Go Beyond MLS » Blogging

Optimize Your WordPress For Smart Phones With WPTouch

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:55:04 +0000

The cell phone I currently have is not exactly what you can call a “smart phone”, but every so often I like to check and see how my websites and blogs look on my phone. According to Google Analytics, I am not the only one to try and access my blog on my cell phone. During last year there were 83 attempts to access Go Beyond MLS using number of mobile devices:

While the above numbers are not something to brag about, I still was surprised to learn that there were attempts to view this blog on mobile devices.

I am sure that the experience of the above users was not the best one. Navigating this blog from a mobile device has probably proven to be a complete nightmare… Until a few days ago that is.

If I have implemented changes correctly, this blog is now optimized for mobile browsing and users should see it in manner shower in the picture to your right. How did I do it? Simple. I used a plugin called WPTouch (developed by Dale Mugford & Duane Storey of BraveNewCode). You can also download WPTouch at WordPress plugin repository.

The reason I decided to go with WPTouch is that it offers easy way to customize the feel and look of the “mobile version” of your WordPress, if you like to keep the color scheme that resembles your website for example. Currently the plugin allows you to customize colors of title, header, sub-header and links. I wish however the developers would also allowed changing the background image/color right from the plugin’s dashboard:

The plugin also offers an easy implementation of AdSense mobile ads. Just enter your AdSnese publisher ID and your AdSense channel and you all set:

Your AdSense ads will be published on every “single post” of the “mobile” version of your website:

WPTouch is the most advanced way to optimize your WordPress for mobile phone users and visitors that I have seen so far. It does not seem to conflict with any of the other plugins I use on this blog. The developers, however, included a list of plugins that are not supported and may not work well with WPTouch- you can see that list in the plugin’s dashboard.

A special thanks goes to Zac Johnson for introducing me to WPTouch.Similar Posts:

Greetings Earthlings

Matt — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:12:06 +0000

Matt Brown

After such a great introduction by Vlad I feel rather ashamed that it has taken me seven days to even write anything. These things happen and when I figure out a fool proof way of making sure that life never slows you down I will let you know. My name, as you might know, is Matt and my mission here will be to bring my rather British perspective to the topics at hand.

During the next few months I shall be taking a look at promoting your website using various tools that are freely available. With each one I will be taking this blog’s own presence (or lack thereof) and using it as a case study. You should be able to expect me to report back on the effectiveness of the different methods and techniques that I will be talking about in a series of follow up posts.

The first thing I will be looking at is the creation and promotion of a facebook “page”. There is a lot of ground to cover which is where I have been and what I have been doing. The first case study is almost ready for you. So, as they say, watch this space.Similar Posts:

Thesis Theme Supercharges Your WordPress

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:21:27 +0000

As a WordPress user, I have come across many premium themes. Some were good, some were not so good. Several tims I was close to buying at least one of the premium themes (I believe it one of them was called “Revolution”) but none of the premium WordPress themes satisfy my website’s needs. So instead of going with a premium one I used to chose a free theme, and then tweak it, and tweak it, and tweak until I was satisfied with what I saw. The problem of course was that some WordPress theme developers have their own style (an some have no style at all) when it comes to coding the theme. The end result is that in many cases, one can waste considerable amount of time looking for example at CSS files and trying to figure out what controls what.

When I first heard of Thesis, I pretty much dismissed it as one of those premium themes that will not do much for my websites. However I was fortunate enough to have a closer look at this theme on a website of a friend of mine. Needless to say Thesis is on the top of my shopping list. The video (subscribers might need to visit this post to see it) bellow explains better than I ever could why I am falling in love with Thesis.

Click here to see more videos about Thesis, including video about it’s Design Flexibility and SEO benefits.

When trying Thesis on the website of a friend of mine, I immediately realized how easy and intuitive Thesis is. Most of the changes I made for example to the original theme that powers this blog, can be done via “options” in theses without need to modify themes files nor CSS. In addition it also can eliminate number of plugins you might be currently using. If you are looking for a suitable theme for your WordPress site, Thesis should be given serious consideration.Similar Posts:

Matt Brown To Co-Author Go Beyond MLS

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:00:10 +0000

Matt Brown

In the past I asked a few guest bloggers to write posts for this blog. Today I am absolutely thrilled to welcome a permanent co-author and contributor. You probably have met him on Twitter and Facebook already and can recognize him by his signature hat.

Matt Brown (also known Lord Matt around the “Interwebs”) is an incredibly talented blogger, web hosting and domain management guy, SEO and Content Marketing professional and most of all my friend.

Matt offered to co-author this blog after I revealed to him that I was planing to part with this blog and put it up for sale. Yes Go Beyond MLS was on my mind when I was making my new year’s resolutions. But now I will hold off selling this blog at least for another 6 month or so.

According to Matt, my intention to prepare this blog for sale was nothing else but an attempt to put a coat of “cheap paint” to make it more shiny. I could not agree more.

With that said, I look forward to Matt’s contribution and future posts. If you are interested to learn more about Matt, you should follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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20+ WordPress Plugins I Use And Recommend

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:38:58 +0000

I may have inspired Andy Beal to start using TweetMeme plugin on Marketing Piligrim, but he certainly inspired me more. Every time I come across a great plugin I promise myself to give credit to the plugin’s author as well as share with my readers how a particular plugin helped. Of course day passes by, then another and after a few days my desire to write about particular plugin slowly withers out. “It just a plugin”, I tell myself -”some one has already written about it anyway.” The truth is however that many of the plugins I use on my blogs make my life so much easier.

So here are some 20+ plugins that help this blog tick….

Akismet- some say this is the best anti-spam plugin. I use this plugin, however I will always miss Spam Karma. Unfortunately Aksimet relying on “collective intelligence” has flagged on occasion people whom I would never consider spammers.

WP Audio Player – this is a nice little plugin that allows you to embed audio files into your posts and pages making them playable. I think many podcasters use this plugin. While I love this plugin, I have it on my blog only because of one particular post. I still recommend it.

Broken Link Checker – this plugin might be very useful if you are worried that some of your old links point websites that no longer exist. Yeah, I know! But you would be surprised. I actually downloaded this plugin to test it and see if it would find broken links in the comments (authors url + urls in comment’s content)- unfortunately it does not do that, it only checks for broken links in the posts, pages, blogroll and some custom fields. So for now it is disabled- but I will keep an eye on it. I really would love it to be able to check for broken links in the comments.

cforms – if one of the best form builder plugin I have ever seen! This one is a must have!

Contact Form – a plugin that allows you to publish (in a post or a page) a contact form. I used it on all of my blogs before I became acquainted with cforms. If you do not need complicated forms but would like to offer your visitors and easy way to contact you this plugin is just for you.

Dean’s Code Highlighter- nice little plugin for some of us geeks who like to show off and tell you how much better we are than rest of you by pulishing tidbits of code.

Do Follow – enough said. This plugin magically attracts swarms of spammers both automated and human. But it rewards nicely those who have something good and valid to say on my blog.

Google XML Sitemaps - this plugin helps me to keep the big 3, but mostly Googe, informed about my blogs.

Maintenance Mode – I love this plugin. It creates a splash spage for those times when you are making major changes to your blog- such as testing new plugins or new theme. Visitors see a page that explains to your visitors that your website is undergoing maintenance/updates. Logged in users can see the the blog as usual.

NextGEN Gallery- is extremely useful plugin for those who like to take a lot of pictures. It maybe difficult to get used to it since the WordPress’ default media library has been improved over last few years. But NextGen Gallery offers features as tagging your images, giving them descriptions e.t.c. Among many cool things it also creates an additional RSS feed of your pictures.

OIOpublisher Direct 2.0(aff link) – this is a paid plugin I use on this blog to manage advertising purchased directly from me. This is not a free plugin, but if you use my affiliate link you may get some discount!

Redirection- allows you to create different redirects without need of modifying your .htaccess file. One of the cool features of this plugin is that it can automatically create a redirect if you need to modify post’s slug. I found this plugin to be extremely useful if you need to move a blog to a new domain. You can create hundreds of redirects in spreadsheet and import them using the plugin’s import/export feature.

SEO Title Tag – this plugin takes care of the title tags allowing you to have to have different title tag and post title.

Similar Posts- This plugin allows you to display related posts and pages. It is highly configurable, but it needs another plugin called Post-Plugin Library to work.

Subscribe To “Double-Opt-In” Comments – allows people to follow the conversation on desired post. It attempts to solve the issue you might have with sending unsolicited e-mails as it requires confirmation before updates are sent out.

TweetMeme Retweet Button – this plugin makes it easy to share posts on Twitter via TweetMeme Button which you can see in the top left corner of every post on this blog.

Ultimate Plugins Smart Update Pinger – this plugin replaces the built-in ping/notify functionality. Pings only when publishing new or future posts, not when editing.

WP Greet Box – This plugin recognizes where do your visitors come from and displays a customized message. For example if some one visits your blog from Twitter, you can configure the greeting to say something like this “Hey Tweep! Would you mind following me on Twitter?” or something like that. You can customize each greeting to different visitors the way you find it fit.

WP Super Cache – for this plugin I will just rip Andy’s description- is all about “legalized speeding”. I may also add that WP Super Cache can save you some Cash…

So there you go, my 20+ plugins. Do you use any of them?

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Let Dane Morgan Write Your Next Blog Post!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:33:56 +0000

Have you ever considered inviting a guest blogger to write a post for you? If you have considered it, but never got around to actually do it, I have a wonderful news fro you. Dane Morgan, a blogger and freelance writer, is offering to write a post for your blog.

Dane is trying to build up his freelance portfolio and you can help him by inviting him to write a blog post for you. Just head over to his blog an post the topic you would like him to write about.

I have known Dane for several years now, mostly through online interaction. Dane along with Andy Beard have influenced and educated me quiet a bit about “nofollow” attributes. I only wish I could have followed in their footsteps – as of today I have only one blog that keeps the links in the comment area “noffolow” free, unfortunately it is not Go Beyond MLS.

The reason I recommend Dane is that I always marvel at people like him. Dane has profound understanding of online marketing. While in his offer Dane would like to stay clear of all “the blogging, social media, entrepreneurial fields” his recent interest in tax related matters can probably offer a unique prospective to any finance related blog.

Besides subscribing to his blog, which I highly recommend, you can also follow Dane on twitter.Similar Posts:

What’s Up With Feedburner Subscription Numbers?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:59:15 +0000

If, over the period of last few days, you noticed a sudden increase in the number of subscribers to your blog reported by Feedburner, there is a simple explanation – now Feedburner includes the number of subscribers to your Friendfeed:

For many bloggers, especially the ones that are active on FriendFeed, this can translate into a significant increase of readership.

For many blogs out there, the number of subscribers is an important factor in determining the price for advertising and the value of the blog. Needless to say the Feedburners decision to include FriendFeed subscribers may help to diminish the value of readership on blogs.

For example two days ago the number of subscribers shown for Go Beyond MLS was in 90s – today that number is 326 which includes the subscriptions to my FriendFeed.

I would have been pleased with such increase of the number of subscribers if Go Beyond MLS was the only blog I author. Unfortunately majority of FriendFeed subscribers tend to gravitate around SageBlogger.com as well as my other blogs. But for the most part the interaction remains within FriendFeed itself.

Id don’t find the new numbers to be accurate nor helpful. Do you?Similar Posts:

The State Of Top 100 List: Say Hello To New Blogs.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:07:03 +0000

Since relaunching the list of real estate blogs las week, there were number of new blogs submitted. I will take time every week to introduce the blogs. This week we welcome ten new blogs to the list:

Developments- this is blog is a part of WSJ blog section. I was rather surprised to receive the request to include this blog. Even more so, I was hesitant including the blog to the list as it has an “unfair” advantage over the signle blogger who is just starting to write their blog. I can see the Developments blog going to the top of the list with the next update.
All About Mortgages – this blog is written by Kristen Emery. Kristen is a Mortgage expert from California and is dedicated to provide you with the most comprehensive information and to make your transaction as seamless as possible! Make sure to visit here and blog and hit the “subscribe button”!
The Big Orange Press- written Rick Smenner of Knoxville, TN. Jennifer Stinnett – Jennifer is a New Media / E-Business Consultant for Real Estate Brokers, Agents and Small Business owners.
Living Twin Cities- by Jason Sandquist. You can also find Jason on Twitter.
CraigMische.com – written by Craig Mische. Craig Mische is a licensed real estate broker in the State of Minnesota.
Focus On Crofton- a real estate blog by Margaret Woda.
Let’s Talk Real Estate- a real estate blog written by Cristina McBreairty.
Georgetown Texas Real Estate Blog- written by Edward Lui.
Denton County Real Estate – written by Jay Myers.
Lake Lanier Real Estate Blog- by Nesa Kleinheksel.

If you don’t see the blog on the list yet, it is most likely because I added your blog while the script was going through a scheduled update. The above mentioned blogs are now in the database and will be included in the list with the next update. Please follow GoBeyondMLS on Twitter to be notified about updates to the list.Similar Posts:

Facebook Connect Solution For Your Blog

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:37:04 +0000

Ever since I saw the implementation of Facebook Connect on TechCrunch, I wanted to look into implementing it on my blogs as well. However since I was not very active on Facebook, I did not start digging into it until a few days ago. There are are number of solutions available for bloggers today should they decide to take advantage of Facebook Connect.

For now I have settled with the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin by Sociable. The Sociable plugin requires Facebook API so before you start using it, make sure to create new application in Facebook developer section of your account. You may also want to hack this plugin- see in the bottom of the post where described how I did it.

Once installed and configured the Facebook Connect plugin will allow your visitors to logging into your blog using their Facebook credentials. They choose to allow the Facebook Connect application (your blog), to post the comments they leave on your blog to their Facebook account as well.

The Facebook Connect plugin by sociable has a widged that you can place in the sidebar of your blog where the visitors can login as Facebook users. Once logged in, they will also have an option to invite their friends to visit your website without actually leaving your blog.

Another unique feature the plugin provides is the community page, which is hosted right on your blog.

There is however one huge downside wit the plugin. It does not word that well with WP Super Cache plugin. Unless of course you can hack WP Super Cache plugin in such a way that it would serve dynamic pages to Facebook users once they’ve logged in on your blog. If you come across such a hack, please let me know.

Hacking the plugin to display the facebook login button somewhere around your comment box.- do this at your own risk.

Another shortcoming of the Facebook Connect plugin by Sociable is that the sidebar widget is the only place where the login button is displayed. Unfortunately the sidebar is not exactly the first place your visitors might examine when visiting your blog. They many leave a comment without realizing they could have shared it on Facebook. Placing the Facebook Connect login button in vicinity of the comment box can serve as a reminder that they could use their Facebook ID to comment on your blog. Unfortunately I had to come up with my own hack to accomplish that- copy and paste to code below into your comments.php file:

echo "\"".$loginbutton."\" onlogin=\"window.location = ‘".$uri."’;\">\n"; ?>

This is how my comment box looks now with the code above inserted:

It is probably my worst ever attempt to hack anything. Hopefully some one can come up with a better hack. With the above hack, after successful login, the page if refreshed on the very top. Bringing the visitor back down to the comment box would be so much better- but as I said, I suck at coding.

For the list of other Facebook Connect plugins and solutions for other blogging and content management platforms make sure to visit Facebook Connect Plugin Directory.
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The List Of Real Estate Blogs Is Back

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:08:06 +0000

It has been just over a year since I first started to play with an idea of compiling a list of real estate blogs, and to sort them according to Alexa rank, Google PR and Technorati Rank. I have decided to revive the list and it is now live and well on Go Beyond MLS again, where it all started.

Why is the list back on this website?

Some of you may remember that I have dedicated a separate domain for the list (www.top100realestateblogs.com), which is no loger in my possession and you probably still can snatch it from Go Daddy if you so desire. Not sure what you can do with it though….

I have decided to abandon that domain simply because it is much easier to “pump some juice” into the list from this blog, as it is more recognizable, has more traffic and ranks much better than the other domain did. Truth has to be told that I did not promote www.top100realestateblogs.com with enough excitement and energy as this blog or my other blogs.

Either way I believe Go Beyond MLS is much better suited to be a home for the list of Top 100 Real Estate blogs.

Substantial Change- All Links Are SEO Friendly Now

One of the things I always wanted to accomplish with the list is that I want real estate bloggers to truly benefit from the list. To accomplish that instead of publishing the list via a javascript code, which was invisible to search engines, the list now published through a PHP code that in essence is plain old HTML. The list is now visible and indexable to search engines.

While only about top 20 blogs on the list will have some share of the traffic the list receives, I hope some juice along with page rank will be transfered to all the blogs on the list.

Is it just another link exchange farm?

Some may come to that conclusion while looking at the list. But since I do not ask for a link back to this blog in order to be featured on the list, it can hardly be viewed as link farm scheme. In fact it can serve as a good resource for advertisers looking to expend their brand into real estate blogging community.

How Often Is The List Updated?

At the very minimum, the list will be updated once a week, therefore if you just submitted an inclusion request your blog may not be yet on the list. Be sure to come back and visit the list a week from now.

Final Thought

If you ever come across this blog, I want you to know that it is never too late to submit your blog to be featured on the list. If you are a real estate agent but do not have your own blog, I hope the list will serve you as an encouragement. I am certain you can regonize at least few of the blogs on the list. There is also much we can learn by observing the blogs on the list. Some of them shine as great examples of blogging in real estate- more to come on the subject in the future. So stay tuned and happy blogging!Similar Posts:

AddThis Improves Usability and Reporting

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:00:57 +0000

Back in October of 2008, I wrote a post in which I tried to compare two services that allow your readers to share the content of your blog on variety of social bookmarking websites- AddThis and ShareThis. At the time I was experimenting with both widgets across my blogs. While AddThis may have been a little more recognizable, I thought that ShareThis offered better reporting.

Over the last few weeks, AddThis managed to win my heart and today I would like to highlight few of the changes.

Button and The Way User May Interact With it

While I am still not that thrilled about button on “hover” behaviour- I would rather it to begin interaction on “click”. But considering AddThis popularity, I think it is safe to assume that majority of visitors expect AddThis button to behave a certain way. Besides there is a reason why AddThis button responds to both “on hover” and “on click”. When you however over the button with your moths a small widow is pulled down with several essential social bookmarking websites:

However if a visitor clicks on the button, a larger window pops up which allows you to choose between about 47 different social bookmarking websites:

In the past when a visitor clicked the button, it would take him or her to a page on AddThis website.

Reporting and Statistics

Not sure it was me (highly unlikely) AddThis listened to, but they did heck of a job with improving the reporting and statistics. First thing you may notice logging into your account is that AddThis now segregates data for each domain. If you happened to have AddThis button on multiple websites, you are likely to find this feature useful.

AddThis now also provides data on where your content is submitted to. You can find that under “Top Services”.

In addition AddThis also provides information about geographical location of users sharing your content- look for it under “Top Continents”.

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Entrecard Traffic Exchange With Benefits? I Am Not Getting It.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:11:47 +0000

While some of my friends are using Entrecard for networking, I am still very sceptical about the service…

The mechanics of the Entrecard are quiet simple. After your blog is approved, other blog owners can “drop” their card on you or purchase an ad on your blog with Entrecard credits.

I presume if you have plenty of time on your hands, you can drop your card on other blog owners all the day long. It may increase a chance that that a blog owner, on whom you dropped your card, may pay you a visit back, and this where Entrecard reminds me of a traffic exchange scheme.

You can however “purchase” advertising on blogs that use and Entrecard widget with the credits you and your blog earns, or the credits you can purchase from Entrecard.

Unfortunately, in the Real Estate category there are very few blogs that I would like to exchange traffic and/or banners. And so far the banners “bought” on my blog are from the blogs that are not quiet relevant to my own blog.

It is interesting to see that in order to advertise on my blog it will cost other Entrecard members 4 credits per day. If one was to buy the credits, he or she can advertise on my blog for 250 days for only $6.00. Quiet a difference from the rate I offer currently to my potential sponsors.

Of course these figures may change in the future, and I would like to know how does Entrecard determine their rates. But to be completely honest, I don’t see myself staying with Entrecard. I am taking it for a spin (no more than 3 months), so I can say I tried it. Let see if Entrecard will change my mind.

If you are using Entracard please share what do you think is the best practice when using that system.Similar Posts:

Outsource Your Press Release To A Pro

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:04:06 +0000

Many of my readers have probably ran into Janet Meiners Thaeler aka NewspaperGirl. If you did not meet Janet on Twitter, you probably have read her articles on Marketing Pilgrim. If you know Janet, you know she is an expert as far as press releases go. If you did not know that, you know it now.

So why I am bringing up press releases and (re)introducing Janet to you? Simple. I believe that press releases will be on the rise this year, considering economic factors. Long time ago (about 2 or 3 years), Janet, while still blogging on Wordpress.com blog, wrote about her experiment with press releases. Comparing to PPC advertising, press releases delivered visitors to her websites at a consistent rate of 5 cents per click or less. Even back then you really needed to “babysit” and “sweat” over your PPC campaigns to keep the cost per click under 20 cents.

Janet got me hooked on PRWeb. My first $40 press release brought a 300% return on my investment during the first day of the press release going live. To make the long story short, I have never felt like I wasted money on a press release. PPC??? Well that’s another story….

There are however a few challenges with press releases. Not being a good writer with added difficulty of English as my second or third language, I never felt comfortable writing press releases. I certainly never scored highly as far as editorial review goes, probably just barely passed the scrutiny of PRWeb to get my releases published. Writing for my blogs is different. Most of you are very forgiving as far as my grammar goes. But press releases are different…

Slowly I came to realize that press release is something I will have to outsource. So to my surprise, when visiting Janet’s blog, I discovered that she is now offering Press Release Writing Services. Knowing Janet’s background in blogging, marketing and social media – there can be no better person to write my press releases. I am planing to use Janet’s services for my Interpreting and Translating Business. If you need a solid press release, you should consider her services as well. Don’t take my word for it. Read what Jeremy Shoemaker (aka Shoemoney) wrote about Janet’s press releases- a very powerful testimony testimony if you asked. Not trying to be mean to Jeremy, but it is good to know we can compete on the level of grammar. Similar Posts:

WP Super Cache Can Save You Some Cash!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:26:03 +0000

About over a week ago Go Beyond MLS was down for several days. In fact my entire hosting account was suspended. Evidently my websites were overloading the server and exhausting the server resources.

As attractive as shared hosting is, keeping low prices and all, every serious web master and/or blogger needs to look ahead and plan for a dedicated server solutions… eventually.

As much as I love WordPress as blogging platform, it uses good amount of server resources to evidently cause serious enough trouble for my web host to have my account suspended. So I had to do something. Optimize my sites so that they would not over load the server or move to dedicated web hosting solution (which would cost me about $1200 a year even with the least expensive solutions out there). So I opted for optimizing my websites (at least those powered by WordPress) with WP Super Cache plugin.

WP Super Cache along with it’s parental plugin WP Cache, where aimed primarily at allowing WordPress blogs to survive heavy loads of traffic resulting from websites like Digg or Slashdot. However, as it was in my case, you don’t have to hit the front page of Digg or Slashdot to cause some server issues.

So how does WP Super Cache do it? After you install and configure the plugin, it saves individual pages from your WordPress site and serves them to your visitors as plain old html as long as they do not leave comments. Statistically over 90% of your visitors are passing by without ever leaving a comment. Therefor it is save to presume that over 90% of your visitors will be shown the cached hml versions of your pages instead of heavy PHP scripts.

I know that down the road I will have to revisit the possibility of purchasing dedicated server. But if WP Super Cache can buy me a year, it will end up saving me about $1,200.00.

Side note: If you do not have your custom (“pretty”) permalinks configured on your blog, you will have to configure them- WP Super Cache requires that configuration. It is also good idea to backup your current .htaccess file before configuring WP Super Cache Plugin should things go wrong.Similar Posts:

Go Beyond MLS Forum

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:48:49 +0000

Ever since I begun blogging and falling in love with every aspect of it, I also wanted to try managing forums. Copyblogger has recently addressed few important reasons why every blogger should have a forum. It took me quite a long time to make my own conclusions.

My previous attempts to implement forums on few of my websites ended up in disaster. One particular forum was left unattended for a few weeks. It grew incredibly big- however 100% of those registered were spammers. Some times we bloggers complain about spam, but to be completely honest I think we have seen nothing in comparison to the owners of the forums. The spam on forums can really deter the owner from moving on.

For the last 3 years, after the last unsuccessful attempt of starting a forum, I have decided to concentrate on blogging. But the more I blogged the more I realized the need for a forum.

While my intention was to launch the forum on January 1st, an urgent reputation management issue stopped me from formally announcing the Go Beyond MLS forum. It did not however stopped few of my friends to join the forum and “take it for an extensive spin”: Matt (aka The Geek LordMatt), Matt Keegan (aka The One and Only Freelance Writer), Dennis Pease (aka Oregon Realtor)- thank you so much for taking a look at the my new forum.

I will be writing few follow up posts about the forum and what I will be trying to accomplish with it in 2009. For now I feel compelled to thank you for testing it so far. The forum is powered by Simple Press Forum Plugin for WordPress- just in case you wonder.

Note: I you have joined the forum but have not yet configured your profile, take a few minutes to do so. At minimum it will be good if you provide your web site’s address.aSimilar Posts:

Paid Review. Is It Worthed?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Seams like the subject of paid reviews will be around for some time. While I have a unique prospective on paid blogging, I think the proper place to discus the subject will be on Sage Blogger, the blog where I write about affiliate marketing and related subjects of making money online.

I do however need to thank Greg Swann and Chris Johnson for stirring up emotions associated with the subject.

While some may think that such an article may fit better on this blog, the truth is that vast majority of real estate bloggers are not looking to to monetize their blogs. However most of the visitors to my Sage Blogger come to it looking for things that will make you money on the Internet- many are them are bloggers who will consider signing up with one of the paid/sponsored reviews websites.

I will leave the readers of Go Beyond MLS with a following thought. Paid review was the worst mistake I ever made as far as blogging is concerned. If blogging is your long term goal, paid and sponsored reviews maybe prove to be very shortsighted strategy and can sometimes cost you way more in legal fees should things go awry as a result of your review.Similar Posts:

Telling Google How Often To Crawl Your Website

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:39:33 +0000

If you are using Google Webmaster Tools you are probably aware that, among many things that these tools offer, there is the ability to submit your web site’s sitemap to help Google discover pages on your website. Google Webmasters Tools can also provide some insightful information about your website. Among many different statistics you will see the page containing information about about “crawl statistics”. You will find there a graphic of Googlebot’s activity on your website over the period of last 90 days. Just like the one you see below.

In the past Google did not offer webmasters many options or saying about how ofter they can or will crawl your website. While from time to time, after determining that your website may use a faster crawl rate, they would offer you an option to change this rate. However over the period last few months I was never offered that option in Google Webmaster Tools for my websites. So I have trusted Google, as most of us do, to crawl and discover the websites in their own time, and have completely forgotten about the “crawl rate” settings.

It appears, however, that recently, Google Webmaster Tools have opened the option to set a custom crawl rate for the websites you have listed in your account:

The above option can be found under the main settings in your Google Webmaster Tools account, and it is quiet self-explanatory. Stetting a “slower crawl rate” will reduce Googlebot’s visits to your website. I would recommend not to set a rate slower of what Google is already doing, unless your are experiencing issues with bandwidth. The slower crawl rate will probably result in delay with indexing your latest content. If anything, you may want to experiment with a “faster rate”, if you think it takes too long for your latest content to appear in Google’s index.

For time being I will not customize the crawl rate for this website, as I am pleased with what Google is doing now. I will however experiment with few other websites with intention to report here how can you benefit for this option, if you can benefit at all.Similar Posts:

Dealing With Splogs: Make Them Link To You!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:13:52 +0000

If you are a blogger, chances are that sooner or later you will come across a phenomena called “splogs”. These blogs republish your content without your permission and without giving your a proper credit for your work. Some times they do link back to you but dressing up your links in pink colors of “nofollow” attribute. So how do you deal with them?

I came across an interesting discussion on AgentGenius.com on how to deal with splogs. Tom Royce of Real Estate Bloggers suggested a plugin called RSS footer- this plugin allows you to ad an extra link into your feed with a custom message, which can be used to expose and embarrass the splogger.

There is also another similar solution to the above plugin. I have been using it for quiet sometime without realizing it has a potential to insert additional links each of your RSS feed item- Similar Posts Plugin. This plugin undergone husge transformation since I first began using it, if you have it on your blog an kept with plugin’s updates make sure to look at every set of settings to appreciate more what this plugin can do for your blog. You can specify the links to similar post in RSS feed under “Placement” option in the latests version of the plugin.

Since many of the splogs are automated, the extra links to your website will begin to show up on these splogs. There is one more benefit from using the above described plugin- but revealing it means giving away a simple solution to the “developers” of these splogs.

So to all of you who think splogs are fun I am begging you: please go ahead and scrape my blogs.

Note: Above plugins are for WordPress.org powered websites only.Similar Posts:

Move To IntenseDebate Copmleted

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:03:58 +0000

The other day I wrote about moving moderation of comments to IntenseDebate. The move was completed successfully, you can now find both my profile and this blog’s profile page on IntenseDebate: Vlad Zablotskyy on IntenseDebate and Go Beyond MLS on IntenseDebate.

The move went smoothly and it took about 8-10 minutes for IntenseDebate to move 1200+ comments of this blog.

One of IntenseDebate plugin that caught my eye is that you can still use your WordPress’ native comments interface on your blog while allowing the plugin to sync the comments made on your blog to your blog’s profile on intensedebate.com. This can be useful if you would like to test their service without revealing it on your blog.

One downside that unlike Disqus, IntenseDebate does not offer any integration for video commenting. But this does not really affect this blog as I rarely make any videos myself.

I like the performance of IntenseDebate so far, let see what they have to offer in the future.Similar Posts:

Go Beyond MLS Is Now Powered By Coltrane

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:14:42 +0000

Updating your blogging software may not be the most pleasant experience. I know that many WordPress users have been apprehensive upgrading their versions because some times the update can be quiet painful. My personal biggest concern before updating WordPress is always associated with plugins I have active on my blogs. I always hope that on the other side of the update somehow all my plugins continue to function. I have to say that since the time we are able to update plugins straight from our dashboards, not even once did I encounter problem with plugins when updating WordPress.

So Coltrane is here. I have been using the latest version for a few days now and have to say so far this is the most awe-inspiring version of WordPress I even seen. Take a look at the following video to fully appreciate whats in store for you as far as the latest WordPress version is concerned:

Needless to say that this Coltrane version is becoming most popular- 516,311 downloads as of writing this post.

So the first par of some changes on this blog has been accomplished- I have updated the blogging software. Now it’s time moving the comments to IntenseDebate.Similar Posts: