketing pyramid schemes.

Gabe Young lays the smack down on Make Money Fast!!!

POSH… It’s not what you think it is, but you need to know.

You Are Not An Idiot.

Maybe some stuff about Twitter, another Gotcha! possibly some ridiculous stereotypes. We’ll see what I feel like writing come next week.

Insiders: watch the list for something pre-Alpha.

The Week In Review Series

Last Week in Review
How a Houston Homemaker is Like a Portuguese Programmer – the WIAW Week in Review: You’ll have to read all the way down to find what these two have in common… be careful, you might learn something along the way!

Next Week in Review

Stay tuned…