Go Beyond MLS

Blogger.com not too good for web 2.0 marketing

Matt — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:03:26 +0000

A minor point of irritation, for me, was to discover just how badly blogger.com treats things like meta tags.

Now I know full well that meta tags are not exactly ground breaking for SEO but when it comes to social linking several tags can be quite important. Specifically the meta description tag. When posting a link in facebook the meta description is the first source of content for describing the link.

Ugly facebook link

I first noticed this when working on my Face Link tool which was created to make facebook link links for blogs. Here is an example of a good looking link to my blog. You can see that the tool was able to get a title and a description

The fantastic site of Lord Matt

The realm of Lord Matt – Lord of vast imaginary tracts of hyperspace.

Generated by Face Link Tool with thumbnail by BitPixels

Beyond making my little applications work the meta part of a web page also impacts of the quality of your search engine results listing. The description being used most often as the text that goes with the search result.

As such in a competitive market not using a description tag is a fatal mistake that your competitors will take advantage of.

So the result is not just that pretty much all blogger blogs produce rubbish looking links in facebook but that they have a significant disadvantage when the going gets tough. After searching for a while I have concluded that there is not really a decent solution to this aside from putting Google off with duplicate description and keywords.

In short blogger.com is not, in my opinion, suited to the world of web 2.0 nor business marketing.Similar Posts:

Go Beyond MLS Facebook Page

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:20:45 +0000

After Matt’s fantastic introduction to what I think will be number series of posts about Facebook Marketing- it is finally time to announce the Facebook Page of Go Beyond MLS, even thought Matt did it in some ways. The main reason for not promoting this page before, was my own confusion about pages an apps on Facebook.

A while back I have tried to use a WordPress plugin called Facebook Connect by Sociable. To use this plugin an application was created for this blog on Facebook for the purposes of showing latest Facebook visitors, register new users once they left a comments etc. In the end I gave up on using the plugin since it had some flaws at the time I did not want to deal with.

In short, I confused them (Facebook Apps and Facebook Pages). However, after creating a Facebook page for Chocolate Belles, a business I have been advising about internet marketing over the past two years, I found a new appreciation of Facebook Pages and how useful can it be for any business. But I have to leave it at this, sine Matt plans to share more useful tips about Facebook and all it has to offer to help you with you online marketing efforts.

In the meanwhile if you do not see your picture in the widget bellow, chances are you not yet the fan of Go Beyond MLS on Facebook, please join us and don’t be shy to interact with us on Facebook.

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

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Facebook Marketing: Initial Case Study

Matt — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:35:48 +0000

Go Beyond Facebook

What I am going to do int his first article is simply look at the Facebook fan page for this website and use it to explore Facebook pages in general and what they can do for your blog (regardless of niche).

Vlad tells me that apart from setting up the page he has not actually done very much with it least of all tell anyone about it.

This, for this article’s purposes, is fantastic! It means that we can actively measure what I am about to have said (keep on reading or you might miss it) and watch what happens as we implement the theory. Over the next few months I’ll revisit the topic of Facebook and representing your blog therein reporting on our efforts to go beyond just having a page and to actually getting traffic from it.

As I write there are 3 fans. In three months let us see if we can get over 100.

The page as it is

Go Beyond Facebook Page

As the page stands there is nothing obviously “wrong” with it. The blog posts are being added to the page and there is a graphic that matches the website theme. However, as you can see, there is a lack of variety and this makes the page visually unappealing and repetitive.

In other words we have settles down to making Facebook a very expensive feed reader. That’s fine but it’s not exciting enough to get the average Facebook user to do much by way of interaction.

According to something I was reading (somewhere) the average Facebook user fans two pages a month. That means to see growth in the page’s fan base some work is going to be needed.

Then the page must add value to the user’s day and if that was not enough it must actually be interactive enough to get enough interaction to show up in the news feed of the fans who have added it.

Facebook promotion is no walk in the park. Keep reading for an insight into using pages.

Go beyond what is missing!

The first thing that most people are going to say is missing is the fans. Look for yourself. (When I wrote this there were three of us)

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

Yet this is not what is missing but a metric that we are heading in the right direction to attract people.

What is missing is the variety of media that can be found on any page in Facebook.

Pictures

This is a tough one for a blog. Many blogs are of non visual topics and yet people are going to want to see that the blog has something of a gallery. Pictures break the page up and give the senses a change of pace.

So what can a blogger show pictures of?

Well for starters there is the writer or writers of the blog. Assuming that your names are known then some images of you serve to help the fan connect with you on a deeper level.

If images of oneself are not enough then there are diagrams. A well thought out diagram illustrating some key point from you recent blogging allows Facebook users to see that they are getting exclusive content.

Product shots – fans in your t-shirts. If you produce a physical product then this is an ideal space to allow fans to show themselves off with their newly purchased product. Mum’s, sisters and close friends might also agree to get the ball rolling.

Status updates

The Facebook page is like your personal Facebook wall and has the opportunity for you to speak with the voice of your blog. Give your fans something to ponder or shout out to a fan that has submitted some particularly interesting comments.

Let the Facebook users know that the page has a life that goes beyond publishing the blog feed.

Videos and links

Any article, youtube video or podcast by someone interesting from in or near your niche could be worth sharing on your page. The concept of linking out, adding value and being the resource for others that drives blogging applies here too.

Furthermore a good resource can be sued to connect with your Facebook friends and promote your page to them in a not-at-all aggressive way. Posts of all forms of link have a SHARE button which will post the link to your page and say “from NameOfYourPage” which gives you a little exposure and, so long as it is interesting, enhances your social capital as an interesting person.

Go Beyond what is expected

One thing that you will find about pages is that they have very little opportunity for energy saving automation, branding or free text. However with a little inventiveness you can get quite a lot out of them.

Take as my first example a little shameless self promotion: My very own fan page.

The image below is a screen shot of that page.

Matt's Facebook Page

You might notice that the left hand side is almost all customized. This is because there is no limit on relative height for your profile image. Use this space to get the most out of the branding and impact space of your page.

In my case I made sure there were images of me that I could use to get an attractive thumbnail which you can see is a picture of a poster of me getting some attention from the lovely ladies (yes it is a genuine fake).

A little planning and you can maximize your impact buy controlling the image dimensions.

Additionally you might notice int his screen shot that there is a visual variety in the posts themselves. This happens to be because I posted a largish number of links recently and have yet to write a new blog post.

Talking of blog posts when-ever I write a blog post I know that my Facebook page (and twitter account) will be updated to. To do this I use NetWorkedBlogs which is a valuable application for Facebook using bloggers. To get the most out of it it is vital to make sure that 80% or more of your blog posts have an image in them that the NEtWorkedBlogs app can use. Keep the images varied and the page “wall” will look interesting.

You can also get added feedback onto your page if the NetWorkedBlogs application posts to other locations (like your personal wall or another page). This is because a like or a comment in any location is a like or a comment on all copies of the post. This too makes your page look interesting.

Going beyond the theory: The game plan

This is the game plan for the page over the next few weeks and months in roughly the order they will be carried out.

1. A taller image.

2. NetWorkedBlogs doing it’s thing.

3. Status updates, links and videos.

4. Invite fans.

Once this minor tweak is fully in place I shall revisit the topic and look at what else can be done to use Facebook to engage with potential readers and promote your blog. The results we are looking for as a result of good promotion of the Facebook page are:

1. More fans

2. More fan interaction

3. Traffic to the blog

Final thoughts

So far we have not looked at methods of getting from three fans to one hundred. However it is vital to get the foundations right or the rest will not stand up too well.

Have you made a fan page yet? What was it like and did many people “fan” it?Similar Posts:

More Nofollow Tags On Twitter: Is This Beginning Of The End For Twitter?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:14:16 +0000

UPDATE, March 2, 2010: After experimenting with a plugin for Google Buzz, I have decided not to use on at this time. All available plugins as of now offer to ad comments to Google Reader items- this potentially can scatter the discussion all over places. Hopefully a better solution will be implemented soon.

With the arrival of Google Buzz, I began to question whether or not I should continue to concentrate on Twitter. I hope I am not the only one. Two days ago Twitter decided to intruduce even more “nofollow” attributes this time to their internal linking structure. I understood (but did not agree) when they introduced the first round of nofollow attributes to their links, I guess as young startup you needed to do what you needed to do.

So today I have replaced the Tweetmeme button (courtesy of Tweetmeme ) with new and shiny Google Buzz button (courtesy of Hameedullah Khan). The Tweetmeme button was moved to the button of each post. This is just a symbolic gesture of my personal dissatisfaction of the way Twitter is “innovating”, I have nothing but love for Tweetmeme.

Twitter has bigger issues to deal with….

For Twitter trying to manipulating the flow of the Google juice at this stage of the game is really childish, and if that is the reason for the latest change I just feel sorry for Twitter. Really guys, is this the best you’ve got? Now if the recent change was made as a further attempt to eliminate spam my question is the same, is this the best you’ve got? There are ways to eliminate spam without punishing your users.

There is also another factor, and I maybe completely wrong about it… I appears to me that many of my online are starving for a more meaningful way to keep the conversation going (which in my opinion is impossible to have on Twitter). So if you compare Twitter and Google Buzz from that perspective, Google Buzz wins hands down, and if you thought Google Buzz is no threat to Twitter you should really think again.

Now back to the new and shiny Google Buzz button- you need to use your GMail/Google Reader to interact with it. You can also follow Go Beyond MLS on Google.Similar Posts:

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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More Spam From LeapFish???

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:00:45 +0000

UPDATE Feb. 5, 2010: It appears LeapFish is no longer showing the link in the footer of their website to their “directory” I wrote about bellow:

This change must have been implemented today as Bing.com’s cached page of LeapFish from yesterday February 4, 2010 still has the link:

LeapFish has also implemented robots.txt file on their website disallowing web crawlers from indexing the directory:

Few days ago I tried to to get attention of Google’s Anti-Spam Czar – Matt Cutts via his FriendFeed account. I wanted Matt to comment about LeapFish’s latest directory- but I realize, it may not be Google’s practice to comment on these sort of things publicly. That or you need to be Michael Gray, Aaron Wall or Andy Beard to get some one like Matt Cutts to listen to you.

So what is my latest beef with LeapFish? Their spammy directory located at http://www.leapfish.com/dr/ – my apologies for not providing a live link, I consider LeapFish to be an unsafe website. It also appears by my estimates that Google is indexing this new directory at the rate of about 50 pages a day- there are about 200 pages in Google’s index from this “directory” as of this writing.

So I invite those who are still with me to explore some of the pages from the above mentioned directory. One of the first pages from the directory that jump at me was “Shopping”:

Clicking through to the page on LeapFish.com you are given opportunity to “narrow” your search- so I decide to narrow mine to “Death Care”:

What do you know?!!! Now you can narrow your search geographically- naturally I selected New Jersey the state I live in:

How about that?!! LeapFish knows all the counties in the state of New Jersey- naturally my next selection would be the county I live in:

How about that?!!! Turns out LeapFish is so intuitive it knows about every city in my state- so just for the heck of it I decided to check and see what kind of death care shopping I can do in Jackson, NJ:

And the relevancy of my final destination in LeapFish directory? Google search results associated with the death of Michael Jackson?

What can I say? I am extremely disappointed. I am sure few results of local funeral directors or even a local WalMart with the line of their latest caskets would not be as disappointing. Since LeapFish is using some APIs from Google, they could have really impress me by showing me a few relevant products using Google Base API.

So yeah, I am desperate for the attention from Matt Cutts. Matt could you please explain to me how this sort of “directories” improve the State of The Index? In my opinion the LeapFish Directory does just the opposite- LeapFish pollute the Internet.

If you are interested to find out more about LeapFish I highly recommend LeapFish Review by Better Business Bureau.Similar Posts:

Should I Cross-link My Websites?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:55:03 +0000

This is something many web-masters struggle with. You create a new website that is going to knock every one socks off, but now you need Google and other search engines to notice it. The quickest way is to slap a few links on other websites you have that may already rank well and are well indexed by the search engines. But is it good idea? As Matt Cutts of Google explains in the video bellow, it all depends. If you have few minutes it is well worth watching:

Similar Posts:

CEO Of LeapFish Removes Rebuttal To Click Fraud Bombshell

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:04:26 +0000

About a year ago TechCrunch, world’s leading technology blog, wrote about threats of click fraud LeapFish employee used to intimidate potential clients into advertising on a newly launched meta search aggregator. The CEO of LeapFish, Ben Behrouzi, fired back with an emotional response, in which he seems to be “calling out” TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters for being “irresponsible and distasteful”. The original post appeared on February 4, 2009 at www.benbehrouzi.org – what seams to be personal blog of the CEO of LeapFish.

The rebuttal was taken down some time at the beginning of this year, 2010. The link http://www.benbehrouzi.org/2009/02/04/leapfish-gets-second-lashing-from-techcrunc/ seams to point to a page that no longer exists. The rebuttal was referenced by “online authorities” like Wikipedia.

It is possible that the post containing the rebuttal was taken by mistake. But in case it was taken on purpose, bellow is the copy of the original post minus the updates:

LeapFish Gets Second Lashing, Beginning to Think TechCrunch Just Doesn’t Like Us

Today TechCrunch covered LeapFish for the second time, but unfortunately they again did not focus on the engine itself or its future. Instead of discussing our new click free search technology or our recent increase in traffic, or the sheer number of advertisers/investors that have joined the program, Techcrunch made news out of an irresponsible act committed by 1 out of 80 sales representatives that we employ and set us up for ridcule instead. I was very disappointed at the way they handled this to say the least.

I’m beginning to think they just don’t like us. I hope I’m wrong. I did offer the following response, which I haven’t seen posted as of yet.

Robin,

We have completed an investigation and have dealt with the matter appropriately. However frankly put, I am disappointed at this post by you and by TechCrunch. You never contacted us to verify the information you posted or even checked to see what our position was as a company around such behavior before you published. You apparently called in but didn’t make the effort of speaking with someone about this. Frankly put, I find your post’s title and content irresponsible and distasteful. Nevertheless, I apologize for the poor choice in judgment by one of our sales representatives and we want your readers to know that we took swift and immediate action to correct the matter.

Additionally, we have called, spoken to and offered a sincere apology to the prospect that was mistreated. We have expressed our regret and embarrassment over the situation. We have also offered to pay restitution for any fees the prospect incurred and will cover any damages. Additionally, we will be offering a gift of a keyword of the prospect’s choice as a further sign of our apologetic stance.

Let me clearly state, that LeapFish has a 0 tolerance policy for the behavior described and in no way, shape or form endorses the behavior whatsoever. Our sales staff is not coached nor encouraged to engage in such tactics and this is a regrettable act by a single individual who exercised poor judgment using personal email accounts. Our entire sales staff has been met with and spoken to and been firmly reminded that we do not engage in such tactics nor will we tolerate it whatsoever.

Robin, I find your post unfair and damaging, but I harbor no ill will towards you and I hope that one day one of your posts will actually give fair attention to our true offering and features, as provided by Silicon Valley’s MercuryNews and the thousands of visitors, supporters, investors and advertisers of LeapFish.

I would be more than happy to discuss with you why LeapFish has a bright future, the real business model, its time horizon for delivering ROI and the expectations communicated to our thousands of advertisers/investors.

Thanks again.

Best,
Ben Behrouzi
CEO
DotNext Inc.

I personally have no interest in Wikipedia, but if you are a fan, you should make an attempt to correct the reference #8 on the following page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeapFish

If you are interested to find out more about LeapFish I highly recommend LeapFish Review by Better Business Bureau.Similar Posts:

Google Local Ads: Post to Your Place Page

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:14:45 +0000

If you are using Google Local Business Center, you may have already noticed a new feature which allows you to post messages (limited to 160 characters) to you place page:

Each message will expire in 30 days from the time it is published. If you decide to include a specific link inside the message, it will be converted into an HTML (click-able) link on your listing page see example bellow of first message from The Chocolate Belles:

You can see Chocolate Belles live listing here.

This new feature offers you an additional options to promote specific events, services or products via Google Local Business Center.

According to Post to Your Place Page FAQ – you can only have one message at a time posted to your place page.

Disclosure: I currently advise The Chocolate Belles on Internet marketing.Similar Posts:

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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Troll’s Tale: Who Is “Steven Vaughan”?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:25:31 +0000

This tale begins on one of my favorite blogs- Read Write Web. At the end of last year many blogs were posting “top 10 lists”. As with many other multi-author blogs, I have my favorite authors at Read Write Web- Jolie O’Dell is one of them. Jolie wrote an article in which she described who, in her opinion, deserved to be on the list of 10 worst failures of 2009.

I personally find such lists entertaining, and Jolie’s list especially delighted me. But, as you may may have already guessed, not every one finds such lists funny nor entertaining. Some one claiming to be “Steven Vaughan” was really upset with the article and went on with a personal attack against the author Jolie O’Dell:

Of course Jolie’s response answers why the initial comment by “Steven” was removed:

So what does this “Steven Vaughan” and I have in common? Evidently this “Steven Vaughan” is following my tweets. So he decided to pay a visit to my business blog:

Of course Steven has no idea that I always disclose to my clients that English is not my native language. Plus my terrible spelling and grammar has very little barring on my work – I perform live interpreting, and in most instances (such as courts, testimonies, deposition and even doctors) my work is digitally recorded and is available for anyone who wants to question the quality and/or accuracy of my work. But I doubt Steven understands the nature of my business and visited my website only to spew his venom just as he did attacking Jolie O’Dell.

Steven’s comment on my blog of course were marked as spam. Steven Vaughan has never used my interpreting services therefore his opinion on whether or not I am good at my job is nothing but hateful attempt to damage my reputation.

But this is not the end of it. I knew I will be equivalent to “feeding the troll” but I did e-mail Steven telling him he is making a mistake and also expressed my concern about the company who’s reputation he may be damaging. That of course resulted in an exchange of about 26 e-mails- which I plan to publish next.

I am aware that this Steven has left similar hateful comments on number of of other blogs. It appears he leaves his comments using following e-mails: stevenvaughan1212@gmail.com and trumpzors@yahoo.com and operates from IPs originating in the San Francisco Bay Area. I also believe this Steven has operated a Twitter account “@idiotzapper”, which was deleted not so long ago probably because the account was used to attack reputation of another blogger and friend of mine. I also know that this individual often visits Contra Costa Public Library, in Pleasant Hill, CA- but not to read books, to use library’s computer to do his dirty work. If you have any information about this individual, I would appreciate your help. To get in touch with me, follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

I also have last minute advise for “Steven”- stop hiding behind the veil of anonymity and don’t ever write anything that you are not comfortable to put your real name on.

Of course if you are interested how this tale ends, make sure to subscribe to my this blog.Similar Posts:

If Chris Was A Realtor…

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:45:04 +0000

One of the blogs I enjoy reading, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in on line marketing and social media, is that written by Chris Brogan. Not sure if Chris is hunting for a house these days or maybe just helping some one in real estate to marketed their website, the title of his latest his latest post certainly jumped at me- If I Were A Realtor.

If any real estate agent would set up to do only first three things from Chris’ list they, without a doubt, can dominate in their market:

I’d write a blog about the location where I was selling.
I’d take tons of pictures and post them on the blog.
I’d shoot walking tour videos all the time with a Flip camera and post them.

You can read Chris’ entire list at his blog, make sure to subscribe to his latest posts while you there.

I think it is always refreshing to hear a different perspective from someone who is not necessarily in our “niche” or industry. Yeah, I hear you. Any one could write a list like that, right?.. Wrong! While Chris is a marketing genius he also represents the mindset of today’s home buyer or seller. Home buyers and sellers no longer have little choice where to go. Plus, you are no longer the guy or the gall with “the book” in town.

On this note I would like to wish all the readers of this blog Happy Holidays and may the next year be the best year you have ever had!Similar Posts:

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:

Thank You A-List Spaces

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:45:26 +0000

When I set out to test BuySellAds.com and it’s marketplace, I was rather skeptical to say the least. However last night the first ad on this website was sold using BuySellAds.com and I would like to take this opportunity to thank A-List Sopaces- a website designed to promote residential real estate in New York City.

Thank You A-List Spaces!Similar Posts:

Google Is Testing New Ad Formats

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:40:42 +0000

Yesterday, Google announced that they are testing new ad formats that among other things will include video. This is how they explained:

Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information. For example, if you want to learn a magic trick, a video showing you how to perform the trick is likely the best result. So over the past few years, we’ve blended videos, images, maps and more into the search results on Google.com.

While I have seen many Google video ads on different websites and blog I have yet to see one of these ads in the search results. But according to Official Google Blog US residents have seen these ads:

AdWords advertisers had an option to create video ad for quiet some times. It would be however difficult for real estate agents to benefit from these video ads in the search results because the longest ad that you can create for your AdWords campaign cannot exceed 120 seconds. Hardly enough time to make a quick video tour of your listing! I am sure however that many creative and innovative real estate agents can use these video ads to promote their real estate business.Similar Posts:

Testing BuySellAds.com Advertising Marketplace.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:31:22 +0000

Having tried a dozen of different ad managing systems, ranging from WordPress Plugins to Google Ad Manager I am giving BuySellAds.com a spin.

BuySellAds.com is an advertising marketplace for small to medium sized website owners and publishers. Once approved, which takes about 24 hours, you can create adzones for your website or blog and add them to your website by simply copying and pasting code. If you blog or website is powered by WordPress, you may also consider using BuySellAds WordPress Plugin by Thaya Kareeson of Omninoggin.com. I personally have not tried the plugin myself yet, however I am considering using it in the future. The plugin includes ati-adblock measures to prevent AdBlock as well as other similar software from blocking advertisements from Buy Sell Ads.

The user interface on BuySellAds.com is rather straight forward and it took me no more than 20 minutes to create and implements ad zones for this blog. Visit Go Beyond MLS ad listing page on BuySellAds.com to see more details about ads available on this blog. The listing page provides some useful information for potential advertisers, such as Alexa Traffic Rank, Compete Rank, Twitter Subscribers etc.

One of the reasons I have decided to try BuySellAds.com is that they have decent marketplace which is very easy to use by potential advertisers to find and purchase ads on desired websites and blogs.

Should you decide to give BuySellAds.com your payout will be 75%. For example if the cost of your ad is $10 ($10 is the minimum you can price your ads by the way) your pay out will be $7.50. You can choose the payment option to be PayPal, Check or Wire Transfer.

If you have used the BuySellAds.com for your website as well I would love to know your experience with them, so don’t be shy – leave a comment! Similar Posts:

“Kill Frames” Javascript Code. Do You Really Need It On Yur Site?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Soon after discussing the use of framesets by newly relaunched LeapFish I received a question from dozen of readers and visitors asking me how they can prevent their website from “being framed” by other websites.

To prevent your website from being from being viewable in a frame of another website you can add the piece of the following code just above tag on your website:

Before you do it you need to really be sure it is what you want it. There are many good websites out there that use frames to view your website- StumbleUpon is one of those good sites.

The above code also relies on whether or not your visitors browser is configured to support Javascript, you would be surprise how many users out there do not enable Javascript support on their browsers.

The above Javascript code “forses” user’s browser to open your page in it’s own window. Before my previous post I have never considered using it on my website and still do not think there are any huge benefits from implementing it on yours.

I would like to hear what you have to say. What are the reasons for using the above code? If you don’t recommend to use it – why not?

Of course I would also love to hear about any other way to “kill frames” – please share them in the comments if you know any.

If you are interested to find out more about LeapFish I highly recommend LeapFish Review by Better Business Bureau.Similar Posts: