Tips, Tools and Tutorials for Making Money with Adult Themed Blogs | Adult Blog Builder

One of the neatest features to Wordpress is the widget. With a simple click, a drag and drop, you have customized sidebars in no time flat. But what if the widget just doesn’t display correctly for your theme? Where are the darn things and can they be adjusted?

Answer: Yes, if you’re comfortable editing code, you can edit them, and they’re located on the widgets.php file located in the includes folder of Wordpress. You can’t edit this from the design or plugin areas, so you’ll have to download it and do your edits on your drive, and then replace the page online when you’re finished. Reminder: COPY the page before you edit and tuck it in another folder just to be sure you have the original in case something goes wrong!

For example, I just had a client who asked for some setup help, and upon activating the Tag Cloud Widget, I saw that the font size and the number of tag words was just too much for the sidebar space alloted via the template theme he was using. Words were crammed in over others, and the font size had words busting out over the blog edges. Here’s where I did a little editing magic to bring things back into proper scale for his blog:

File to manipulate in a program like Dreamweaver or Notepad: wp-includes/widgets.php

Find this entry around line 1372:
wp_tag_cloud();

Make your changes to:
wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=10&largest=14&number=25&orderby=name’);

“smallest” = the size of the smallest font you want
“largest” = the size of the largest font you want
“number” = the amount of tags you want to appear
“orderby” = is how the orders of the tags will be shown

With some careful customizations of your widgets, you can have full control back on how things look on your blog!

After I setup a new wordpress blog, one of the first things I make sure to do is to setup what they call “pretty permalinks”. Why use them? Because they help with how your links display which can affect your blog’s overall search engine optimization techniques.

When you first install WordPress, the permalinks default to something that looks like this:

http://adultblogbuilder.com/?p=123

But we want to have the links look like this:

http://adultblogbuilder.com/wordpress/create-pretty-permalinks

So how do you do this?

1. Go to your site via FTP and temporarily chmod your .htaccess to 777. Now login to your Admin panel and activate pretty-permalinks by clicking on Settings and then Permalinks. Now select “custom structure” and type: /%category%/%postname%/

Click “Save Changes”

You’ll get a message back saying your permalink structure has been updated. If you don’t get that message, you: 1. don’t have an .htaccess page and/or 2. you didn’t chmod it to 777

After a successful update of the permalink structure, return to the domain via ftp and chmod the .htaccess back to 644. Congratulations! You’re all done with creating pretty permalinks!

If you want to know more, or have to do some troubleshooting, you can read more about the Permalinks here: Using Wordpress Permalinks

As bloggers, we all want to know where we rank in the blogosphere and in search engines. Is your blog growing? Are people reading your content? Are you getting natural backlinks? About once a week you should do a little research to find out, because there’s nothing worse than working hard on a blog or web site without knowing you’re consistently making progress. To help you get into a routine on what and how to go about tracking your blog’s progress, I’m recommending that you head over to JT Pratt’s site and read the indepth articles he provides. While he discusses some mainstream techniques that we can’t use in Adult, the basis of what he shares is still relevant for the Adult webmaster.

5 Key Google Analytics to Watch for Blog Progress

Here’s installment #1 in the Tracking Your Blog’s Progress series. He will show you five specific things that you should be watching for in your google analytics web site statistics over the long haul. Tracking these items will help you follow blog growth in the best (and worst) areas.

AddThis has Bookmark Analytics

In Installment #2 of Tracking Your Blog’s Progress he’ll talk about how to figure out how many people are bookmarking your site using the AddThis service.

Tracking Sitemap Changes for SERP Pages

For installment #3 he is going to talk about your blog XML Sitemap, including why you should have one, what they do, how to read yours, and making sure that your sitemap contains everything necessary to get your pages indexed right in search. If you’re not doing the right things your entire blog could be sent to google’s “supplemental index hell” without you even knowing about it. This installment is an essential regular part of “tracking your blog’s progress”!

Increase Traffic with MSN, Yahoo!, and Google!

In installment #4 you’ll learn what to do with your XML sitemap now that you have it ready to go, and we’re going to make sure that you are getting indexed in google, Yahoo!, and MSN Live Search every time you post or update your blog. Each of the the 3 major search engines has a “webmaster console” for you to register your url and xml sitemap with - make sure that your blog is setup for maximum indexing and traffic!

It seems that no matter what it is you want to have happen with your Wordpress program, you can find a plugin or code generator that will make the job easier and faster than you figuring out the coding on your own.  What started the hunt for a way a non-code savvy blogger could add RSS was a request from a client of mine wanting to know if he could create Wordpress PAGES that would display a specific feed per page. The idea being that he wants all of his hand written posts as the regular front page of postings, and then have individual pages that bring in specific sponsor hosted feeds using his affiliate code… that updates automatically. IE: A page for Hunkmoney RSS Feeds, another page for Fantasy Girl Revenue Feeds, and so on.

Now if my client were more code savvy, I’m sure he’d sit down and figure this all out on his own, but he isn’t. And using the RSS Widget feature in the latest versions of Wordpress is an “almost” solution. But he doesn’t just want a few rss feed titles on the sidebar. So after spending an hour or so with google and refining my search terms a few times, I found this site: Feed Commander. Feed Commander has a delightfully FREE RSS code generator! You input the RSS URL you want to use, define the display properties, preview your creation, and if you’re happy with it, generate the particular code you need for your website: javascript, asp, php, etc.

Now all my client has to do is create a new PAGE in the admin area, go to code view, and paste in the code and save/publish it, and he should be good to go.

I do have to caution you on over using this fun RSS tool from Feed Commander, as bringing in a lot of RSS content from other sites can be a not so good thing from an SEO standpoint. Use it in moderation, as a variation of ways to offer up quality content to your readers. Try to monitor the actual hits those pages receive vs your upsells for a month or more. Then decide if the feature is actually a benefit or a burden to your blog offerings. You may find that just using the simple sidebar RSS widget to display a few post titles gets a better click through ratio. But by all means, experiment and have fun!

When writing a new post in Wordpress, under the post box of the page you’ll see: Comments and Pings. “Allow Comments” is pretty clear, it means you’re allowing visitors and other bloggers to add comments to your post, but what is this “allow pings” stuff?

According to Pingoat:
“A blog ping is just a piece of text, in simple words that contains your blog name and the url. It is usually prepared in the XML format. The servers that accept pings have special programs for accepting and processing these ping notifications.”

Updating blogs regularly is a bit like an online news site providing the latest news as quickly as possible to its readers. By the same token a regularly updated blog is more valued by its readership than one that only updates occassionally. But how can you let the world know you’ve updated your blog? Certain web sites perform the task of providing the information relating to the recently updated blogs to users. This is done by a process called pinging. Pinging (in relation to a blog) is the act of informing a web site, like Technorati, (a search engine like Google but it is only for blogs), about new posts on your blog.

Whenever you post to your blog, a message is sent by Wordpress (or whatever blog software you’re using) to the web sites you’ve setup in your Update Services. In case you do not know where that is in Wordpress, just go to Settings and then to Writing and copy/paste or type in a ping list in the box of list of update services you’ll see near the bottom of the page. Be sure your url for each ping site starts on its own line, or it won’t copy in correctly. And save your changes.

Below is a list of English sites gathered up by Wordpress that you can add to your Update Services List. As you get more into the world of blogging, I’m sure you’ll come up with other sites to add to that list, just try to be sure you remove any duplicate listings so as not to be blacklisted for spamming.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

I came across this very informative video on Metacafe today about using Tags in Wordpress.

Wordpress SEO Tags Basics - Watch today’s top amazing videos here

There are mandatory rules mentioned all across the web that you cannot just ignore if you intend to make mobile pages that will make its way to 1.6 Billion mobile phone screens around the world today. These rules once followed, are suppose to benefit page owners and page users alike or give everybody a good mobile existence and experience.

If you read about and aware yourself of these rules, you will most likely realize that it is actually simpler to just forget everything about mobile pages and start ignoring the buzz about WAP or dotMobi than to start complying with them. But if you believe with other big and small businesses, pay-per-clicks and big brands that the future traffic lies on mobile internet, you have no choice but to learn the rules that are enumerated below and quoted from a blogpage on dotMobi.

1. XHTML tags for your mobile profile

You ought to have a tag for your mobile landing page to signify the XHTML nature of your site. XHTML is the preferred language for mobile web browsers (just in case you did not know) and this language gives mobile browsers the signal as to what kind of behavior your site wants the consumer to experience. Mobile sites not implementing this rule will be turned off with due notice.

2. Strictly No Frames

Frames in some cases, screw up or break mobile browsers and produces a bad mobile experience for the users. They also make navigation around a mobile site more difficult for users. Mobile sites not implementing this rule will be turned off with due notice.

3.  myname.mobi should be the landing page

This rule exists for the practical reason that consumers on the go do not have much chance to remember lengthy addresses or even type lots of characters on a zero to nine keypad. A dotMobi page is supposed to guarantee that users need not worry about what comes before the name (www.something Or wap.something) and feed the requested mobile pages quickly and dependably. Mobile sites not implementing this rule will be turned off with due notice.

Now that you already know the rules, you already might be looking for ways to build mobile pages that are automatically compliant with these rules.

Making a mobile site has to be brain-dead simple nowadays for there already exist platforms that actually allow you to build your own mobile pages even when you don’t really know anything about XHTML. These are platforms that let you work on mobile page development processes in a WYSWYG (what you see is what you get) basis. After all, nothing can be really simpler than pointing and clicking, dragging and dropping and cutting and pasting when customizing pages that you think will appeal to your kind of audience.

Below is a link to a website and a summary of the features it offers that will help you build a world class mobile site in minutes.

Mobilemo.com is a website that facilitates the growing need for anybody to have an Internet and Mobile Web presence by offering free and easy-to-use mobile site building and customization tools. Mobilemo users will be able to develop their very own mobile pages even without programming skills since web pages that are created using Mobilemo tools are automatically converted to mobile pages (dot.mobi pages). These mobile pages can then be accessed or viewed with the use of mobile phones or any other internet-ready wireless device.

1.  Register for free and join either a Business or a Personal Community of mobile site creators and managers

2.  Get tools that will allow you to enhance your mobile site contents by creating Guestbook, Polls/Voting pages, Comment Boxes, Forms, Forum, Information Services, Privacy Options, etc.

3.  Get your own Embeddable and Linkable Emulator that will simulate the actual look of your mobile site so that you can view it and interact with its pages even on regular Internet browsers in your PC *

4.  Share videos, music, photos, work files, etc with your friends and also download them through mobile phones anytime.

5.  Post data anytime (e.g. menu for the day, travel schedules, programs, etc) and make them viewable anytime in any WAP or Internet-ready mobile devices.

6.  Do auctions/biddings

I was just reading an article over on Mainstream Webmasters about Online Reputation Management. Those three words hit me square in the face, and what those words represent is something we should ALL be concerned about, our online reputations. While that article deals with using a third party company to help defray negative search engine results, it got me to thinking about how we as adult webmasters have to manage our own reputations in order to conduct business with one another.

While there’s probably a very large percentage of webmasters that don’t actively participate on the adult forums, choosing to simply read and use, or ignore, the advice that’s offered up on “how to” do some aspect of the adult business, there’s enough of us that participate on them on a daily basis to recognize the advantages, and disadvantages, of being an active participant.

Establishing a good reputation online can, and does, translate into a single entity: trust. If I feel I can trust you, then I’m more apt to “buy into” whatever it is you’re selling. If you participate in discussions, and bring an honest, non threatening view to something, provide supportive documentation (and I don’t mean posting email or ICQ conversations that says “you’re right” - that’s just wrong in soooo many ways), over time you’ll gain the respect and trust of others within the adult community.

If you’re an affiliate webmaster, having a good reputation translates into getting REAL help when you need it. And anyone that hangs on the boards knows what I mean by “real help”. For myself, I wouldn’t know, do, or understand 90% of what I do in this business if it weren’t for those webmasters that took the time to talk with me, or teach me some aspect of how this whole show comes together.

If you’re a program owner, then show you’re running an honest program, give good solid support, get past the urge to scam or trash the very people who will help you become a profitable entity, and thereby establish a good online reputation. 

While there may be times when your reputation comes under the gun for whatever reasons, including somebody just being a pissant for pissant’s sake, just keep in mind some really good advice I got from another webmaster: “Sometimes, to win a fight, you just need to NOT show up.”

Bottom line folks it’s like this, you’re in the best position for online reputation damage control because a Good Reputation => Trust => Profits.

Here’s a terrific little computer security tip to prevent remote connections to your computer that all of us can benefit from, written by Diana Higgins, a writer for LockerGnome.  

Prevent Remote Connections to Your Computer.

If you don’t use it, or only use it on occassion, disable Remote Desktop on your computer by right clicking your desktop screen, and select Properties. Now select the Remote tab and uncheck the box where it says allow users to connect remotely option. Once you click OK users will not be able to connect to your computer.

If you have a webcam and a microphone, LockerGnome’s Chris Pirillo shows you how to easily stream a live show to the internet … for FREE, using Ustream.tv for live, interactive broadcasting. While I didn’t read up on the terms of useage, I’d bet you can’t stream nudity, but there are certainly a ton of creative ways to use a live show feature to promote traffic to wherever, just juice up the imagination tank and go for it!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atBGCZ700Oo[/youtube]