Not too long ago there have been some updates to the Thesis Theme, bring us version 1.3. Not only is it a clean cut looking template but it is highly customizable which is probably the most important factor of getting your website to look the way you wanted it. Now this didn’t happen by accident. Work has gone into this theme with people like us in mind.

First, Thesis now boasts a completely modularized HTML markup structure, and this makes the theme much more agile and flexible than it was before. As a result, Thesis now has the ability to render more layouts than ever, including a 3-column layout where the content is in the middle. In all, there are 6 different columnar arrangement possibilities between the 1, 2, and 3 column layouts.

Here is a screenshot of a customized Thesis Theme:

Let’s just say when I upgraded my first blog and logged in I went “yikes….” I literally was thinking “Oh brother, what a mess!” Within 10 minutes of clicking through it began to really grow on me. By the end of the day and about 20 upgrades later I was really liking it.

Normally to navigate through the Wordpress dashboard (control panel), all your options are displayed in tabs along the top in a horizontal fashion. When you clicked on any of those options a set of sub-options would display. In this new 2.7 version all your options are displayed vertically down the left side. You have your main options and clicking on any of those will allow more sub-options to accordian down. You can minimize or maximize these sub-options as you wish.

As you can see in the above image I grabbed from my screen, all the options are on the left. I clicked on the top left option to display more options so you can see it. Also in the second image you can see it right up close. It has a nice feel to the controls and it is easier on the eyes with a soothing light gray hue.

One of the more drastic changes you will notice is the layout of the dashboard. You actually have the ability to rearrange information and tables in order to keep what is most important to you at the top and in the forefront. You do this by checking and un-ckecking a few options. You can’t miss the QuickPress feature where you can add a new article and either publish or save it right on the main dashboard page without having to click on “Add New” under the Posts option. I can see immediately from the developments of this version that the intention was to make it very quick and easy for bloggers to get in, navigate, and get out quickly and efficiently.

It can be a bit overwhelming to new bloggers or those who are simply new to the platform. Even I was a bit taken back from it, but the key is spending time clicking through all the links and options and see what’s available. You will quickly learn to really enjoy it and, in fact, I am excited to see what they have planned for new features in the coming months…

Click here to download Wordpress 2.7

There is a more in-depth articles about 2.7 if you are interested to learn more about its features. I found the following article helpful for myself when I was browsing for more information.

Please let me know what you think of the new version…

Now studies show that you can be judged by the interviewer on the appearances like this. Your qualifications may be above the grade, and you may show ambition with a great sense of accomplishment coupled with a good sense of humor, but that stain just rubbed him the wrong way. Now if the stain was not there it may not have improved you interview but having the stain there sure caused enough irritation that the interviewer may have felt something was a bit “off”.

Relate this to the appearance of your blog. Having a good looking blog won’t make you successful. All the qualities that make up a good blogger will make you successful like: networking, writing good content, keeping the blog current and up to date, relating to your readers, and so forth. But if the appearance of your blog is too distracting, or is just a bad looking theme, it can cause readers to feel unpleasant. It should be a fairly pleasant experience to come check in on your blog.

So what are some of the top most annoying things about a blog that could cause problems?

I will list a few but I would like you guys to list at least one by replying. But how about when the there are so many Google Ads you can’t find the content? Or how about when the theme is too dark and you can’t read the text? I have read blogs where it is so dark and the text looks like it is trying to hypnotize me while I am reading. Shouldn’t a blog be fresh and clean… easy to read?

What else? Ideas anyone?

The program is not based on clicks either. People buy those keywords from your content for a set price each month. I am still experimenting and getting some of my websites all set up with the program so I will need to update you on results later on. I can assure you the sign up process is real simple. I also had a few questions and opened a ticket for support. Surprisingly I heard a response within a few hours. Then after the initial response we exchanged many emails within a couple of hours while he answered my questions. It’s difficult to find affiliate programs out there with support having a response time of less than 3 business days.

So try them out and see how well it works and let me know. I would be interested to know if you had any success with them. Click here to go and get your account.

The key is to break longer posts into several, and then linking them together. If they read the first post and got through it, they will more than likely click over to the next post. Keep articles under 5 minutes. Present the article so it is easy on the eyes. I tend to read articles that are broken up nicely into short paragraphs with bold words emphasizing an issue. You could have the same text but in one long paragraph. Break it up into nice looking paragraphs.

Blogging is different than writing articles for a magazine. I remember when I first started blogging, and my goal was for lengthy articles. Soon you realize it isn’t the length of the article but rather saying the exact same thing but in half the article. Choosing your words better, and getting to the point immediately with little character development leads to better blog posts.

The first paragraph is the most important. That first paragraph will be the determining factor whether or not the reader will continue. One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is trying to lure readers in with suspense, as if you are writing a novel. Instead you should lure your reader in with facts on your topic. Whatever your article is about should be pretty much summed up in the first paragraph. From there on out, diving in and getting more specific will be important.

Spend some time reading top news articles online. Hit some of the biggest news sites and read through their articles. First and foremost, the title is descriptive. There is never any question what the article is about from reading the title. Then the first paragraph is a quick summary of all the important facts. Then the rest of the article dives into more detail. Go check it out. The reason they do that is because they know what hooks the readers and draws them in. Try following these simple procedures when writing and I think you will begin to see a big difference in readership.

But as far as short or long posts, the best thing to do is mix it up. There is nothing wrong with winded articles as long as people are reading them. When people are not reading them, then it might be worth shortening your articles a bit or splitting longer articles up into several.

But the debate goes on… and on… and on… and on… and on…

You be the judge!

Darren is also one of the founders of the largest blog networks on the Internet today… b5media.

Well, Darren a while back, unleashed his secrets onto the average blogger in a book called ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income… Co-Authored by Chris Garrett.

For those of you out there who are looking to monetize your blog may want to swing by Amazon and pick this up… Right now in paperback you can pick it up for only $16 or so.

Review
“Both authors are successful and profitable probloggers and here they reveal at last some of their secrets.” (The Bookseller, Friday 14th March 2008) “You’ll learn about the essential steps involved…if you think blogging could be the business opportunity for you - buy it!” BusinessOpportunitiesAndldeas.co.uk Monday 19 May 2008 “You’ll learn about the essential steps involved…if you think blogging could be the business opportunity for you - buy it!”BusinessOpportunitiesAndldeas Monday 19 May 2008

Product Description
Problogger.net is where bloggers worldwide go for advice and information on enhancing their blogs presence. Whether youre just starting out or have been blogging for years, these two professional bloggers show you how to turn your passion for blogging into extra revenue. This practical guide to creating and marketing a blog with the potential for generating a six-figure income shows you how to choose subject matter that works for you, handle technical issues, and evaluate your blogs success so that you can use your blog to generate income indirectly.

Sometimes it’s better to sit back and keep things a bit simple and follow some of the basic formulas in order to move in the right direction.

A new Adventure Network I have been in contact with and is actually in partnership with Skinny Moose Media, wrote a nice article on their main blog called, “What is Important When Starting a New Blog?” The article focuses on a few major facets to blogging that is extremely important in the early stages of a blog’s development.

The article breaks these down into 4 stages:

1) Have A Plan
2) Reach Out
3) Tip Off
4) Social Networking

Read the full article here >>

Put yourself in the shopper’s shoes. Pretend you are a shopper online and envision yourself having to seek out gifts. Some questions you need to ask yourself are:

a) What are the new and hot products?
b) Can these products actually be purchased online?
c) What do you know about these products?
d) Can you offer advice on any of these hot new products?
e) Is the Internet already saturated with content about these hot new products?
f) Is the product related to your blog’s niche?

Once you ask yourself these questions you probably can narrow it down a bit better if it is worth writing about an item or not. ipods are a cool topic, or the new iphone, but more than likely the Internet is saturated with information on this. Finding products to talk about can take a lot of research. So what can you do?

Look around at other blog’s in your niche. What types of products are they discussing? If you have run a parenting blog for the last 2 years and have been all over the Internet reading other parenting blogs then you probably have a good idea what types of products have been talked about and what the new hot items are for this year.

Write a review about it. Maybe go out and actually buy the product and test it out. Write about it. Tell people how it functions. Did it live up to your expectations? If not… why?

Link to other reviews. Maybe you don’t have all kinds of money to blow on the product or you have your doubts about. Do a roundup and link to what others are saying about it. Put 80% of the links to blogs in your niche. Then try breaking out a bit and see if other blogs outside of your niche have blogged about it. Link to them. Pingbacks may drive traffic back to your article.

Make sure in your articles you are using nice keyword rich text. Link often and liberally to sources. You never know… you may get on the first page of Google for those searching online for information about the hot new item…

Comment on other blogs talking about the same product and make sure to link your name to either your blog or that specific blog post. Remember, people search the Internet heavily by topic. If you can stick with the same crowd and get some links coming and going you will see a rise in traffic naturally, as long as the topic remains of interest.

Now what if you wrote about a product and more traffic comes your way? How do you jump on this opportunity? Maybe one example would be to post a link at the end of that article inviting readers to subscribe to your feed via email. Feedburner offers a great service that will deliver your posts via email to those who choose to sign up for this feature. As a matter of fact, if you want to subscribe to my feed via email you can do so right here at this link.

What other things can you do? You can provide links at the end of your article leading them deeper into your blog with other related articles. Maybe you blogged about that product on many occasions. At the end of the article tell your readers if they enjoyed this post why not try reading a few of these… and leave a list of about 3 or 4 other articles that may interest them.

Another option would be to provide a link to any referral type programs. The downside of this is you are providing a link which will lead people away from your blog. On a good note, some of these referral programs can earn you a bit of cash. It’s really your choice. If you can find the right program which is closely related to the topic being discussed in the article then it should only benefit you since you are sending targeted traffic to a program potentially making you money. Any random program is a bit risky and you could probably benefit by keeping the reader at your blog longer.

Any other ideas? How can you benefit from added traffic on a blog article that is attracting people? Don’t forget to open those comments up and get conversation going. Readers will be back to see if anyone replied. This can boost traffic momentarily. The key is to get these new readers to come back and stick around.

Alexa is similar to Google and they provide each website out there on the Internet a rank. How it works, though, is a bit different. Alexa ranks the top site with a 1, which is actually Yahoo. CNN Money ranks number 2. So the lower the number the better you are. There are ways to get a lower (better) ranking with Alexa. If you rank 235,000 then you know that there are 234,999 other websites out there that rank better than you. Now since there are millions of websites on the Internet, getting as low as 200,000 is extremely good. Alexa’s ranking is based on the level of traffic each website receives from the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.

The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.

The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)

So how do you rank lower and better with Alexa?

*The most basic step is to Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage.

*Try puttnig up an Alexa rank widget on your website.

*Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar, like friends, fellow webmasters, and your readers.

*Write or Blog about Alexa. Others enjoy reading about ways to increase their Alexa ranking and, in turn, will hopefully like to your article sending you targeted traffic. Hopefully they will have the toolbar already installed. This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.

*Get one of your articles submitted to Digg or Stumble Upon when you can. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer volume will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.

*Use Pay-per-Click Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in traffic. It will be more useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters, who are more apt to be using the Alexa toolbar.

*Optimize your popular posts. If you have a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines, include a widget at the bottom of the post and then link to your Alexa post.

It looks something like this:

As you can see in this particular case the link is green in the first line of text. Once you hover over it you can see a little box pop-up and show you a little information regarding the destination of that link. How you get paid is when people actually click on those links. I have heard some really good things about this program and I have heard some bad things. When it comes to your readers it is a judgment call. Depending on your audience will probably be the biggest indicator as to whether or not it is worth it.

There are people that despise this sort of thing, as they feel it is misleading. Others tend to brush by it and if it interests them then fine, if not then they move on. When trying InfoLinks, it is best to be honest and publish an article letting people know this program exists on your site.

As far as making money, I can say with my experience it earns much better than Google Adsense. From just testing out the program over the last few days it looks to be bringing in 3 to 4 times more in revenue than Google Adsense.

So if you are interested in giving this a whirl on your blog, website, forum, etc then head on over to InfoLinks.com, sign up for their Publishers program, and then you should be contacted within a day or so if approved. As long as you aren’t promoting pornography or illegal material you should be fine. I would be interested to know how much in revenue you are making in comparison to Adsense. Let me know.

Also what do you guys think of this program from a reader’s perspective? Do you think it is deceiving? In another month or so I will probably do another post making a final assessment on what I think of the program, the potential to earn revenue from it, and some pros and cons all around. So stick around. More to come on InfoLinks.