We’re currently running the latest release of WordPress 3.0 on this site along with Thesis Framework version 1.7

Everything seems to be working fine, though I’m told that the new custom post types aren’t fully functioning.

Upgrade today!

This is StandardTheme. We still love Thesis here, but we thought we’d give human3rror‘s new standard theme a whirl.

Currently most of my images are a bit oversized for the page frame, but there’s definitely a number of sexy features. More complete review to come shortly.

There’s a lot of talk about the ability to reach thousands through a blog and earning money at the same time, but the reality is it can be incredibly difficult to get going.

I put my skills to the test recently and started a fresh niche blog and it’s been going fairly solid so far.

Without any real credibility of any type I built a great community around a fresh blog in a matter of weeks.  There was about 40,000 hits last month, averaged maybe about 10 minutes a day on it, and I didn’t pay 1-cent for any form of advertising.

Here are some tips from my recent experience

1.  Blog about something you’d enjoy spending time on anyways. Preferably something you’re an expert on or something you’re passionate about.  The right ideas at the right time can be a powerful force.  I started http://monopolyhq.com simply because there was a lot of hype around the fact that it was integrating the monopoly board game with google maps and I personally love the game.

2.  Get a memorable domain name. This usually means as short as possible, but there are plenty of remarkable long domain names.  Try and get a keyword people would be searching on in there.

3.  Build your site. I can’t recommend wordpress enough.  Google loves content-focused blogs in general, but it loves wordpress even more.

4.  Thesis. If you’re using wordpress, why not complete the awesomeness with the Thesis Framework.  It’s a dynamic professional theme that is built on rock solid search-engine-optimized code.  There’s a great user community around it and you can design it just about any way you want while keeping your content as clean and search-engine friendly as possible.

5.  Create valuable content. As long as it’s discoverable – content remains king.  Make it as clear and readable as possible.  While they might not admit it, people love lists, rankings, charts, bullet points, etc.  I typically keep posts below 300 words.  If you’ve got a lot to say, break it down into a series of posts people can track with.

6.  Design. Your site ought to leave an impression.  Without reading any of the content, within the first five seconds without going below the fold of your site, a person ought to know what your site is all about.  ie. for the monopoly site I branded it with similar monopoly colors and included a pair of dice slightly off the grid of the page just so readers know you’re not just scraping together content, but that you care about what you’re writing about.

6.  Be a collaborator not a competitor. Especially if you’re new, build contacts, partnerships, links with other sites and blogs of similar interest.  Leave useful comments on their posts (not spam!) and refer people to them as well if they’re offering something of value.

7.  Find what’s giving your competitors traffic. Is there a certain forum or hub or tool that’s giving them the edge?  You ought to be using at least that to give your unique content a chance.  Tweak your title/description to keywords that people might be searching for rather than whatever terms you think might be unique or cool.  ie. I originally had titled the blog ‘monopoly headquarters’ – but no one actually searches for that – they search for tips, hints, tricks, guides, etc.

8.  Twitter. As over-hyped as it is, social media is still huge.  However I’d recommend being highly strategic about it.  If I had a really solid and important post I submitted it to digg.  I didn’t just add anyone to twitter, each day i spent a minute following people who were using related keywords and hashtags.  Your most passionate users will not only follow you back but refer others to you.

9.  Community building. Respond to people’s comments, invite and affirm the contributions of others, share tools and unique insights, create a space for people to connect with one another rather than just you, etc.  Think through why you’d personally return to your site as a user.

10. Enriching content.

Timely – post really hot content that you’ve just discovered that others can retweet and spread.  Use link shorteners to make it concise and trackable.

Interactive – Use some form of comment subscription ((ie. subscribe to comments plugin, or intense debeate / disqus)

Automate – Use your sidebar to pick up other relevant content.  ie. have a live twitter hashtag feed or create a google-alert so your site can be a portal to similar content elsewhere.

11.  Tools. Make sure you’re using all possible tools at your disposal.  While I didn’t use this, sometimes when you purchase a domain or hosting account they provide some google/yahoo ad credits.  Use free tools like feedburner, popular posts and similar post plugins, and make translations easily available with tools like global translator.  Use google analytics to find who your top referrers are and what key words are hot.

I hope these tips help.  I’ve been blogging for a number of years so there are probably other more nuanced tips that I can’t recall at the moment.  Right now the monopolyhq site is so fresh I’ve yet to get a pagerank which is really the next goal.  Many people are saying page-rank isn’t as important any more, but even so, the principles behind a solid page rank will always remain important.

Do you have other tips for building traffic on a new blog?

Ever get stuck trying to change the way your categories are ordered, especially in the navigation bar?

I just found a very simple way of changing the category order.  I’m using it right now on the menu for this thesis powered site as well.

Category Order Plugin

There are other ways through making custom pages, but if you don’t mind the plugin this makes it so easy.

Rounded corners are extra sexy these days.  Here’s how you can get it on your wordpress page without using transparent image icons.

It’s really simple, except that it’s a function of css3 that only works in firefox/safari, but not IE, so it’s not perfect.

Here’s all i did in my custom.css

.custom #page {
/* rounded corners */
-moz-border-radius: 20px; -webkit-border-radius: 20px;

the radius number determins how round of a corner it is, you can use 5px for a very small curve, or a larger number for something more curvy.

For example if you want to change the nav menu (like seen above) you can try this (btw this is for the new thesis 1.6 navigation menu)

.custom .menu, .custom .menu a, .custom .menu li ul {
-moz-border-radius: 10px ;
-webkit-border-radius: 10px ;
border-radius: 10px ;
}

Easy.

Google Pagerank update is coming. Google generally updates 4 times a year and it was due in September. Rumors all currently point to an update coming by the end of October.

Page Rank especially matters for new sites like this one, where we’re virtually unlisted and devalued until we get scored a pagerank. Now’s your chance to go out and get those links pointing to your site or else you’ll be stuck where you’re at for the next 3-4 months.  Don’t miss it!

For the longest time I thought that even though I had a developer edition of the Thesis framework and had removed the attribution from the footer, it was still forcing me to have an annoying little smiley face icon at the bottom of my customized theme.

Turns out it’s a function of the wordpress.com stats plugin.

Simplest way to remove it is to go into your themes stylesheet (style.css) and put the following code snippet:

img#wpstats{width:0px;height:0px;padding:0px;border:none;overflow:hidden}

If you’re using thesis, just head to custom.css and paste in;

.custom img#wpstats{width:0px;height:0px;padding:0px;border:none;overflow:hidden}

Problem solved, easy eh?

WordPress. Quite simply it is the blog platform of choice.  I believe in allowing every voice to be heard and wordpress is designed for writers.  It’s great for businesses and non-profits as well because search engines like google and bing always love fresh and current content.  Having a blog using wordpress allows you to maximize your current skill sets and passions and gives you a great opening to planet online.  WordPress has also evolved to a broader CMS / content management system that can match just about any other site you’d find online.

Thesis. What’s the point of great content if no one sees it?  Thesis has rock solid search-engine-optimization handled behind the scenes.  The code is crisp and clean and allows you to customize it without ruining the perfect code behind it all. Thesis helps eliminate weighty plugins and also has an incredible community-base that is all about customization and effective designs.

Design. If you’ve got great content, and someone manages to find it… will it stick?  Is it compelling and inspiring?  Will it draw people back or turn people off?  What technical limitations can you push to wow your readers and viewers?  Design matters.  The medium quite often is the message.

My hope is to tackle all three of these spaces… especially as someone who is continuously learning myself.  Stay tuned for the road ahead, lots of good stuff coming.