A blog between something and everything

What if I told you that this blog is not just about Internet marketing, WordPress or SEO? Yes, there is a lot here. Is there a method behind the madness?

After my post about never making money online, I got a couple of unsubscribes (email subscribers). That's OK and normal, people unsubscribe, but because it was timely with the post, I'm guessing the topic had something to do with this...

I started wondering if all the awesome readers and subscribers of this blog really know what I do and what I'm about? Some have read my About-page, but not nearly everyone. And to be honest, I don't want to scare people on the About-page with all the things I do and write about, just the highlights...

As I have variety of topics covered here (yeah, yeah, you should niche down and focus), one might think I'm a one-trick-pony, depending on what page they originally landed on, read and decided to subscribe and continue reading...

If one came here because they read my W3 Total Cache -guide and read my posts on how to speed up WordPress, they'd know that I know

• WordPress


• Website optimization

But would they know I'm into affiliate marketing and earning money through the Internet? Would they know I'm interested in personal development, getting things done, and have written post or two about personal productivity.

Would they know that I love efficient tools and ways of working like using a blog post buffer, and have shared tips on how to use Google Reader like a pro? They probably wouldn't, unless they'd read my top posts page or browsed through my blog archives.

That's the problem with being jack of all trades, a generalist.

If one would land on my blog and first read the perfect permalink structure study or the WordPress permalinks guide, they'd know I'm deep into WordPress and the tech behind it all, and also that I do in-depth research for the stuff I write and don't take the easy to road to find the right answers.

On the other hand, coming in through the guide on how to connect your social media profiles or the top 7 must-use social networking sites, one might think I'm just one of the "social media coaches" you see around.

If they left right away, they wouldn't see my Beyond Blogging book review or my take on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook, which both reveal that I don't half-ass anything here, including the reviews (which are microformatted with hReview mind you, something I definitely should write about).

If one landed on my posts about blog SEO, keyword research or how to get indexed in Google in 6 hours or less, they'd also know I'm interested and know a lot about

• search engine optimization


• blogging, and little


• WordPress mixed in.

But they wouldn't necessarily know that I like optimizing images and htaccess rules to make websites faster? Or that I'm a big fan the ultra-optimized Google Analytics' async tracking code?

If the first post one would read here was little advice on getting nowhere or do less, well they'd know I can be pretty damn lazy blogger at times and that I'm not afraid to admit that I have failed or made mistakes. Or that I'm occasionally tired of the games we play and stupid **** we do just because everyone else is.

Those who've read the last post on why some people never make money online, might not know that it's really about making time, not money for me and that I'm not looking to get rich (quick or not), but rich enough.

And with all that marketing talk, it might not be apparent to an occasional reader that I don't just know WordPress, but PHP as well, and have posted neat tricks like how to show RSS subscriber or Twitter follower counts as plain text.

If someone read my comments on some other blog and ended here as a result, they'd know I that like blog commenting, but would they know that they were exposed to the advanced blog commenting tricks I've used to drive traffic and links to my blog?

Those who've read this blog from the start, or know my story before I started this blog, would also know that I'm into gaming, XBox 360, World of Warcraft, EVE Online and stuff, although all my gaming posts have since been moved from this blog to my gaming blog (to reduce the variety of topics even a little).

• I don't expect people to go through my whole blog and all the links in this post, but I wanted to share you a bit about what I write here on the blog, since it's a lot.


• I write about things I'm interested in and things I do. They're all somewhat related to blogging, Internet marketing and using different methods to do online business and make money.


• I don't limit myself to any one tool, system or tactic, even that I do specialize in WordPress, SEO and website optimization in general (that's a wider topic than just speed btw).

So don't expect me to write just about WordPress, just about SEO or focus only on making faster websites. Don't expect me to write only about making money or marketing. That's just not who I am. I like to study and learn a wide variety of topics, and share those experiences with you. There's so many things I want and can do that being a generalist is the my way.

I write about and help people with wide variety of things related, but not limited to Internet marketing, WordPress and SEO. I wrote this post to shed a light on the broad spectrum of topics I'm interested about.

If all that is cool with you, you subscribe and read this blog. If not, wander away, and I welcome you back the day when something I've written is useful and helpful to you.

In addition to reading this blog, you can connect with me via my Facebook page, follow me via Twitter and check out my YouTube channel.

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

A blog between something and everything

Liked this post? You can find more great posts from the blog archive.

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/2fNyINrvHoI/ Best WordPress Hosting

The Fuzzy Logic of the WordPress (.com) Terms of Service

In this post I will prove to you that almost every WordPress.com should be suspended as a violation of the Terms of Service of the site. Proceed with caution

Warning: There's a healthy dose of irony (and little bit of sarcasm) in this post.

Did you read the line above this?

And the one two lines above this?

Good - This post is about WordPress.com and it's Terms of Service, and me wondering how any blog can comply with the TOS :)

OK, now - smile, laugh a bit... And read on.

FACT: WordPress.com Does Not Like Commercial Sites and/or Random ****

Take a look at the quote below, from the WordPress.com Terms of Service, or TOS, as it's often called...

the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing); - WordPress.com TOS

That quote is highlighted on the page, so it's damn important, OK?

Excellent - now check this quote from WordPress.com support as an partial explanation for the above quote and the TOS in full...

WordPress.com does not allow blogs that are created for the purpose of directing traffic to commercial web sites, affiliate/ptc programs or multi-level marketing campaigns - WordPress.com Support

According to these two quotes, any WordPress.com that has been created for the purpose of directing traffic to commercial web sites, is in fact, against the TOS.

FACT: Links are the most important factor for the search engine rankings

Further, any hyperlink has the purpose to "direct traffic" to it's destination. And each and every website is either directly or indirectly commercial, even the non-profits (because they link to their donators / sponsors, from whom some are commercial).

Because any link, in theory will provide tiny support to search engine rankings, and thus, increase traffic of the target site, all links on WordPress.com are bad.

Clear so far?

• Directing traffic to a commercial web site is against WordPress.com TOS


• Any hyperlink will drive traffic


• Every website is indirectly or directly connected to a commercial site (with a link)

Ergo, each and every WordPress.com that has links must be banned, because each and every WordPress.com blog links to a commercial website, directly or indirectly (2-3 links away), thus at least "boosting the search engine rankings" of a commercial site.

We're all doomed!

Stay with me. Read that TOS quote again.

WordPress.com blog must not have links to any site, because each and every link will "drive traffic to third party site" if anyone clicks on it (and someone will), or boost search engine rankings of third party sites (= not WordPress.com?), that are commercial.

OK, it also says with unethical or unwanted commercial content...

Unethical is kinda clear, but WTF is unwanted?

"Happily", the "clarification" from the support pretty much says that any content directing traffic to commercial website is bad = each and every website in the Internet, apart from Wikipedia maybe, but then again, there are links to commercial sites in Wikipedia, which boost their SE rankings, so linking to Wikipedia will boost the rankings too...

The 14 million blogs of WordPress.com (as of September 2010, according to WordPress.com stats), should be deleted. Maybe apart from the ones ran by WordPress.com staff / Automattic folk, since it's their place.

Doomed!

Not convinced?

Think of it, and look at your WordPress.com blogs:

• Do you not autopost content via Posterous there?


• Do you not link to your Twitter account?


• Do you not post links to your WordPress.com blog?


• Do you not create WordPress.com only to act as a satellite to your "main site"?

Links to Twitter are bad, let alone (auto)posting your Tweets to the sidebar or the blog itself (that's double whammy since it's machine generated/automated). Plus, 100% Twitter users link to some site that is commercial, and Twitter links purpose is to drive traffic to the site.

Adding Delicious widget is against the TOS since it links to god knows what places that sell stuff = commercial.

You certainly cannot link to your main site, because obviously you'll be boosting your search engine rankings, and why you'd want to do that unless you're in it to gain something...

Doomed, I tell you.

I'll be the first to admit it, that I have created WordPress.com blogs, because I want to aggregate stuff I do into one place, including this blog, Twitter and Posterous, just to name few sources - and that's machine generated, isn't it, although I wrote it the first time, but I'm geeks are pretty damn close to robots, so that makes it nearly-machine generated.

And I certainly have posted links in WordPress.com posts to sites I've something to gain from, as a pitiful attempt to boost the search engine rankings, and even that I'm the Zen Master of *Not* Making Money Online, one might argue that I'm "driving traffic" to a commercial site (I'm 100% sure one site I've ever linked to from WordPress.com, is commercial).

On the other hand...

Since the ~14 Million blogs are still running, I'm guessing I've misunderstood something of this :D

What do you think?

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

The Fuzzy Logic of the WordPress (.com) Terms of Service

Here's more posts like to this:

1. Blogspot Blog Migration to WordPress


2. Why I Have a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/Fx37iX46qV8/ Best WordPress Hosting

Why Some People Never Make Money Online

Imagine to make money online by working for just couple of hours. That's the Internet lifestyle. But without ONE THING, you will never make any money

During the past year I've read a lot of eBooks and studied many training courses. All that in addition all the blogs I follow and read, the email lists I've subscribed to. In addition to the free stuff, I've purchased many information products, starting from simple $7 products and up to the $97 a month coaching/training programs.

I've liked (nearly) all the products and courses I've bought and learned a lot. In total, I've used hundreds to educate myself to online marketing. By now, I should be making tons of money, right? Well I'm making some, but we're talking a few dollar here, another there — probably in the range of four figures a year (not month).

So I am making some, but I didn't go through all that "education" to make couple of bucks. I want the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands. But only very few get there, so how can I make sure I get there? It certainly won't happen if I (or you) sit on your ass and do nothing.

I shared my thoughts about this topic in my Posterous already (you can check it here: Success - Doing the things that you don't enjoy, which have to be done), but I wanted to continue on the subject...

How to Never Make Money Online

As got past that intro, there's a chance that you're interested in making money online. You are, right? But you haven't made much either, no matter how hard you've tried. You want to build yourself the Internet lifestyle you hear people talking about. You've already worked your ass off to make it happen.

Or have you really? By running around and looking for the perfect solution, looking for the next big thing, you keep yourself busy. False sense of productivity. Instead of working hard on the stuff that works (but is hard and boring), you go for the shiny new object. Sound familiar? The Never-Ending Cycle of Internet Marketing Product Jumping(TM), the eternal journey, where the only action you take is: "Add to Cart".

You want to make money online, but instead of making it, you look for "the system". You look for the amazing new software that will make you money, push-button easy. Just enter your PayPal address and hit go, and let the money flow in. Not gonna happen.

There are new cool products, services, eBooks and Internet marketing courses launched all the time, each promising to make you rich. You watch the product launch videos with your eyes wide open, stunned at the amazing information they give away for free.

You read their perfectly formatted, A/B tested, but so annoyingly long sales pages. You see the proof. You see how the marketer or someone else have made a lot of money using "the system". The system works.

You're hooked in. You buy their shit stuff. You dive into the training, reading the eBooks, watching the videos. Your brain is full of new information. You can't wait to start using that to make money. The product was worth every penny. Wow. You're so excited that you acted fast enough to get the limited offer. You're in the exclusive group who got to see the info, and now all you have to do is make it happen.

Why you're still waiting? You're not going anywhere, because you're not doing anything. Instead of doing something, you move to the next product. You use hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to WSOs at WarriorForum. Amazing stuff. If you have the budget, you buy the Product Launch Formulas, Kajabis and Video Bosses too. You're learning so much! You really are.

All That Info — And Nothing... Still haven't figured out why you're not making a dime? You're not making money, because you buy yourself a feeling of progress in the next shiny new object you buy. It's gonna be all the same. No matter how good the information you get is, nothing will happen.

Nothing will happen because you are lazy. Or you're afraid to do anything. Maybe you're afraid to waste time and money, so you don't put any effort into what you do. You're half-ass, instead of kick-ass.

Somehow you convince yourself that you're good where you are. Of perhaps you have the self-doubt. Whatever the reason, you're not gonna do anything. Why some people will never make money online?

BECAUSE IT TAKES A LOT OF WORK!

You need to write ebooks, you need to do affiliate marketing, you actually need to blog to make money blogging (go figure!). You need to get traffic. You need to build a better blog. Whatever your chosen method is, you have to work to get to your goals. Buying the course, training or eBook telling you how is not enough (duh!).

Getting overwhelmed by the number of options is another thing. Don't spend time choosing and looking for the best option, do first, evaluate second. You don't have to make it perfect the first time, what ever it is.

Yaro Starak, in his post about why people struggle to get what they want said:

Sadly most people know what to do, they just don’t do it. The reason is a lack of belief and confidence. - Yaro Starak

Take the lack of belief and confidence, add some laziness, and finally mix in the fear. It's much, much easier to buy new stuff and lie to yourself that you're taking action. You might be lying to yourself that you don't have the skills. That it's too late. You can't possible achieve what someone else did.

Truth?

You master the art of making excuses and you achieve nothing.

That's why some, if not most people are not making money, or they're making tens of dollars, and not thousands. The people who make money put what they know into use, they work hard. Those who don't do, don't get.

Don't be fooled about the big figures someone got "easy". Before they got easy, they worked hard, they failed, they put in the hours and then got results. The only 100% certain fact in the Internet marketing is the result of not doing anything. That's right. The result of doing nothing is zero. Doing nothing, gets you nothing.

Some people will never make money online, because THEY DO NOT DO ANYTHING, they just fake it to themselves by buying information products that teach them making money. The very few who do work hard, make all the money.

At some point, they have put in the hours (or the dollars to pay for someone elses hours). They are not smarter, they are not luckier, they just do more that those who don't make money. It's really as simple as that, even if you don't want to admit it.

Luckily - there's is one, and only one, solution to all this. With this one thing, THE ULTIMATE SYSTEM, everything is possible. But if you expect it to be easy, you're not gonna like it. It's the *real* secret to making money online.

Find the closest (literally) shiny object and look into it.

Will YOU be part of the very few who make it?

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

Why Some People Never Make Money Online

Here's more posts like to this:

1. Make time, not money


2. 37signals: A Secret to Making Money Online


3. The games we play and the stupid **** we do to get seen online

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/QDyDtQDRRx0/ Best WordPress Hosting

Optimized Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code

Summary: Use Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code to speed up your site. Use this optimized, minified and compressed async Analytics snippet for maximum impact

I made a quick post to my Posterous on how to speed up your blog with Google Analytics asynchronous tracking, and here are the detailed instructions on how to add the Google Analytics asynchronous tracking to your blog with the hyper-optimized version of the async Analytics snippet for maximized speed (awesome!)

Quick introduction to Google Analytics Asynchronous tracking

Last December, Google announced new asynchronous tracking for the Analytics. The new tracking system has been fully functional for a while, but now it's officially out of beta, and everyone who is using Analytics to track traffic and other metrics should update to the new code.

Asynchronous tracking, while very hard to spell and type correctly, simply means enhancing the speed in which the tracking code is loaded. In addition to the site speed benefit (loving it!), the new version of the tracking code can be placed higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering. Which means that the tracking will capture those visitors who leave before the page has been loaded better than the old code.

For advanced users, the new asynchronous tracking gives flexibility and more options over the old code. For details on that, check the async tracking usage guide. The syntax of the advanced options have been changed, so if you've been tracking outgoing links and other events, read the documentation before starting to use the async tracking.

The default Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking Code Snippet, which we won't be using...

Here's the asynchronous snippet for tracking sites with Google Analytics:

<script type="text/javascript">

var _gaq = _gaq || [];

_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {

var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;

ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';

var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);

})();

</script>

Outstandingly optimized Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code snippet for maximum pleasure speed

But we wouldn't want to go in and add the normal code, when we can get the hyper-optimized code snippet instead, right? Feast your eyes in this amazingly beautiful and optimized Analytics tracking snippet by Mathias Bynens (@mathias on Twitter):

<script>var _gaq=[['_setAccount','UA-XXXXX-X'],['_trackPageview']];(function(d,t){var g=d.createElement(t),s=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0];g.async=1;g.src='//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js';s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s)})(document,'script')</script>

(the whole code is on one line, no linebreaks)

Replace UA-XXXXX-X with your Google Analytics Account ID when using this. Add type="text/javascript" for HTML4 validity (see below for the full code).

Don't worry if you don't understand why the optimized code means, how it works and what has been done to it, because you only need to know that it works...

However, do check Mathias' article for details on how the code was optimized if you want. For (a geek like) me getting such a detailed explanation and reasoning on the optimization process is like spilling sun cream on the naked body of Marisa Miller.

(...)

Moving on!

The optimized snippet is 50% smaller when minified and compressed, for total size of only 380 bytes

Mathias did some testing the optimized async tracking code to show why it's worth it to optimize the code...

Test was done with three different HTML5 documents

• one with the original asynchronous Analytics snippet


• one with the optimized but non-minified snippet, and


• another with the optimized and minified snippet.

All files were served with gzip compression enabled.

Here are the file sizes of the different HTML5 documents, before and after compression:

1. With the original snippet: 735 bytes, after gzip 432 bytes


2. With the optimized (but non-minified) snippet: 614 bytes, after gzip 389 bytes


3. With the optimized and minified snippet: 569 bytes, after gzip 380 bytes

There’s an improvement of ± 23% in byte size when using the optimized snippet without gzip. When using gzip, the compression rate is still around ± 12%. When every byte counts, going from 735 bytes to 380 bytes for ~50 percent improvement is amazing.

How to add the optimized Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code to your website

If you don't have Google Analytics account yet, follow my guide on how to set up Google Analytics. When you are ready to copy the code to your site, come back here for the optimized code...

Remove the old Analytics code from your site templates and replace it with the new async code snippet:

1. Remove ALL old Analytics tracking code!


2. Copy the optimized Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code snippet above and


3. paste it just above the </head> tag in the HTML code.

For WordPress bloggers this means:

1. Uninstall any Analytics for WordPress -plugins you might have installed


2. Remove the old code if you have inserted it manually (probably in the footer.php of your theme)


3. Open the header.php -file of your WordPress theme,


4. find the </head> -tag, and


5. copy the async analytics code just above the </head> -tag.

The end result will look like this (with your Analytics Account ID replacing the UA-XXXXX-X):

<script type="text/javascript">var _gaq=[['_setAccount','UA-XXXXX-X'],['_trackPageview']];(function(d,t){var g=d.createElement(t),s=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0];g.async=1;g.src='//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js';s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s)})(document,'script')</script>

</head>

Everything between <script and /script> is on one line with no linebreaks (the code wraps on the post to make it readable and easier to copy). The script-type text/javascript has been added for full HTML4 validity (optional in HTML5).

Verify that the Google Analytics tracking is working to ensure you'll get your site statistics

After inserting the code snippet, saving all the files and emptying any (page) cache (e.g. W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache), verify the Analytics setup by going to the Analytics profile and clicking the "Check status" on the top right corner:

1. Click on the "Check Status"

After clicking you should see this:

2. "Receiving Data" means tracking is working

Google Async Tracking in WordPress

Mathias' optimized code snippet made me let go of the good'ol Google Analytics for WordPress -plugin for a while, but I went back to it when the plugin got updated to a new version (version 4), which has the asynchronouos tracking code as well. The code is not compressed like the one on this post, but the plugin is very easy to use and there are loads of highly useful options in it.

Thus, if you run a WordPress blog, use the plugin instead of manually copying the optimized code snippet. You'll easily add the async code, and the plugin will also tracks outgoing links (the new version tracks clicks as events), segments the visitors (e.g. visits per category, author, tag, etc.), and the Google Analytics for WordPress -plugin is the easiest and the best option to do it. With the plugin, you also get the benefit of not tracking my own (or other logged in) visits.

Summary

• Google Analytics Asynchronous tracking means enhancing the speed of the script and your site, in addition to tracking the visitors more reliably (if you place the code high as recommended)


• If you use Google Analytics to track your site, update the new asynchronous tracking code to your site right away.


• Use the highly optimized tracking snippet provided above for maximum speed and ultra-minified goodness.


• On WordPress, add Google Analytics into your blog with the Google Analytics for WordPress -plugin (The additional options and convenience of the plugin make it better option over the little speed benefit of the tiny code)

But now, go take Google Analytics Asynchronous Tracking in use on your blog (and use the optimized code if you want to geek it with ultra optimized code).

p.s. Thanks, credit and boatload of respect to Mathias for the optimized async analytics snippet.

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

Optimized Google Analytics asynchronous tracking code

Here's more posts like to this:

1. How to set up Google Analytics


2. Track Outgoing Links with Google Analytics


3. Adding Google Analytics to Your WordPress Blog

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/rYJLXdIOhpA/ Best WordPress Hosting

Look Back on the First 365 Days of Zemalf.com

Summary: Zemalf.com was 1 year young on the 20th of May, 2010. This is an unsensored post and my thoughts about the year, the blog and everything that has happened

One year. Where did the time go? What happened?

beginning

On the 20th of May 2009, I registered a domain, zemalf.com. If you've read my about page, or the story before that, you know that the blog's name comes from my online nickname, gamer tag (XBox Live, etc.) and just a name I came up with (back in 1995ish) and used since.

Even that I've been blogging since the late 2005, I knew very little about blogging a year ago. I had the gaming blog in blogspot, Zemalf's Haven (still there), which I kept for fun when playing games like World of Warcraft and EVE Online.

On the new domain I started this blog. I didn't have a plan. I didn't know what to do. As a hindsight, I didn't even know what I wanted.

But I started a blog, the first posts went live here on the 21st of May. I imported my gaming blog to this domain, but as I was learning stuff about blogging, I didn't feel like writing about games anymore, so I rolled back and removed the old content, reverting the gaming blog traffic back to the Haven.

I didn't know what I was going to write about and I never sat down and did any kind planning. But I knew I didn't want to write about the stuff I "normally did". My day job was out of it, this was my thing. So I didn't start writing about the software development, continuous integration and the IT stuff I was doing for living - I wanted to experiment something new...

But I didn't have a clue what I was getting into, but I was excited, I had my own blog now, on my own domain. I wrote post after post, even that I had no idea what I was doing or why I was writing those posts. There was no plan. I just blogged.

I wanted to make money, but I didn't think through how I would do that. I wanted to build a business, but I didn't know what business I would build. Instead of stopping, thinking it through, I just kept going (to this day).

(lack of) focus

I wrote about wide variety of topics I was researching as I was learning. I wanted to figure out everything about WordPress, I wanted to build the perfect blog, system-wise. I digged into PHP, themes, CSS and plugins. I studied and learned Internet business and making money online -stuff. I got interested about Internet marketing.

Around those early days, I did a self-interview, which was an interesting read now that nearly a year has passed from it. It also reminded me that for the longest time I tried to come up with cool name for the blog, like Technology Alchemist's Trek in the Blogosphere. At one time, I called it Blog of Antti Kokkonen, but then settled for Zemalf.com.

To this day, the blog does not have a better name, it just is. That's what you get for picking a domain name based on your online nickname which doesn't mean much. But that's OK. I can make it work. But it needs a little bit of focus. And some re-structuring. This is stuff I should've thought a bit at the beginning, now I've just went with the flow...

The blog's name wasn't the only thing I changed a lot during the year. I self-designed the blog (started with free WordPress theme called Fusion), I re-designed the blog, twice - no, three times: my blog design.

I really should've been taking screenshots of the old designs. Fuck (...) I'll have to see if I have some somewhere... Where's wayback machine when you need it :(

Hah. Found'em!

Evolution of my blog design, The first 365 days

Started with the free Fusion theme:

May 2009: Fusion, the theme I started with (not a screenhost from Zemalf.com)

I built my own WordPress theme from the ground up, it was a fun exercise. The black/green look was stolen inspired by Tim Ferriss' and David Risley's blogs at the time (screenshots here)...

June 2009: My first own WordPress theme design was called Zemalf Zen Green, quickly replacing the free Fusion -theme.

From the black/green, I moved into grayish black and white look...

January 2010: The first iteration of the new design, new theme built on the previous design, mainly tweaking the CSS styling, colors, etc.

And then to white/light green...

May 2010: Current design (at the time this post is published). The second iteration of my WP theme, ZZ (not published to public).

As a bonus, here's a "logo" I used on the early days, with my first design and also in my custom Twitter background for a while. I completely forgot I did this :)

When it comes to WordPress, Zemalf.com is a good place to visit. Even when trying to load it into C64 :)

perfectionism

So I wanted to learn to how to build WordPress themes, don't know why, but I just wanted to - so I did it myself. For anyone else, I'd say, get a theme and stick with it. Or at least, don't waste any time building the theme yourself, unless that is something you want to do for money.

Lately, when I got obsessed with speed, having my own theme and knowing exactly what's in it, definitely helped. During the year I spend hours tweaking the blog. In my craze of having WordPress set up the right way, I went on a quest to find the best permalink, tuned my .htaccess rules, and tried different WordPress plugins before finding the ones I use now (the WP plugins I use and recommend to others).

I got the basic WP settings when starting out figured already, but the journey continues to find what the ultimate WP setup, the settings, plugins and themes that work the best. I'm still working on it, the perfecting never stops. Perfectionism is a bitch.

uncertainty

The biggest problem is the uncertainty of all this. I should have a plan. A plan about where this blog and myself are going. During the year I've learned that I want to make some money of this stuff, after all, I'm using quite a lot of time on it. It's been a great hobby and I've learned tons, I've even made some money already, but around one thousand for the whole year isn't much.

It is enough to cover all the hosting stuff, etc, so I haven't "lost" any money, but I haven't really made any either - especially as I've invested the money back to tools and training.

The problem is I've made most of the money through various marketing experiments, not this blog, even that I used most time and effort into this. I've made less than a hundred dollars directly from this blog. I don't have any advertising here, and I'm not sure if I ever want to, so the money has come from the affiliate sales of the 31DBBB Problogger workbook, Beyond Blogging and even one random sale of the How to Launch the **** Out of Your Ebook, which I mentioned on my post about writing and marketing eBooks.

I probably could've made more money, if I've had a mailing list, and I had driven people to my reviews more aggressively. I also should've written more than 3 reviews already. And I should've started making my first product a lot sooner. But the self-doubt kept me from it, and I struggle with it every day. Thus far, I've been unable to convince myself to sell stuff, so I just give it away for free. That's the first thing I'm going to change.

fear

I put good stuff in this blog, instead of selling it, because that's the easy thing to do. And I admit, it feels good to help people without expecting anything in return, but I can't do that forever, if I want to make money. I might try advertising on the blog, but for that I'd need to build tons of traffic. Selling stuff, and I don't need that much traffic (and there's bigger potential for making enough money to make all of this worthwhile the time I invest in it).

So why I'm not already selling things? Well, publishing blog posts is easy and care-free. Putting things on sale is SCARY. Fear you must not, as say Yoda would...

I need to start a mailing list, I need a way to get money and deliver the goods (e-junkie or Clickbank for example) and I need to create the actual product I want to sell. Nothing too hard, very easy in fact, but still I haven't been able to get myself into it...

When selling stuff, I need to start worrying (or taking care of) taxes, customer support, and all that good stuff. I should probably start a company, business or whateverthatiscalled to cover my own ass. I'm scared shitless that someone will sue me (yes, I watch way too much US-based TV), take all my money and my house...

I'm afraid that 5 years from now, I will receive a notice from the IRS that I need to pay 1 million dollars of US taxes, even that I've only made a 5000 or so...

Yes, I'm very good at making excuses. I have the eternal ability to not take action, so I waste my time on stupid shit I shouldn't even be doing. I'm lazy. I look for the easy way out and procrastinate the hell out of it.

And it doesn't help when are not really certain what direction you should go, what action to take...

(un-)clarity

I need to walk the walk, and get my fat ass moving and start doing stuff. Start doing the right stuff. Increase my productivity for real and not just write about it.

With all that said, I'm still not sure where I'm going with this blog. With the lack of focus, a blog name that doesn't mean anything, I'm fighting an uphill battle. So I might branch out to other domains, keeping Zemalf.com as a playground, place to share the experiences and stuff I learn, just I have done so far.

I feel most connected to the SEO stuff, I enjoy learning about that stuff. And I love WordPress, so it'll be here. So perhaps it'll be something along those lines, not too different from what it's been already when I think about it.

no fate

The good news is that it's all in my own hands. I can make this happen.

The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves. - John Connor, The Terminator 2

The bad news is that it's all in my own hands. I'm my own worst enemy.

I'm getting there. Slow, but steady.

future

What will the rest of 2010 bring to me and this blog? Good things I'm sure, but I'm still working on how I'll go about it...

p.s. This post is bit of a mess, I'm sorry about that. But I won't edit it. I'll leave it as it is, even that I was rambling a lot. I thank you for reading this, I thank you for helping me out. I could not have done any of this without you.

p.p.s. I'll be doing report on the highlights of the first year, telling what posts did well, what didn't. And I have another post with lessons learned coming, stuff I'd do different if I started now and stuff I wish I knew a year ago, etc.

p.p.p.s. I wanted to add the third PS to a post for the first time in this blog because it would be awesome if you would tell why you are here, reading my blog? (have you been here long? how did you find the blog? What have you liked, what has sucked?)

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

Look Back on the First 365 Days of Zemalf.com

Here's more posts like to this:

1. Moved my gaming related posts back to blogspot


2. Look Back on the Year 2009

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/8Q4vHOzFmjg/ Best WordPress Hosting

Disqus LOOPHOLE for SPAM Comments in WordPress

Are you running Disqus on WordPress blog? You've probably seen plenty of SPAM and removed them with Disqus. Well, those comments are not really gone...

Are you running Disqus Comments on your WordPress blog?

Have you received comments that you've marked as spam or deleted?

You have, right? We all have.

Standard business, we get spam comments or comments not compliant with our comment policy, we mark them as spam and remove the comment...

Here's an usual lame-ass SPAM comment in Disqus, marked as spam...

Stay with me...

When comment is left to WordPress blog with Disqus comments, the comment is also added to WordPress database, like a normal comment would.

This is good in case you would remove Disqus one day, you'd still have the comments.

OK - cool

BUT

After the comment is received, Disqus picks up the comment, so the comment going to WordPress database it is not caught by SPAM filters or anything...

Not a problem, we just manually marked the comment as spam...

RIGHT?

well...

No.

Disqus doesn't think it needs to "communicate back" to the WordPress database and remove the comment there as well...

Check your normal comments (click 'Dashboard > Comments > Comments' to see comments in WordPress database), and you will find comments there that you've deleted or marked as spam in Disqus, safely in the WordPress database.

The same SPAM comment, marked as SPAM in Disqus, is in the WordPress comment, approved like any good comment...

LOVELY!

And if Disqus being slow as hell wasn't enough...

:sigh:

BUT

IT GETS WORSE

Spot a comment from "normal" comments that was spam, removed from Disqus, but still in WordPress database etc...

Not a problem, Disqus wouldn't show a comment removed from its own system and only existing in WP database, would it?

YOU BET YOUR SORRY ASS IT WOULD!

Go to the blog post in question...

You can't see the comment there...

OK - good...

Open the page source.

Search for the spam comment.

The same SPAM comment is now HIDDEN in the page source by Disqus Comments. Not visible on the page, but there it is...

WTF?

Looks like Disqus Comments on WordPress, at least with the Disqus Comments -plugin, help SPAM comments to turn our blogs into black hat SEO shit, hiding spammy comments and links in our page source.

Please tell me that this is just some oddity in my blog.

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

Disqus LOOPHOLE for SPAM Comments in WordPress

Here's more posts like to this:

1. How to stop your blog comments from being blocked by Akismet


2. An introduction to Disqus blog commenting system


3. How to leave comments on a blog

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/bvElTOZSL8U/ Best WordPress Hosting

WordPress htaccess: The Definite Guide

WordPress htaccess file needs tweaking for security and performance. To make things easy, here is a ready-made WordPress htaccess that anyone can use

Can I ask you - is your WordPress htaccess is in a good shape?

• Do you have the essential security rules in place?


• Do you know what you should have there?


• Are you afraid to touch the whole darn thing?

No worries - after reading this post you will know the answers. You will know exactly what kind of htaccess file you should have. I will not bore you with technicalities, or go into details that you don't need, but instead - I give you the solution, right now:

Ultra Quick Intro to htaccess

• .htaccess is the default name of a directory-level configuration file for a web server


• it was originally created for per-directory access control, but nowadays htaccess can include many other configurations, mostly related to content control.


• The file name is .htaccess ("dot htaccess"). Don't forget the "dot". In some operating systems, the files beginning with "dot" might be hidden, so keep that in mind.


• the name of the htaccess-file can be changed by configuration (which is wise for security, but beyond the scope of this article).


• .htaccess overrides the rules in the main configuration file, usually called httpd.conf.


• for performance, it's better to use httpd.conf -file, but on shared hosting, the webmaster doesn't usually have access to the main configuration -file and needs to rely on .htaccess.


• if you DO have access to httpd.conf, all non-directory specific rules should go into httpd.conf instead of .htaccess.

I promised I won't bore you with details you don't need, so that's it - in fact, you don't even need all the above, but I couldn't call this article definite guide if I didn't add some of that stuff in... If you want to know even more, check the links below on this post for all the htaccess information you'll ever need and then some.

WordPress htaccess

Good, default WordPress htaccess looks like this:



# BEGIN htaccess

# Protect the htaccess file

<Files .htaccess>

Order Allow,Deny

Deny from all

</Files>



# Protect the htaccess file

<Files wp-config.php>

Order Allow,Deny

Deny from all

</Files>



# Disable directory browsing

Options All -Indexes



# Enable the following of symlinks

Options +FollowSymLinks



<IfModule mod_headers.c>

# No ETags, No Pragma

Header unset Pragma

Header unset ETag

# Make sure proxies deliver correct content

Header append Vary User-Agent env=!dont-vary

# Ensure proxies deliver compressed content correctly

Header append Vary Accept-Encoding

</IfModule>



# BEGIN WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

# END WordPress

# END htaccess


WARNING: The redirect rules at the end might be different in case you've installed WordPress in a directory and/or run several blogs from the same domain. If WordPress has already added mod_rewrite -rules into the .htaccess -file (similar to above), DO NOT delete/edit them.

With these rules in place we have the basic security in place

• .htaccess file itself is protected,


• WordPress wp-config.php is protected, and


• directory browsing is disabled.

Apart from the security, we just need the default WordPress redirect rules (the last rules there).

Add More Rules as Needed

The rules above are the starting point and suitable for any blog. As said, the default rules are what any WordPress blog needs. If you do nothing else, but add the rules I showed above, you will be fine. The following posts are for the tech-heads, geeks and crazy tweakers like me:

• The Ultimate Htaccess


• Stupid htaccess Tricks (Perishable Press)


• .htaccess rules for site speed optimization (Zemalf.com)


• The most essential .htaccess rules for blogs (Zemalf.com)

Editing the htaccess from WordPress Dashboard

I don't recommend using a plugin that creates htaccess, because you don't really need to use such a plugin, but you can use a plugin that allows you to edit it easily from the Dashboard, so you don't have to mess with FTP or SSH if you don't have to.

From the WordPress plugins I use and recommend, Robots Meta offers just that (in addition to all the useful things it does for SEO and stuff). With Robots Meta, you can edit the htaccess file from the plugin settings (just remember to back up the content before editing and saving).

Advanced users should always use FTP or SSH to edit the files.

WordPress htaccess and W3 Total Cache

With the default rules in the htaccess,

• we can let W3 Total Cache add the rules it needs for Browser Cache, and


• we don't necessarily need to (manually) add the .htaccess rules for performance.

Also, se can add other .htaccess rules for blogs, but we can skip the mod_deflate / Expires rules.

The rules added by W3 Total Cache are *not* optimal, but they're good enough. And since editing .htaccess is quite technical, and hard for many WordPress bloggers out there, it's good that non-techies don't need to touch it too many times.

For tech people, there's still the option to just disable Browser Cache -option in W3TC, and tweak the caching/proxy settings manually, and this is the best option for website performance. BUT for the "average blogger", the rules above + the rules added by W3TC are everything they need.

Summary

Add the rules I presented above to your .htaccess -file before installing W3 Total Cache (or add them in by replacing everything else but the W3TC rules). Always take backup of your blog AND the htaccess before editing the file.

If your site "dies" after editing the file, you probably did something wrong - restore the backup (or add only the rules in this post in) and try again. It's not hard, but be careful when deleting / modifying the rules already in the file, as some rules can and will be, site-specific.

Afterword

I hope I managed to present the kind of htaccess rules that every WordPress blogger could use. With the feedback from my earlier posts with htaccess rules for WordPress, while they were highly useful and comprehensive, I learned that some parts of them were complicated for the "technologically challenged".

Thus, the rules in this post make up for what I think is, truly essential WordPress htaccess. Beyond this, it's tweaking and tuning, adding your personal favorites, etc.

What do you think? And also: Did these .htaccess rules work for your blog?

---

Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:

WordPress htaccess: The Definite Guide

Here's more posts like to this:

1. .htaccess rules for site speed optimization


2. The Ultimate WordPress Permalinks Guide


3. The most essential .htaccess rules for blogs

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