Learn more about what can hurt your blog and how to do good link building.

Google Panda provides a huge incentive to produce good content

Google Panda Infographic

Via: Single Grain – A Digital Marketing Agency

You are about to read my honest review of Thesis Theme framework. This is something I always wanted to do, and I really blame myself having not reviewed Thesis before now since I have been using it heavily on my blog. I also depend on it to run several other projects, especially here at FamousBloggers.net and my other design project that relies on Thesis Themes  100%

So, prepare yourself, this won’t be a short review. I have tons of things to talk about as I will take it from my personal prospective and two years of experience with Thesis, mostly as a developer. I don’t have any intention to offend or annoy anyone, and I apologize if I do by accident!

I will tell you why I give it this sort of low rating, which could be shocking for all Thesis fans!

I am reviewing Thesis Theme as I see it today, time plays a big role here and reviews have to reflect the recent condition. I could give it a higher rating if I reviewed it two years ago, but today I am not so sure about that! However, my point of view may change any time, and you should see an update in the future.

Anyway, I worked hard enough with this theme to form an honest opinion, especially that there are a lot of crappy reviews on the web that have been published just to sell you Thesis and make commissions without even taking it for a test drive.

Before you continue reading, I will show you how much money I’ve earned in only one year of working and developing my Skins for Thesis Themes.  As  proof that I really don’t hate Thesis, I launched the ThesisAwesome.com site. I just feel  uncomfortable with the way people think of it, so I want to make it clear to help you with your decision!

Report generated by aMember membership software

As you can see in the image above, I’ve managed to make sales of $30,000 last year from developing and selling Thesis Skins at ThesisAwesome.com. That is almost 50% of my online business income, and it’s clear that I wouldn’t be profiting if Thesis Theme didn’t exist!

However, this doesn’t mean I should rate it 5 out 5 just because I am making good money out of it. There are a few things that I don’t like about Thesis, and I will mention them in my review below!

So, read on…

Thesis Theme is my own Teacher!

I’ve learned tons of useful tricks being a Thesis Theme user, it helped me to enter the WordPress development world in a sweet way. Probably no other WordPress theme or framework would teach me all that and help me establish a design business, but there is always an issue. I didn’t buy this theme to learn how to design cool things, I also never thought that I would be so involved in it working day and night to get the look and feel I wanted for my blog.

I didn’t want a white page! I wanted something that really works out of the box!

To be honest, Thesis Theme actually works out of the box, exactly the way it was explained, and that’s why I ran and quickly bought it, I was convinced!

But…

1. No one told me that I need to hire a designer!
2. No one told me that I need to get a developer
3. No one told me that I will have to spend nights and days working my butt off to get a unique design!

I didn’t buy Thesis Theme to learn cool stuff and be a professional web designer, or an avid developer!

So, if you need to learn, and you have time, then Buy Thesis Theme, it will simply teach you!

There is a always a catch, and a lot more to do. Thesis Theme’s trick was actually in its marketing message! And, that’s another reason for me to rate it lower!

Why Thesis Theme is not getting any updates!

This is one of the most annoying things for anyone who becomes part of a membership site. They promise you will get updates, but no time line. That’s fine and accepted, but one year with no critical upgrades, that’s not good at all! I mean the world is changing!

People keep asking Chris Pearson every day when he will release Thesis 2.0, and Chris keeps telling them “Thesis 2.0 is coming soon”, 2011 ended, but 2.0 has not been released.

I thought maybe he doesn’t want to release 2.0 for the public, and prefers to keep it for his Best Damn Blog on the Planet.

At the beginning I thought those people are just silly, why do they need an update? What’s the point of getting a new update for Thesis? Are they having a problem or they are just asking because they paid for future upgrades?!

I really didn’t understand their point the whole time! I also didn’t understand Chris‘s strategy!

I learned a lot of things while giving support to my ThesisAwesome.com members. I realized some interesting stuff that are maybe facts, or maybe I am just imagining these are facts!

People all the time ask me for updates…..do you know why? Simply because they want “new features”!

They think if they pay $100 for a design, they will keep getting new awesome features forever, and to the end of days! I must say this is impossible, I can’t give you new feature updates for ever. I prefer to focus more on enhancing what I have and make it work better. I add new features only when there is a big demand. Then I make time and work on it, but if I see it’s unnecessary, why should I bother?!

You know what?

I just think that… Chris sees Thesis Theme as a perfect creation, why should someone come up with a new update for something is already perfect?! You won’t get another update any time soon!

But then, I think again, and again, and I remember the Headway 3.0 launch that was considered a big fail for Headway Themes by many of their members. Everybody says it was released earlier than it should be. I really don’t want to see this happen to Thesis, and I hope that Chris knows what he is doing, or it will be a big problem for everyone who depends on Thesis!

Anyway, what do you expect from the Thesis Theme next update?

SEO features, should I use a plugin?

That’s how Thesis could be sold to over 40,000 people. Thesis Theme has solid SEO features, so you don’t need to use any SEO plugin if you are running Thesis Theme on your blog. However, you may want to empower your blog SEO with some plugin So let me tell you this… You simply don’t have the choice!

I’ve tried WordPress SEO by Yoast, and it’s a really awesome plugin, and I see good potential in using it, especially if this gives you more control over SEO. However, it didn’t work well for me as I am using Thesis. SEO features conflict and duplicate in some areas, and I was about to mess things up by editing some part of the framework or disable its SEO functionality so I can use the plugin instead, but I changed my mind, I really don’t need more headaches.

I still see some people using the SEO plugin with Thesis, this is just not right!

Joost says that SEO has to be controlled by a plugin, not a theme. or at least give users the option to enable/disable SEO options. Themes has to focus more on design and layout, I personally agree 100% with him.

Who won’t agree on that anyway?

Yes…

P.S. that’s an old tweet, but nothing has been changed since that time. Chris won’t lose the marketing key and refused to respond while other frameworks like Genesis and Headway have responded nicely to Joost and to their members who simply asked to have the choice to decide which SEO feature to use.

That being said, it has just added another reason for me to rate Thesis Theme lower!

Another Story About Respect!

Ok, while it’s hot and I got your full attention, let me tell you what happened with me when I first launched ThesisAwesome.com

Actually this happened before I launched the site. I tried to get in touch with Chris, the person who I thought I will be working with and needed his advice, as my idea was actually to develop for Thesis, and only Thesis! So, I asked him to DM his email so I can email him privately because I had a very important question for him. I really really needed some business advice atthat time, and simply he was the only person I thought could help me out!

I got a reply from him on Twitter, he told me to send my email via the DiyThemes support email.

And, guess what?

One year passed and I never got an answer to my question! I never heard from him!

No matter what I say, it won’t express my feelings at that time. I was really upset, I mean how can someone contact you and ask for  business advice, and you don’t reply to him? I am a Thesis Theme user, and I am part of your affiliate program, my idea should drive more sales. Any professional would reply to such an email!

There was no respect! And I won’t forget that!

Add everything to function.php file, what’s the problem?

You see, I put a lot of effort into this blog, I spent hours and hours coding for FamousBloggers.net. After two years of coding I ended up with a freaking scary and stupid file. I realized that not everything should be included in the theme’s function.php file, it’s not really the best practice. I have a lot of functions in that file and it became confusing. I didn’t know where to start, and where to go anymore, totally lost!

The best way to do this is to create your own functionality plugin.

I got this idea from Ryan Imel of WPCandy.com, and it makes a lot of sense. However, I haven’t had a chance to create my own functionality plugin yet, but at least I started with extracting my function.php file into a few small size file, and restructuring the Thesis Theme /custom/ folder to contain more files and folders that are simple to read, follow and understand.

Child Theme or Skin?

Call it whatever, but Thesis Skins are not Child Themes!

A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality of another theme, called the parent theme, and allows you to modify, or add to, the functionality of that parent theme.

I will stick with that because I trust what WordPress.org says!

Thesis Skins is far more than that, so I will stop calling it Child Themes.

Thesis Header Image

In my opinion, this is the worst Thesis option ever since 1.8, why? It says in the option page:

Based on your current layout settings, the optimal header image width is 949 pixels. If your image is wider than this, don’t worry—Thesis will automatically resize it for you!

It’s just silly to resize the header image and fix its width to 949px, and even worse, cropping a header image? Wow! This is amazing! But, what’s the point here?

P.S. don’t worry, I am the last person to worry about this feature because I will never have to use it!

The problem is this particular option gave me a lot of headaches. It forced me to code a new option to solve it for my best selling skin, the BlogSkin, simply because the page width I’ve chosen for the skin is 980px, which this amazing header option thing doesn’t support!

Theme Support

I really don’t have anything against the theme support, all people who are working at DiyThemes.com are cool and they respond quickly, and I appreciate all they do to solve problems and help members. I always appreciate support because it’s really a hard job, I am sure you will know what I mean if you have ever been supporting members in forums.

Let’s say they are doing their “job” perfectly!

DiyThemes Blog

If you are a Thesis member, then I am sure you’ve read some posts on their blog.

Maybe I am the only one, but I am sick of the same boring and repeated stuff that is published on the blog,  too much triggers!

I don’t recognize DiyThemes blog anymore, I don’t know whether it’s a design blog or just another blog of Derek Halpern.

Don’t get me wrong, I like strong opinions, and I like Derek‘s work and appreciate the good advice, but the blog needs to have more fresh design related articles and tutorials written by professionals, not only marketing and converting tips. Here is a couple of suggestions:

1.  Having another player will spice up the blog and make it more exciting!
2. Inviting more guests to write for the blog, add new blood!

I am sorry to say that, but this is by far the worst blog ever, I lost interest!

Seriously, Who Makes Thesis Theme Awesome

I think web designers and developers who work in Thesis Theme development are the ones who actually make it awesome, Thesis has never been awesome without their contributions.

You can see a post from the past where I got a few quotes from top niche web designers who develop for Thesis.

Final Thoughts about Thesis Theme

While Thesis Theme is very reliable, at least for me and my business, I make money by solving problems “Thesis problems”, and by developing skins that add additional functionality to Thesis, which makes it awesome, if Thesis was perfect, I wouldn’t be making $30,000 in only one year! Period!

My Thesis Skins are selling because I solve people’s problems.

Marketing Thesis Theme as the best SEO framework is an old idea, it’s not valid anymore, and it shouldn’t be your focus when buying a theme for WordPress.

I really want to see a huge change in 2.0, however I am not sure if there will be a 2.0!  I don’t want to jump off the train unless I really have to!

I don’t hate Thesis!

I’ve said what’s on my mind, and what I kept in my heart for a long time! And, as you can see, this review is quite different than any other review that has been published about Thesis Theme. I haven’t paid too much attention to the functionality or features, simply because Thesis Theme doesn’t offer something different than other frameworks in the market, so I won’t be talking about the same thing over and over. And, as I mentioned before, I will be updating this review if I see it’s necessary.

I hope this helps you to make a better decision for your business.

Now it’s back to you, I will be glad to discuss this with you even more in the comments section, really!

A very interesting thing is Google will penalize the entire site if there is too much space used to display ads, especially above the fold.

Matt Cutts actually took two yellow stickies and put them on the top of a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and indicated that even if this space was just one big ad it is too much and could be impacted by Google’s new algorithm change.

Now that you know it’s not about the quantity of advertisements

Take it easy here!

This doesn’t mean you can display a lot of ads on your site, no one will recommend this for you. But, here is something strange… Google contacted me this week and asked me to add more spots on this blog because they indicate I am only showing two ad spots. I am sure many of you are getting the same advice from Google!

So, the question here is, should you go and add more ads on your blog?

Increase your revenue by deciding the best way to display your ads

Focus on content visibility, structure, layout, and navigation of your site or blog, be careful when choosing placement of ads.

Here is a video by Google that may help you increase your revenue by deciding the best way to display your ads on the page.

How you will respond to Google’s Above the Fold update?

Our host Murray Newlands and David discuss the large demand for video content creation, as well as:

• How Works for Business
• Sharing Content
• Relationship Building
• Guest Blogging

For more information about Future Of Engagement, go to adrants.com.

To learn more about host Murray Newlands and his marketing agency, go to murraynewlands.com and influencepeople.com.

To learn more about Spark Media Solutions, go to sparkmediasolutions.com

Another cool WordPress plugin called  IM Graphics Plugin by Andy Bailey the creator of CommentLuv, this plugin solve a huge problem that most of us are facing while building landing pages or sales pages, which is finding and adding graphics to pages.

We all know that internet marketers are not designers, however there could be few skilled people, but most of marketers do not have the time to learn design to be able to create their own web graphics, however this is possiable, but dosn’t make sense! I mean there are tons of great design elements made by professional designers, so why wasting your time learning something you will use only a few times, it would make more sense if you go for a ready made solution that saves you time.

What to expect from IM Graphics Plugin

let me ask you…

1. What about a plugin that has many pre-made graphics that is ready for your to use on your landing pages or sales pages?
2. Also, what about an extremely easy way to insert these graphics into your pages?
3. And, what about having the ability to even use your own graphics in simple way?

All this can be found and done by the  IM Graphics Plugin.

By the way,

Being a web designer didn’t stop me from buying and paying for web design elements made by others, sometimes because I don’t have the time and I want to get things done quickly, some other times because I like a graphic or a web element and I decide to just have for one of my projects.

A great place to buy cheap and professional looking web elements is GraphicRiver.net

Is IM Graphics Plugin for me?

IM Graphics Plugin is useful for any internet marketer.

Even bloggers need web graphics for their blogs posts, so if you do any sort of marketing online, check out IM Graphics Plugin, it could save you from facing one of the biggest things that always comes up when ever you build a new site!

This plugin worth easily worth hundreds of dollars in saved designer fees. it’s a $97 product, but you can get it now for only $27 , and it worth every single dollar!

Grab this awesome package right now for the low price.

PressTrends provides trends and analytics for how people use and interact with WordPress. I always wanted to try it, but there was chance as PressTrends was actually in a closed beta. The good news PressTrends is out of closed beta now and it’s ready for the public, and it’s Free to use. So I decided to check it out, especially that they have released a new WordPress plugin, which made things pretty much easy.

You can download the PressTrends plugin from WordPress plugins directory and check out how your blog is compared to other blogs in the community, it’s interesting to know what PressTrends got to say about your blog!

P.S. When I say community here, I mean all blogs that are using PressTrends API, not all WordPress blogs.

PressTrends on FamousBloggers

I’ve tested the plugin on my test blog that has only 6 blog posts, of course the PressTrends was shows a disaster :) So, I’ve installed the plugin on FamousBloggers.net, and here what I’ve got:

PressTrends - Get powerful trends and insights

This service is still new, I think that’s why my blog is doing a fantastic job and it has a great performance against other blogs in the community. However, I am sure that PressTrends will grow, and these trends and insights will change over time, so it’s kind of interesting to see how FamousBloggers.net will perform in the coming a few months, and I will be glad to share new stats with our blog readers.

Things I would like to see in PressTrends development

The PressTrends plugin is pretty simple, so maybe a dashboard widget is something I would like to have.

And, just to let you know, PressTrends is actually serving two communities, bloggers and theme developers, it also help theme developers as it allows them to track usage across different metrics for better insights, and to learn how their themes are being managed, this can be done by integrating PressTrends API into the theme, this could be useful for Theme developers.

However, I think that if you are a Theme developers, and you want to integrate this service into your theme, you should explain it well to your user, and at least include an option for theme users to accept tracking as some people won’t be interested in getting their blogs stats tracked by anyone.

Things doesn’t end here, there a lot more to know about PressTrends.

Think about it as a way of motivation!

Good job!

I bet you are looking for an easy and working way to increase your Targeted Twitter Followers Fast. So, I am going to tell you what i think about it and why I recommend using a Twitter management tool like Tweetadder in this review post, so let’s discuss a little about what both sides of the coin says about automation and social media management!

Some social media savvies think that numbers doesn’t matter if it’s just numbers, what’s the benefit of having 1000s who are following you on Twitter if you don’t actually know them or engage with them. Some other people have a different opinion, they don’t see the Twitter followers number as whatever number, simply they can see what’s beyond that, they can see the business opportunity in the followers number.

I think that both opinions are right!

Let me explain! I think no one is wrong, also no one is 100% right when it’s about social media and online business!

Trust me on this, every successful blogger or internet marketer has a little secret, normally no one will share her/his secret with you if you ask them, so you must discover it by your own, and that’s why social media is a self experience! You learn it, you gain it, you profit from it! So, you must do it yourself, at least for sometime to know if the number of Twitter followers could mean anything to your business!

TweetAdder Review

TweetAdder - Find and Engage in Like-Minded Twitter Followers

TweetAdder is probably the best Twitter management software out there, it’s a fast and easy way to automate Twitter promotion and Marketing, here some things you can do with it:

• Laser Targeted, Global Twitter User Search Tools
• Multiple Twitter Account Management
• Full menu of Auto Follow and Auto Unfollow Benefits
• Full History of Followers and Following
• Powerful Automated Tweet Posting and Direct Messaging
• Twitter Current Trends and Historical Trends Research
• Click here for more…

Why you need Twitter Followers?

Personally, I hate automation, especially when it’s about social media, specifically about Twitter and increasing Twitter followers! I used to do it manually all the time! But then, I realized that a little of automation won’t hurt, it’s actually good idea!

But why you actually need to have more followers on Twitter? Simply because this number is an indicator!

You see, my blog gets a lot of traffic from Twitter, I actually make money from Twitter, I even do Sponsored Tweet via BuySellAds. The number of Twitter followers is important in my case! But I still deal with followers automation carefully, I don’t try to abuse the system and cross the red lines, anyways who hates to have a lot of followers on Twitter!

In my personal experience, you won’t be able to engage with 1000s of people that are following you on Twitter, I am here assuming all of people who follow you are actually engaging with you on daily bases (this is why businesses hire social media managers). But I think you case is different, here we talk about small level of interaction and engagement, with some little management you actually can engage and make use of that number. Twitter is very powerful if you focus!

Try TweetAdder

At any case, you don’t have to follow me unless you want, you actually don’t have to listen to what I say unless it makes sense to you! The good thing is TweetAdder has a demo version with full functionality!

Try TweetAdder

Try out Twitter Adder by setting up the demo version of their application, the Tweet Adder demo is fully functional and has all features of the full version. However it’s only limited by using a single twitter account and limited number of follows, unfollowes, tweets and messages. After all, it’s a good start!

Internet marketing is getting harder every day with all its crazy competitions, many of us need to learn and discover how it works works, I bet you want to dominate your niche just like me, and you actually make money out of it!

My friend Peter Garety has launched his training and coaching program today, I’ve got a chance to enter to his site earlier this weekend and I really enjoyed what I’ve seen. Peter has a fantastic way to deliver the required piece of information that you actually need to know! Peter is a great coach, he also writes here on the blog, you can check out his posts and profile here: Peter Garety.

And, the Niche Evaluation Storm video training is great value for its price.

That’s why I am participating in its promotion, I think it will be useful, and that’s why I am sharing this with you, and by the way links are my affiliate!

Niche Evaluation Storm Review

The Niche Evaluation Storm is a step by step video training and live coaching, this means you will be learning from Peter a lot about niche domination, he is going to show you LIVE on the webinars how to build a complete money making business from scratch, and one of the best parts is to actually get in touch with him and ask any question that you have in mind.

This is great and incredibly affordable coaching opportunity that you really don’t want to miss out!

Here is what you will get:

• Instant access to Niche Evaluation Storm that will show you step by step how to select a profitable and unsaturated buyer niche, get targeted traffic, and make consistent monthly income online
• Complete niche business building MindMap (2 formats) that will save loads of time and will keep you on track at any moment
• 8 short and easy-to-follow MindMap video tutorials that will show exactly which steps you need to take at which point to build a profitable online business fast
• 10 Checklists supported by 10 ‘Watch Over My Shoulder’ videos that eliminate all the guessing and give you complete ‘Know-How’ to build a worthwhile income from your business
• Niche Market Evaluation Table that shows you step by step how to evaluate the whole niche market so that you know exactly what kind of results you can expect and how long it will take
• A super easy keyword research method that will instantly uncover profitable keywords that will drive buyer traffic to your sites
• Dedicated Q & A forum that will ensure you get all your questions answered.

You know? I respect people who teach others!

And, I live with the hope that you will learn something new from these 18 videos, and enjoy the live case study watching Peter making it! I am sure you will add new experiences to what you already have! Anyways, you don’t have anything to lose as this one is totally guaranteed!

Get Niche Evaluation Storm

I believe that there is no risk at all, so if you are not totally satisfied with the Niche Evaluation Storm, you should know that it has a 60-day money back guarantee, so if you don’t like it, then simply ask for your money back!

I made my review of the Niche Evaluation Storm short and straight to the point, there is actually a lot more details to read about it on the warrior post.

There are two ways to do this, the hard way and the easy way!

The hard way where you have to code and style to implement hreview in your WordPress theme, and the easy way where you simply install a plugin that gives you that power. So let me make things easy for you.

I’ve announced the under development product reviews plugin for Thesis Themes at ThesisAwesome.com blog, it’s a simple plugin that allow you to easily insert Google Rich Snippets for reviews and ratings to your posts and show rating stars in search results.

I call it the Thesis Theme Review Plugin.

Reviews examples

Here are a few examples of reviews I’ve made on the blog recently, and also some other reviews that I’ve updated from the past, you may look at them or search for them in Google and see how things looks like in the search results:

• Revenue Engine
• CommentLuv Premium
• PopUp Domination
• Engagement From Scratch
• Headway 3.0
• CurationSoft
• Market Samurai
• Gravity Forms

Also, notice the sidebar widget which has a list of recent reviews that I made especially for the plugin.

The future of Thesis Theme Review Plugin

As you can see from its name, the Thesis Theme Review Plugin works only with Thesis Themes, and it will be released as part of my ThesisAwesome.com membership site, this means if you are already a member and you did purchase any of my Thesis Child Themes, then you will have access to download the plugin for a very affordable price, plus the freedom to install it on any of your blogs. However, you also can purchase the plugin individually at a good low price.

Note: I don’t sell you a bunch of codes and files, I sell you my support, which means my time, so you are not actually paying me to download the plugin, but to get support and upgrades.

I will be updating you more on prices and when the plugin will be released for the public, this should’t take a lot of time. But for now I need beta testers, so keep reading.

Become a beta tester

I’ve already tested out the Thesis Theme Review Plugin here on the blog and some other blogs, I need to do more testing before releasing it, I need beta testers who are willing to provide feedback and help me out to test the plugin on different blogs with different layouts, this is great for the development process and your help should make it a better plugin.

I am going to accept only 5 -10 beta testers, so if you are willing to install and use the plugin on your blog help me test it out, and provide feedback, it might be yours for free.

Want to be a beta tester? contact me now.

One last thing, it’s a good idea to join my affiliate program before releasing the plugin, this may help you make extra money.

Also, I will give you some information on how I created the news section in case you are interested in implementing it on your own blog, however I won’t get deep into technical stuff, but I will point you to the right direction.

What is a Community News?

If you don’t know what community news section is, then let me give you a quick view…

The Community News section is a way of sharing knowledge, basically you have a section dedicated to receive links submissions from the community and publish it on your own blog. It’s so close to the idea of social bookmarking sites, but the technique and tools are different.

This technique is very popular among design related blogs, probably this explains a little about why design blogs can attract more traffic on the web by submitting their awesome showcases, tutorials, and inspiration posts. Community News sections has been and still used in several different ways, For example, there are some blog owners who do it manually, you submit a link to an article along with a short description, and the owner of the blog publish it manually.

But, some smarter design related blog owners and webmasters went beyond the manual boring work and stat to develop ways to automate the process as much as possible. However, there is no complete solution that you could use out of the box, you must add your own development and invest some time to create a good community news system for your blog.

Being a web designer and developer, I have been part of many news sites, I did followed this technique for a long time, especially when I first started my blog, and I must say it’s a fantastic and easy way to drive traffic, the only hard thing is to actually write good and high quality content so that everyone will love to link back to it and proudly promote it.

Here is a few blogs that I loved to share my design and WordPress related articles on:

• SpeckyBoy.com
• TopDesignMag.com
• Designm.ag
• DesignsMag.com

The examples above is just to show you how the submission process works and how actually your article will be archived and linked to. Keep reading as I will explain to you the differences between these ways and my way!

How Submitting News to a Community News can help my blog?

The idea here is that you submit links to your own blog posts and articles, this is helpful by two ways, firstly it’s a chance for more traffic to your article, and secondly you get a link back to your article, which could help your ranking in search engines!

I have tested this many times, and it simply works.

Actually, I am amazed that a few of the links I submitted during the last week were gaining some decent visits, some links even got ranked well in Google! You got to try it out yourself to judge it, submit an article!

How Famous Bloggers Community News is different!

Among all the sites I’ve seen in the past couple of years, not even a single site gives you any type of power or control over the way they present your links or the way they actually linking back to your article. Most of the news sections are archived in way that doesn’t really help your ranking unless it’s published manually in a round up form. I think the main focus was on traffic, but really SEO, and probably the idea was invented before web designers start to realize SEO and care for it.

This explains the wrong use of anchor text in links, for example: “read full article“, links to “original source“, or link to the full post title as an anchor text. This is the same thing in most of social bookmarking sites, which doesn’t really help you to rank for a specific keyword.

So, I thought to change all that!

My technique is completely different, and the changes I’ve done was really simple, but effective!

I thought to make use of SEO power, Keywords and Anchor text in the submissions, so You control the way your links are presented when you submit it.

• You decide the SEO Title and Description that will be displayed in SERPs.
• You decide your best keyword that will be used to link to your article.
• Best if all, you get a link within content, the real body of the post!

What you think?

Technical setup for the Community News

As I told you before, I have done several experiments trying to find the best way to get news submissions. You may think this is easy, you just go and use whatever form building plugin and start receiving submission right away!

Well… I wish this is possible, but no! It’s not that easy!

I’ve used TDO Mini Forms plugin which I think is great, but as you may know, the plugin wasn’t lucky enough due to lack of updates, probably this is why it was removed from WordPress plugins directory. However, I am having an older version and it’s actually working, but with a few glitches and missing features! You can check it out if you would like too, here is a link to the submission page on my other site.

Anyways, there is no plugin for this job yet! There is no complete solution for me, so I had to create my own and get assistance of some other plugins as well to complete the submission circle and make it fast and easy for me to publish the submissions on the blog! What I needed was something that saves me time, a lot of time! And, because I believe  if there is nothing that help me to do what I want, then I need to invent it!

So, I started with creating my own community news custom post type plugin based on information provided at WP Post Types codex page, then I started to build on top of it.

I ended up with using thee plugins:

1. My own Community News Custom Post Type Plugin
2. Gravity Forms Plugin (Read my review of Gravity Forms plugin)
3. Gravity Forms + Custom Post Types add-on

Of course, there were a few lines of CSS and function modifications added to the custom Thesis Theme Skin I am using on my blog to get things to work together!

And, the most interesting thing is I don’t have to edit anything, I don’t have to modify anyways, the whole process is automated except the publishing part, I just have to check the quality of news or article before publishing, which is not really a big deal yet!

I won’t get into much details about technical stuff, but I will point you out to other…

Useful resources I came across:

• Great resource about Custom Post Types in WordPress by Justin Tadlock (recommended!)
• I’ve followed Yoast‘s Power User Tip: Custom Post Type Feeds & Google to create the Community News RSS Feed (perfect!)
• And, of course WordPress Post Types at the codex.

Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Speaking about traffic, this is a great way, you submit your links, and I do the promotion, we both get traffic!

Click Here to Submit News

I don’t want to end up dealing with spam, so I decided to make the submission form available and free only for FamousBloggers.net’s contributors! However the plan can change any time, but at the mean time it won’t be a available for the public any time soon, as a way to guarantee that only quality articles will be shared.