Today, I thought I’d make a few changes to my blog, to improve the way it looks, both to visitors and search engine spiders.
I’ve signed up to Matthew Wolfe’s WordPress Classroom and by following his step by step video guide, I’ve raced through a load of changes that have been bugging me for weeks.
So what have I done?
I’ve changed my Theme from Press play to Cordobo Green Park.
First Impressions count and I think this theme has a cleaner more structured look, (but let me know if you don’t like it).
Added an RSS Icon and Feedburner Account
Many fellow students have been oil rig hopping to get traffic, but with so many students, it’s very time consuming to constantly check each blog site for new content.
RSS is the term used to stream blog content out to anyone that wants to subscribe to your blog.
This tutorial showed me how to set up a Feedburner account (which you need to manage and read RSS feeds), download a nice RSS button and then associate the button with my Feedburner account address.
So it’s now possible for anyone to sign up for and read my blog postings.
Created a Google sitemap
Getting traffic to your site depends on getting your content found by search engines.
Up until now, I hadn’t created a site map for my blog as I didn’t know what they were for or how important they are for organic search traffic.
Within a few seconds, this video tutorial had shown me how to add the ‘Google XML sitemap’ widget and explained that from this point on, my sitemap will be submitted to Google, Yahoo and bing every time my blog is updated with a new post.
Added the Top Commentators widget
Bloggers add comments to create back links and gain Google page ranking. The Top Commentators widget gives more back link juice to people that take the time to post comments.
Having this widget displayed on your blog is a signpost to bloggers that it is worthwhile posting a comment.
I really feel I made progress today.
If you want to make changes to your blog and learn secrets on how to get more traffic to your site, I fully recommend joining WordPress Classroom Pro.
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Like this theme. Clean and sharp.
Hi John,
I have the same theme you used to have and like you I want to change it. Looks like Matts videos are very good – I’ll probably do waht you did and follow them.
I like this theme, but ythe only thing I’d chage if it was me, would be the header. I think the heading is good, but the sub heading is too small.
Just my twopenneth – all the best,
Andrew.
Andrew Vaughan´s last blog ..The Gazzman Challenge – 25 Things about Me.
Hi Andrew,
I agree the banner is a bit small. I need to read some of the notes on the Theme, but think it is possible to upload a logo or something.
I’m sure there is a way to increase the size of the Tag Line Text.
I’d definately recommend Matt’s video classroom though, it’s saved me a great deal of time and hastle.
Speak soon,
John
Excellent site, keep up the good work
Excellent site, keep up the good work