Knowledge is potential power. The goal of my website is to provide knowledge that assists readers in making money online and learn from other people’s costly mistakes. I recently had some business dealing with Wordpress.com. I have decided to write about my dealings with Wordpress.com. Hoping that all readers will learn from my situation. This information should allow you to save both time and frustration.

I began blogging with three blogs hosted by Wordpress.com. I have used many blogging platforms and found Wordpress to offer a large number of features, while being user friendly. One of my first blogs was Bruce’s Money Rants. While Bruce’s Money Rants is still available, it currently is in its second incarnation. My first blog was squelched by Wordpress.com.

Wordpress.com was attractive because of its builders. The gentleman who created the Wordpress platform also created Wordpress.com (Wordpress.com vs. Wordpress.org, n.d.). There were several features that prompted me choose Wordpress.com.

1. I already had experience with the Wordpress software

2. Stated that they had over 70 templates available

3. I could add widgets and plug-ins

4. Ease in tracking site visitors

5. Having an address of “xxxx.wordpress.com”

At first, I was enjoying Wordpress.com. I created “emergencymgmt.wordpress.com”, “lifeofreedom.wordpress.com”, and “brucesmoneyrants.wordpress.com”. My main blog was on money making. My plan was to develop the other two later. My first surprise came when I chose a template. I had about 12 templates available. You had to pay to access the 70 templates. Next, I found out you cannot upload external templates.

I also was limited in the widgets available. Wordpress.com does not allow external widgets to be uploaded. They do offer some widgets. Users also are not allowed to add java script to their widgets. Java script is required to monetize your blog through Google Adsense or Amazon.com.

I was able to insert HTML into widgets. This allowed me to place small banner ads in the blog’s sidebars. Not as lucrative as Google Adsense or Amazon may be but it was something. This type of advertising does require you to manually change the code to show a different ad. I was not completely turned off. Wordpress after all is a great blogging platform.

I reached a point where I was happy with my blog’s look. It was not perfect but was the best I could reach without paying Wordpress.com extra money. I was not trying to get something for free. I was more than happy to pay for Wordpress.com’s extra services. I just wanted the blog to be self sustaining. I began posting links in different blog directories and posting everyday. Within a week, I was seeing some results. My Wordpress.com blog had a high day of 12 unique visitors and was already indexed in Google.com. I was pretty pleased.

I began focusing on writing posts to assist readers in making money online. I wrote about making money blogs and resources that I found useful (i.e. ZacJohnson.com and e-books). I also wrote about products, courses, etc. that had helped me learn about internet marketing.

My next move was to register with blog directories. I searched the web and came across a listing of 50 web directories. Each directory required you to register to submit your site. I spend two days registering the site.

Doomsday soon came. I signed up with a internet marketing course called Blogging for Dollars. In my view, this course offered some very useful tips. I believed readers would find it helpful. I wrote a review post about my experience and posted it.

I woke up Thursday morning and checked my blog’s stats. The blog was gone. My screen now stated that “This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service”. I was still able to sign in to my account and view my emergencymgmgt.wordpress.com blog. I also could still view stats for my World’s Dumbest Criminals blog that was not hosted with Wordpress.com but used their statistics widget.

I did not write anything bad. Every time I quoted someone else, I stated the author, site I quoted, and linked to the source. I reviewed Wordpress.com’s Terms of Service. Of course, Wordpress.com’s Terms of Service is a couple of pages long. I was looking for restrictions that could be relevant to the posts I had made. Here are the ones I found:

1. “the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party”

2. “you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms”

3. “the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing)”

4. “your blog is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company. For example, your blogs URL or name is not the name of a person other than yourself or company other than your own”

There was the culprit. I had included affiliate links in my reviews. So I could tell people about products, whether or not I had used the product, as long as I was not an affiliate. It did not matter that I had bought the product, offered proof of the purchase, and had found it useful.

It is important to hear both sides of any story. Wordpress.com has the right to run their site and business however they see fit. I sent a note to their tech support. All I was asking for was an explanation, nothing more. Again, it is their business. But, it would be good business to offer customers an explanation. Patiently, I watched for a return email.

I went to my World’s Dumbest Criminals blog to check my statistics. The Wordpress.com statistics widget now showed “account suspended”. I went back to Wordpress.com and attempted to login. I could not even login now. I guess this was the answer to my support e-mail. Do not answer my e-mail just shut off the account.

I am not writing this article out of revenge or spite. My goal is to allow other budding affiliate marketers the chance to learn from my story. Wordpress is a great blogging platform. Affiliate marketers only need to be careful when trying to make money. It appears that Wordpress.com wants to provide a great blogging platform…as long as you are not trying to make money.

Technorati Tags: wordpress

http://geeks.pirillo.com – http://live.pirillo.com – You know my name, and you know how to find me. If you look at my blog, you know that I run WordPress as my blogging platform. I host my blog myself, and it works quite well for the most part. There is one plugin in particular that makes life much easier. http://chris.pirillo.com Distributed by Tubemogul.

Duration : 0:7:9

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Technorati Tags: blog, chris, gadgets, help, information, pirillo, plugin, Search, video, viewzi, wordpress

This is a tutorial designed to introduce people to a really cool application I came across for Wordpress blogs, Scribefire. It really will help with your blogging.

Duration : 0:3:40

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Technorati Tags: blog, scribefire, wordpress

Author: Stuart Russell

Have you heard of WordPress? It is a web page and blogging tool available to website owners free of charge. Not only that, but there are a large number of add-on modules, called plugins, which enhance the way WordPress works, and adds a number of popular options that many websites have come to rely on.

The SEO all-in-One Pack is probably the most popular plugin for WordPress. It offers even the most inexperienced amateurs the ability to create data that is supplied directly to search engines, and that is a utility that gets a website or blog spot noticed. If you haven’t installed this plugin, you really ought to consider doing so, it is that good.

If you want your blog spot to get discovered quickly, it might be a great idea to use a WordPress plugin such as Bookmarkify. On the surface, it is a simple addition which adds only one thing to your blog posts: the ability for reader to recommend the post to others via popular social media bookmark sites, such as Technorati and StumbleUpon.

Have you ever seen a blog site that used a tag cloud? That’s usually a list of keywords located in the sidebar, and lists the keywords used for each post, as well as those used for the entire website, with special emphasis on the keywords that are used the most often. At first, this utility may not seem very useful, but your readers will find it a fantastic to follow up on items of interest.

Admin Meta Links is an excellent plugin designed to help site editors and administrators edit and verify posts and web pages alike. Simply click the link on the sidebar, and you can instantly go from viewing mode to edit mode, making it possible to quickly proofread and test new items added to your website.

Keeping your blog spot up to date can be a time consuming process, but you can make it much easier and faster by using plugins. There are several dozen plugins available, ranging from behind the scenes utilities to on-page additions that encourage user interaction. Choose only the plugins you want to use, and customize your WordPress site to be just like you- totally unique.

There’re not many doubts, after all, that plugins for your WordPress site can be extremely useful. Whether you are trying to maximize your exposure, or just simplify repetitive tasks, there is probably a WordPress plugin designed with your needs in mind.

However, don’t take my word for it. Visit this website that specializes in reviews of WordPress plugins, and you’ll quickly understand how important these small utilities can be. They make running your WordPress site easier than it has ever been, and provide you with greater control over the things that matter most to you.

Technorati Tags: blogging tools, wordpress

If you use the Internet regularly, you are sure to have heard about blogs. Many people use blogs to write about personal topics, feelings, and opinions. However, did you know that blogs are also used as a business marketing tool? The interactivity of blogs along with the ease of creation and maintenance makes them an attractive option for online marketing purposes. Developing a regular readership of your blog can help you to achieve several goals. You can build solid customer relationships, inform people about your products and services, and generate links for search engine optimization purposes. Take a look at the many ways that having a blog can benefit your business, and you’ll find ways to use blogs almost immediately in your marketing efforts.

Setting Up a Blog

Setting up a blog can be pretty simple if you have the patience and time to learn how to use one. You can choose to design your own blog format on your existing site, or you can use a blog from Word press or www.blogger.com. Your marketing goals will help you to decide which type of blog to use. Blogs from www.blogger.com are free, but since they’re not a direct component of your web site, you may have to optimize them differently than you would then if you had a blog integrated into your site. If you choose to use your own design and have it be a direct component of your site, you have more control over design and function, and you may also be able to market your blog more easily.

Profiting from Blogs

Blogs help you to be profitable because they allow you to market your products and services without using overt sales messages that may cause prospects to stop visiting your site. Instead, you use blogs to communicate information and subtly promote your own products and services while you help others. This creates goodwill for you and your business. There are many opportunities for using blogs to turn a profit. Learning about each of them can help you decide which ones are right for your business.

Blog Articles

Blog articles are a great marketing tool because they allow you to showcase your expertise in your chosen field. You can publish articles on almost any topic related to your business and continue to provide information to your prospects and customers. Blog articles can also be optimized for the search engines by using specific keywords that help people find your web site. If you pick the right keywords, you can start seeing improved traffic results in as little as a few months. You can also integrate your blog with your viral marketing efforts by encouraging people to share your articles with other people.

Keyword-Optimized Blog Postings

One of the great things about blog postings is that they can be as short as 75-100 words and still help you accomplish your Internet marketing goals. When you keyword-optimize your blogs, you are using specific keywords to help people find you when they do searches for information. The more specific your keywords are, the better your chances of being found by your target market. Another positive aspect of short blog postings is that they make it easier to maintain your blog from day to day. Instead of having to write 500 or 1000 words every day, you can take as little as a few minutes to dash off a 75 or 100-word paragraph that gives information or lets people know about new products and services.

Linking with Blogs

One-way links are one of the best search engine optimization tools available. One-way links are links that are placed on other web sites that point people to your web site. When you post articles and other items of interest, people may like them enough to post the link on their web sites. The more one-way links you can generate with your blog, the better your chances of improving your search engine rankings and driving more traffic to your web site.

Affiliate Marketing with Blogs

You can also participate in affiliate marketing by using your blog. When you sign up to be a member of an affiliate program, you’ll want to do as much as you can to promote those products and services and generate commissions. Having a blog makes it easy for you to promote the products and services of other companies. You can write a short post about a new service or write reviews of helpful products and services and include your affiliate links. When people visit your blog and become interested in the products and services discussed in your postings, they may become interested enough to click on your affiliate links and make a purchase. As long as the products and services are appropriate for your target market, you can use a number of affiliate links so that you can make money in several different ways.

Creating a Buzz with Blogs

Blogs are part of a technique called buzz marketing. Buzz marketing is when you create a “buzz” about your company and turn prospects into loyal customers. Creating a buzz is simply putting your message in front of your target market and getting them excited about your products and services. There are several ways to create a positive buzz about your business using your blog. If you post interesting items, you’ll generate interest in your blog and encourage people to link to your web site and share your blog with friends. Buzz marketing can also be accomplished by using your blog to promote products and services. The tone of your blog can make or break your buzz marketing efforts. Straightforward information and boring posts will probably turn people away from your site. If you make posts that convey your excitement, enthusiasm, and passion for your products and services, you’ll start to create the same passion and enthusiasm among your prospects. Using this technique can help turn your blog from just another web page into a dynamite marketing tool that keeps visitors coming back time and time again.

Google AdSense with Blogs

Google AdSense can also be used with blogs to earn extra money. Google AdSense is a simple and free way to earn income while you are also promoting your products and services with your blog. You can sign up with Google for free and go through a web site review. No obscenity or adult material is allowed in the AdSense program, but most other web sites will qualify. Once you have been approved, you keep posting to your blog. The AdSense program will give you advertisements based on the keywords used in your postings. If you write a post about recipes, you may get ads about cookbooks, restaurants, or food distributors. You can choose where the ads go on your page so your blog maintains its unique look. When people click on the links provided with the ads, you’ll earn a small commission. You can earn even more extra money by putting a Google search box on your blog. When people use this search box, targeted ads will appear in their results. You will get a commission from each ad they click.

Blog ads

Blog ads is a service that was created to put advertisements on blogs. Advertisers develop their own advertisements, choose blogs to target, and select the amount of time, they want their ads to appear. Bloggers can accept or refuse to put the ads on their blogs. The Blog ads service gets a percentage of your commission earnings, since they host the ads and act as the intermediary between advertisers and bloggers. The more people visit your blog, the better your chances of earning money with this program.

AdBrite

AdBrite is similar to Blog ads as the company acts as an intermediary between bloggers and advertisers. With this program, you can place banners, text ads, and vertical ads on your blog. As the blogger, you choose what advertising opportunities are made available to your visitors. Businesses can visit your blog and purchase advertising directly from a link on your page. AdBrite manages the payment process and the relationship between advertisers and bloggers. Like Blog ads, the company keeps a percentage of the money you earn for the work they do at moderating the advertising relationship.

Selling Customized Products

To further create a buzz and improve your brand identity, you can sell merchandise from your blog that is customized with your logo or color scheme. When you have a loyal following of readers, your chances of being able to sell this type of merchandise improve greatly. You don’t need to go out and have items printed only to sit in your office unused. You can use one of many companies to print products on demand, as your customers order them. This eliminates the need for inventory and reduces your chances of wasting money on products that don’t sell. You can find some of these companies by doing a search on your favorite search engine.

Whatever methods you choose, blogs can be a great way for you to develop your brand and create a community of loyal customers.

Technorati Tags: blogging tools, wordpress