Noticed that WordPress released a new update. WordPress 3.0.2 worked without any problems so far on my websites. The WordPress automatic upgrade process when smoothly.
It also appears that there are currently no issues with any of my favorite WordPress themes.
If you hear of any problems with the latest WordPress 3 update, let me know. Otherwise, it looks like smooth sailing for now.
For those of you webmasters and bloggers who like using Google’s WonderWheel tool, there was an unexpected surprise that came with the new Google Instant search rollout. It seems that Google thinks that the functionality of Wonder Wheel is handled by the ever changing search results and suggestions that appear on Google.com when you search using Google Instant search functionality. Unfortunately, that is hardly the case.
The Google WonderWheel tool was a great way to not only find useful and relevant information on the web, but also for web developers and professional writers looking for ways to make money writing online to figure out how OTHER PEOPLE might search for the information being written. For example, if I were writing an article about how to make homemade snowshoes, I might search for something like “homemade snowshoes,” but maybe that is not how most people would search for the same topic. Maybe most people would actually search for something like “handmade snowshoes” or “make your own snowshoes” or maybe even “building snowshoes.” Any of those searches could be made by someone looking for the same information.
Unfortunately, despite all of its success and acclaim, the Google search engine is really nothing more than a text pattern matcher combined with a link counter. If your text does not match what is being searched for, your article will not show up in those searches, no matter how great your content might be.
Again, using the example above, if I titled my article Homemade Snowshoes Made Simple with my H1 tag and used a title tag of Snowshoes Homemade, the article would never show up in any Google searches for “handmade snowshoes,” unless there were virtually no other webpages on the entire Internet about making your own snowshoes.
In other words, as a writer looking to earn money writing online, it is critical that your articles contain the phrases used by searches in order to generate high-ranking web content that drives search engine traffic to your webpages. In fact, it is so important, that as a professional writer, I frequently use misspellings, incorrect grammar, or redundant phrases, deliberately in order to be sure that what others type into Google will match something in my well-written web content. Then, I try elsewhere to apologize and point out that it was done intentionally so that potential freelance writing clients who are trying to judge my work know that it is not just sloppy writing, but rather that Google makes you write poorly in order to succeed.
The Google WonderWheel tool helped with this problem by allowing a web searcher to type in a search, and then by clicking on Wonder Wheel in the sidebar under More Tools, see a graphical tree of other related search queries. The new Google Instant search feature does that part just fine. What is missing is that with Google Wonder Wheel you could click on the bubble with the related search term and get a new Wonder-Wheel that showed a tree of search queries related to the clicked keywords. In this way, I could have entered “homemade snowshoes,” saw that “handmade snowshoes” was a possible related search keyphrase and then clicked on it to see what search phrases might be related to handmade snowshoes as well.
(Did you see that? I used three different ways of writing wonderwheel so that people who search with a space or hyphen can still find this article online by searching.”)
Fortunately, it is possible to turn Google WonderWheel back on. To re-enable Wonder Wheel, you have to go into Google search settings and turn off Instant Search. Doing that takes you back to the old search interface, which includes the Wonder-Wheel tool.
Unfortunately, since Instant Search looks like the future of Google Search, there is no telling how long this functionality might be left on. Hopefully, Google decides that there is certainly no harm in keeping the WonderWheel tool in the sidebar even if Instant Search is enabled. After all, users who find that the new Instant search feature meets their needs will simply not click on WonderWheel, while those of us who depend on the tool to help correct some of Google Search’s inadequacies can continue to use it.
I wonder if there is an online petition somewhere?
Do you use Google WonderWheel? How have you reacted to WonderWheel being removed from Google due to Instant Search?
It takes more than just fancy flying.
Read to earn money by writing online? Selling advertising to monetize your published content online is one of many ways to make money by writing online. It is also one of the most popular thanks to being able to generate passive income for a long time without the need to do any additional work. That is the theory, anyway.
The catch to making money with Google AdSense once you have been approved or another advertising network is that people have to click on the ads you display.
Technically, that is not true since there are advertising programs that will pay you based on how many times an ad is shown, something known as cost per impression, or CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Unfortunately, the pay rates for CPM or impression-based ads are typically very low. Without tens of thousands of pageviews these ads won’t generate enough money to cover your morning cup of coffee.
When it comes to CPC or cost per click, advertising, the need for high amounts of traffic is much lower. One can actually make very good money on just a few thousand visitors per month provided you generate the right kind of content, that content ranks highly, and most important of all, that content leads people to click on the advertisements displayed.
It is that last piece that trips up most people. Just because something is popular, just because you rank #1 in Google for that keyword, and just because you get a million hits per day, doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone is clicking on the advertisements displayed on your website. The fact is that certain types of people click on ads and certain types of people do not. One area that trips up a lot of new writers looking to build an online money making business writing, is that the more technilogically savvy a user group is, the less likely they are to EVER click on an ad.
Think it through.
A techie user most likely abandoned Internet Explorer for a better browser years ago. That same user almost certainly has taken advantage of the more powerful browser’s ability to use extensions by installing those that make surfing the Internet faster and easier. The first plug-in on that list is an ad blocking plugin, which means that not only are technically savvy readers not clicking on Google ads, they are never even seeing them in the first place. This is not good news for those of us who are professional technical freelance writers.
In other words, if you want to make money writing with Google AdSense or any other advertising program, you will need to write about non-technical topics.
I am not the end authority by any means, but I do run about a dozen blogs across about a half-dozen hosts and I upgraded all of the WordPress blogs to WordPress 3.0.1 via the automatic update function available on all WordPress dashboards with no trouble. So, I’m going to give this upgrade my OK.
Of course, always have a backup of your WordPress database and posts before attempting any upgrade just in case your situation differs from mine!
