One such tweak that is often overlooked is Wordpress category descriptions. When you add a category to your Wordpress blog, a description is optional. Most themes don’t use the category description in a visible way, although some do. Even if your theme doesn’t, it’s a good idea to write a description of each category, using important keywords for your site.

Why? Take a look at the following.

As you can see, only one of our categories contains a description. While this description is not visible on the page, taking a look at the source code reveals the description:

It’s a small thing, and takes very little time, but it affords you the opportunity to add more relevant keywords to your page without overloading your readers’ senses.

Unfortunately unlike in the comment area, Wordpress automaticaly makes all links in your blog posts do-follow ones. So how do we make them no-follow? Read on and you will find out.

The first thing we need to do is download, unzip and uplad the TinyMCE Advanced plugin to our plugins folder. Then login to your Wordpress dashboard, click on plugins and activate it. Next click on  your “manage” tab at the top of your dashboard, and choose the “TinyMCE Advanced” option. You should then see a screen that looks like this:

On this page you will need to drag and drop the link button onto the bottom bar along with any other extra icons you want to use, then click on “save”. Now when you go to the “write new post” page you will see an extra toolbar with your added icons on it like this:

Now when you make a link in your dashboard and you want to make it no-follow you can follow these steps.

First write whatever words you want the link to look like, then highlight them. Click on your new link button that is in your extra toolbar. Type in the URL of your link like you would to make a regular link. Next click on the “advanced” tab and look to where it says “Relationship page to target”. This is automaticaly set to “not set”. Click on it and scroll down to the “no follow option and choose that. Then click on “insert”, and you have just made your link a no-follow one.

1. Fresh up to date content - If your content is stale and out of date then don’t expect too many comments. However, if you constantly update your blog with fresh, informative content, you will stand a much better chance of securing readers’ comments. Try to post a few controversial posts from time to time to get your blog visitors talking.

2. Invite people to comment - At the end of every blog post why not invite your visitors to leave a comment. If your blog post is about which is better, real or fake Christmas trees, for example, you might end your post with a statement like, ” So what do you guys prefer, fake or real? I’d love to hear your views. “. You are more likely to get comments if you ask for them.

3. Interact with your blog commentators - When someone does leave a comment, be sure to leave a reply as promptly as you can, especially if they are asking you a specific question about your blog post. Even if they aren’t asking you a question, leave a simple thanks to them for their comment. This will encourage them to comment again and again. It will also invite other readers to leave comments.

4. Hold a competition - There is nothing quite like a good competition with top prizes to encourage more people to comment on your blog. This could also be a good way to get extra subscribers and backlinks too. Make it so that posting a comment is one of the requirements to enter the competition.

5. Give your commenters some link love - The links leading to your blog commenters’ website from their comments are automatically “no-follow” links. But there are several plugins which turn these into “do-follow”, which means you will be passing some link juice to their site. If you are worried about attracting spam, remember that your blog is automatically set up so that you need to approve comments before they are published.

I use a plugin called No Follow Free which gives you a nice link back to your site after you have made 3 or more comments. So feel free to comment away ;-), but please no spam.

After you have downloaded the autoresponder plugin and uploaded it to your /plugins directory, you will need to activate it. Once activated you will notice an extra tab at the top of your Wordpress dashboard titled  ” [GWA Autoresponder]“. Click on it and you should see a screen like this (click to enlarge):

Take a look at the html code on this page because this is what we will need to put on your blog. Usually the best place to put this code is in the sidebar, above the fold, where it will get noticed. The next step is to copy and paste the code into a “text” widget in your sidebar.

Click on your “design ” tab at the top of your Wordpress dashboard and choose “widgets”. Scroll down until you find the text widget and click on “add”. Your text widget should now appear on the right hand side of your page. Click on “edit” and paste in your code, and then click “save changes”. Now when you visit your blog you will see something like this:

That sign up form looks pretty plain doesn’t it? So what we need to do next is give your blog visitors a reason to sign up to your mailing list. Why not give them something for free? A free report or ebook specific to your niche usually does the trick.

There are plenty of places online where you can find cheap or even free PLR ebooks that you can give away. All you need to do is google it. Once you have found a good ebook that you know your blog visitors will love, it’s time to add it to your autoresponder.

First thing you need to do is add the image of the ebook above the autoresponder and add some text, so your visitors know what they are going to get when they sign up to your list. To do this you need to upload the image in one of your posts by using the “add media” function. But instead of adding the image to your post you need to copy and paste the “link url” into your text widget above your autorsponder code. If you are unsure how to do this click on the screenshot below to see exactly how I added the image to the sidebar.

Now when we take a look at the front page of your blog you should see something like this:

Now you are able to start building your list with your Wordpress blog.

On Page Optimization

On page optimization is all about making your blog search engine friendly. Follow these three tips to ensure the spiders love your blog:

1.  Download the All in one SEO plugin. This plugin allows you to insert meta title, description and keywords into each post or page you write. You are also able to insert meta descriptions for the home page of your blog.

2. Download and install the Google xml Sitemaps plugin. This plugin automatically generates a search engine friendly sitemap for the spiders to crawl.

3. Make your URL’s search engine friendly. To do this login to your Wordpress dashboard and click on “settings”. Then choose the “permalinks” option. Choose the “custom structure” and type in “/%postname%/”.

Off Page Optimization

Off page optimization is all about the links. The more links that point to your blog the more the spiders will love you. Try to get links from other blogs or websites that have higher pagerank. These three tips show you how to get quick backlinks.

1. Write and submit articles on your niche to article directories. Most article directories allow you to leave a link or two back to your blog in the resource box at the bottom of your article. My favorite article directory to submit articles to is Ezine Articles.

2. Find “do follow” blogs to comment on. You should leave a meaningful comment that relates to their post otherwise you risk your comment being deleted or not published at all. You can find a list of do follow blog at Do Follow Diver.

3. Write super great content. If you write original helpful and informative posts, not only will the search engines visit you more often, but people will link to you too. These kind of links are the best types to get because it shows you are doing a good job with your blog.

First thing you need to do is sign up for a free Google analytics account. Once you have entered your blog details, you will receive a code that you need to insert into your theme code. That code will look something like this:

Login to your Wordpress dashboard and click on the “Design” tab. Then choose the “theme editor” link, and open up the footer theme file. Copy and paste your Google Analytics code into there, right after the </body> tag and before the </html> tag like this:

Click on save, and now you are able to track all your visitors and what they are doing on your site.

Alternatively, if you don’t like messing with your Wordpress code. you can download this free plugin: Adsense plugin that does all the work for you.

1. Social Bookmarking

There are loads of social bookmarking sites online, but my two favorite ones are Digg and Stumbleupon. Social bookmarking sites are designed for users to submit their favorite stories and links from all over the internet and share them with other users. If you are lucky, social bookmarking can drive hundreds of visitors to your blog.

2. Blog Commenting

Go and find other high traffic blogs in the same niche as yours and post some comments. Make sure you thoroughly read their blog post first and make your comment meaningful. Otherwise your comment may not be published by the author of the blog. Some blog owners use “do follow” for their comment links, and this will help with SEO.

3. Forum Posting

Find high traffic forums related to your niche and register for them. Again, don’t spam your blog link everywhere! Just a simple link in your signature will do. If you do spam the forum you may risk having your account banned and you will only earn yourself and your blog a bad reputation. However, if you post meaningful and helpful posts, you will get plenty of clickthroughs to your blog.

4. Social Networking

Sign up to some blogging social networking sites like MyBlogLog and Blogcatalog. This is where many bloggers hang out and check out each other’s blogs. Fill out your profile information to attract other bloggers who might click through to your blog from your profile page. Interact and socialize with them.

5. Submit Your Blogs RSS feed to RSS directories

Your blog’s RSS feed usually looks like this “http://www.YOURSITENAME.com/feed”. Look online and find as many RSS feed directories as you can and submit away. This will increase exposure to your blog and its feed.