Or you can find it on my Slideshare account

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Ask around. Word of mouth is the best way to find someone. If they get a good recommendation from other bloggers that you know and trust, then there is a good chance that they will be a good fit for you also. Just spend some time asking.

If you do not personally know anyone that writes a WordPress blog, then post a comment on the ones you read and ask for recommendations. With this method you will get some people that just recommend themselves. They may be good at what they say they are.

Now the way to find out if they area any good is to ask for examples of their work. Also ask if you can contact people that they have done work for and see what they say. If for some reason they will not let you contact past clients, then I would stay away from them. (I know that they may have good reasons to not want to you to do this but I still would not want to work with them personally)

If you are looking to have a project on a large scale or on a business blog then posting on a job board is the way to go for you. There are tons of them popping up all over. Some you have to pay a little to post, but on others like Craig’s List you can post for free. Just remember to be very specific about what you want to have done. Remember to include the time frame in which you would like it completed.

The next question will be how much will this cost you. That is something that will vary from job to job and from WP Pro to WP Pro. I can tell you that most people that work on WordPress blogs are part of a community and want to help. Not to say that they will charge you nothing, but you will get a fair rate and a lot for the money that you do spend.

I have just nicked the surface of the places you can find and hire a WordPress Pro. Do you know other places? Drop a comment and let us know. Also remember that this is what I do, so if you just want to drop over to my comment page and drop me a note I will get back to you and see if we can work together.

As always Thanks for reading.

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Once you have it up and going, then most of the upgrades and add-ons you want are with plugins or just changing the default settings built into your WordPress blog.

So why would you ever want to pay someone good money to work on your blog? Lots of reasons. You want a custom template / Layout and you are not a coder or a graphic designer. In the course of implementing the Findability / SEO things I talk about on this blog, you realize that you do not have the skill set to dive into the code that is sometimes necessary to implement some of the tricks that I bring up.

Because of the ease of setup and use of the WordPress system, anyone with little or no web skills can set it up and make it look and work great. That is part of what I love about this system.

If you are the kind of person that is happy with things that come right out of the box and just work for you, then you will probably never need anyone to look at or touch it. Now, if you are the kind of person that wants to get 110% out of your install but do not think you have the skills, then you might just be the kind that wants to contact a WordPress professional.

A WordPress professional is someone that works with and is intimately knowledgeable on how WordPress works and ticks. With them doing it for you (or teaching you how to do it), you can really crank up what this blogging system can do for you.

All of that said, I believe that almost all of the tips I talk about on this blog can be used by anyone no matter what level of knowledge they have. Just remember that there are good people out there who know this system, and for a reasonable amount of money they will help you out and work on your blog.

In my next post I will talk about where to find a WordPress Pro and, what to expect when you work with them.

Have you ever hired some one to work on your blog? Would you ever hire some one to work on your WordPress blog? Drop me a comment and let me know.

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So my notes talked about a session given by Matt Cutts about white hat SEO and WordPress. Matt is the head of Google’s Webspam team and many say an expert on SEO when it involves Google.

I re-watched the presentation today, and wow it is just full of tips and tricks and just a bunch of good information coming right from the guy that can tell you if it matters to Google at all.

The link above has an embedded video which plays just fine, but if you go to Matt’s blog (one you should be reading any way) he has provided the PowerPoint Deck and links to the video and a synopsis if you do not want to watch the whole thing.

I know this is kind of old information, but the stuff he talks about is still relevant and we all can learn alot form it.

MY question for you all is are these kind of conference videos helpful or is it a poor substitute for the event and a waste of time? Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading.

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The first reason being that with no email address on the page there is a much smaller chance of getting random spam email from a bott that farmed my email address off the the site.

Now that more and more people are using web based email as there only email, a mailto link is not as practical. As the code is written, it cannot open up a browser and then launch the web mail site you use like it can with a desktop based mail application.

The last reason is with a form that is accessible, usable, and well thought out, the reader can narrow the question and just zip you off a quick note. That is part of what Findability is, giving the readers a well thought out way to complete a task on your site.

So I decided to add the page, and then I got to thinking. I could hand write the HTML / PHP to make the form work and come up with a safety to keep spam out of it, but this is WordPress and we have a community of developers that have written some great plug-ins. So, there must be one for this also.

And there was. After some short searching I came across a plugin on Beast-Blog.com . A great secure and accessible form plugin for WordPress written by Mike Cherim (http://green-beast.com/) and Mike Jolley (http://www.blue-anvil.com/) . If you can install a plug-in on your blog, then you can by all means do the install for this one.

A great install guide is on the site that walks you through the set up once you have uploaded the files to your server. You can even add custom CSS to it if you like. I started with the default style and it looked good in my template. If it does not look the way you want with yours, you can fix it by hand or there is a list of styles that come with it for a whole lot of popular WordPress themes.

So did I make the right choice to not include my email address on the site? Do you like a form or a mailto link? Drop me a coment and let me know what you think.

As always thanks for reading.

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This is not only really bad Findability and SEO, but it is just plain confusing to the people that read your blog and subscribe to your RSS feeds. Why is this bad you ask? If there is not an easy to read structure, then search engines will get confused and not have a set of key words ( well a 2nd set after the ones in the content), and when some one searches for your post on Google Analytic they will have a harder time finding yours. Isn’t this what we are trying to avoid?

When it comes to your readers, on the site or RSS, then you want to make a structure that will allow them to see at a glance what the post name is about and the date it was posted.

As the article above says, please be careful to remember that if you change the permalink structure on your blog in WordPress it will change all the links that you have already published, and that could screw you up if you or someone else has linked to them. I am sorry to say that there is no way to not have this problem. So you can remember to do this from the time you set up your blog, or you can bite the bullet and just change for the better and forget the past.

There can be a little bit of getting your hands dirty with code on all of this, and as I have said before, if you do not think you can do this then do not. Please get someone that can (I am available to help on this, It is my job).

So let me know. Are you using a well thought out structure for your permalinks? Did you do it from the beginning or add it after, and if so, what problem ( if any ) did you have? Drop me a comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading!

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I won’t spend time going into all of the points made, but I will say that the things that are recommended are really great tips, and everyone should do them to their template / blog.

I even found some things I have over looked on my blog, and I am now taking the time to go in and make the changes and see what happens with my SEO numbers.

I like that with most of the recommendations that are made, all you need to do is install a plug-in and you are up and going. That said, there are some tips that involve you digging into the code to make some changes. I still recommend that they get done, so if you do not feel like you have the skills to do them, please do not try it. There is a chance that if you try it and delete or change things that you should not you could break your install of WordPress.

So as I have said before on this subject, if you do not feel like you can dig into the code, then please hire someone who is qualified to do it. So please contact me or someone else before you try it.

As I go through and add the things from this into my blog, I will be writing more and more posts that talk about not only the things in the guide, but also more SEO techniques that everyone should be doing to their blog.

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Why would I not want to try and get some sort of revenue through my site? I have this belief (right or wrong) that if you put ads on your blog it makes the advice you give out not worth as much.

Also I feel that if I include ad’s that this is no longer about me wanting to make this a blog for you the WordPress users but a blog about me wanting to make money.

Am I just being stupid about all of this? I am looking at redoing the template for the site. Should I add a section that will display ads of some kind?

Now, I go to a lot of blogs that have ads,  and they have great information and great advice. So am I just being stupid, and I should use ads or am I right in the fact that readers think this belittles the content on the site?

What do you all think? Drop a comment and let me know what you think and what way you think I should go.

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It installed easily and worked right out of the box with little to no problems at all. What it does is add a little check box that
sends readers an email when the comments have been updated.

They can do this if they have made a comment or even if they haven’t, and they just want to be notified when others have posted a comment. The plugin also remembers if you have already signed up and clicked to be informed, and it displays a different screen asking them if they want to manage their subscriptions.

After I installed the plug-in I went to go and test it. I took a look at my comment section. I highly recommend that if you have not taken the time to do this, you should go and do it right now. I found it hard to understand and some errors in the way it asks for information.

This is an often overlooked section of your blog, one that should be important to you. We are trying to build a community and the best way to do this is with comments. If your readers come to make a comment and find problems, then there is a good chance that they will not make one and possibly just leave the site.

So what do you all think? Is it important to get comments, or is it just ok for people to come to the site and read and go away?

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Don’t know what RSS is? RSS is a type of XML file which includes content from a variety of websites and web services. It allows people to easily track new content being added on sites. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0).

Setting it up in WordPress is a snap. It is built in and most of the themes that are approved for WordPress 2.3 have it built in.

You should promote it on your site by using a well placed icon on the page as well as continuing to write good content (something you should be doing anyway).

I have seen sites that will add a header on a page or an article that will welcome you to the site if it is the first time you have been to it. I am not a fan of that. The times I have seen it done, it always looks intrusive to me.

For more information (and the site that gave me the idea to write this) go read Devlounge | How to Increase RSS Feed Subscribers

I hope this helps. Drop me a comment to let me know how your RSS feeds are doing, and if you do anything to help them.

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