8 Recent Thoughts on WordPress
Hey, you may already know this, but WordPress is my life. Yes, I work with it on a daily basis. And no, I don’t know everything. But I enjoy finding those solutions to problems I have yet to conquer. So, just for the heck of it, here are eight thoughts I am having right now on WordPress as I sit here.
- Themes are a constant challenge. Their coding and CSS isn’t always obvious. Still convinced it’s worth paying for one.
- Permalinks are great. But if you move a site, and you suddenly start getting 404 errors on all of your pages, except your homepage, it can be a permalink problem. Simply go in and reset to default, save, then reset your custom permalink. That may just solve the problem.
- Bluehost is still my favorite hosting site. Three issues this week, all resolved within 15 minutes via the 24/7 chat.
- Nothing more gratifying then helping someone on Twitter solve a WordPress issue by sending them to a blog post I did.
- Looking forward to the WordPress workshop I’ll be presenting tomorrow, WordPress and the 3 Bears – Themes, Plugins and Widgets.
- Blogging is not dead.
- Cringe when other so-called WordPress developers and “experts” say you can create yourself an awesome online presence in just a few hours.
- Still don’t like the over-used cliches rockstar or sucks in any kind of reference to WordPress, or as a matter of fact, anything in life.
So, a bit of meandering, but just imagine what all my thoughts are in a day’s time!
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RSS Feeds on Your Blog – A Goldmine!
When I create a website or blog, it’s second nature to me to add an RSS feed, as with most people. But often I do get the question asked why should I do this?
What ends up happening is some short education for the client. What is a RSS feed? Who uses them? Why should it be on there?
In one of my beginning blogging classes I first tell everyone that they need to make it easy for a visitor to sign up for their feed. Then I ask how many people understand RSS feeds. Normally only one or two raise their hands. This is followed by a short introduction to RSS readers, etc. But in the end my comment is, “You may never choose to sign up for feeds yourself, or implement a reader, or really understand them, but there are a lot of people out there that do.” And that’s why you need it on your blog!
Note on the left upper hand side of this blog, you will find two options. 1) They can sign up for the feed via a reader. Or, 2) they can sign up for the feed via email. Give them both options. A lot of people still want to be notified when you publish a post via email.
So if you don’t have both, go to feedburner.com and burn your feed!
As SEO expert Barry Hurd of 123 Social Media once said to me, “Every time someone signs up for your feed, that is worth it’s weight in gold”. Just think, the person who does sign up for you feed wants to be contacted whenever you do a new post. It doesn’t get better than that!
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WordPress.com stats every month
I normally don’t approve of simply doing a copy and paste for my blog, but this time I am going to make an exception.
Do you know that every month WordPress.com lists their stats under the “news” tab? Although the numbers may not affect you directly, they are impressive.
So for August ‘09, here they are:
- 426,047 blogs were created.
- 4,560,168 posts were published.
- 455,423 new users joined.
- 6,658,426 file uploads.
- 3990 gigabytes of new files.
- 787 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters.
- 8,379,530 comments.
- 7,498,064 logins.
- 2,153,498 active blogs and 22,855,350 active posts, where “active” means they had a human visitor.
- 1,267,201,336 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 1,296,959,079 on self-hosted blogs (2,564,160,415 total across all WordPress blogs we track).
- 1,567,468,503 words.
That, my friend, is a heck of a lot of blogging!
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Gnomedex 9.0 – Oh, What I Learned…
This last Friday and Saturday, I spent two days immersed in Gnomedex 9.0 in Seattle, put together by Chris Pirillo. It was my first Gnomedex experience. I knew several people who were going to it, and watching the conversation via Twitter, it sounded like an experience worth exploring. So I took the plunge and shelled out the bucks for a full 2-day pass.
The room was filled with geeks and nerds. Okay, maybe not everyone, but definitely more than I had ever seen in one place. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just painting a picture here. So, what exactly did I learn in those two days?
Conversation rules. Whether it was during breaks, at lunch or after the event, as with any community, discussion and life-revealing insights abounded. Stories told, questions asked that spurred deeper thoughts and ideas that will be taken beyond the walls of the conference.
Yes, I am good at multitasking. The experts say it is impossible, that you really do only focus on one thing at a time. But when I found myself posting tweets, following gnomedex on twitter, checking email, setting up a client meeting, etc. etc. and yes, wandering to Biznik.com occasionally, I was in the groove.
I am not a geek or nerd. Yes, I knew this already deep in my heart, and never claimed to be. But until you experience this collective energy that they possess, you will never know. Jokes told where I find I’m one of the few not laughing. Eyes glazing over as a group of young techies at lunch converse in languages unknown to me.
This community has passion. I have been to all kinds of conferences, and sometimes one can be just like another, just a different spin. And although I may not understand every realm of geekdom, I do know that at Gnomedex there was a passion for technology, a passion for knowledge and a passion for social causes. They were there for a reason, and it went beyond the typical conference.
Finally ten other things I learned at Gnomedex 9.0.
1. Attendees are not allowed to go hungry or thirsty.
2. Geeks really like Star Wars.
3. An amazing 3-D printer does exist.
4. I can now blame everything on Drew’s cancer.
5. Hard-core spammers can turn around their lives.
6. Macintosh and PC users can co-exist in the same room.
7. Getting a flask in our swag bag does not mean we can fill it right away.
8. Never be surprised at the interjection of four-letter words.
9. If you leave early, your name will be pulled for a prize.
10. Geeks and nerds are people too!
My hats off to Chris Pirillo and his gang for Gnomedex 9.0 The blend of human and social intereaction, both in person and online, again, shows me the power of the online community.
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