Changing blog themes may have unintentional consequences

August 22, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 3 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, WordPress 

A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted my blog themes to be simpler and cleaner, so I switched from the theme I was using on two of my blogs to the one I’m now using on this one and on John Dilbeck And Friends. Currently, I’m using the Revolution Code Blue theme by Brian Gardner. If you’re interested, there’s a link in the footer to the theme.

I decided that I wanted the content in a large left column and the widgets in the right column. Since I put a lot of stuff in the right column (recent posts, recent comments, top commentator, links to affiliate sites, links to other blogs, several RSS feeds, and a few more things), I decided to have two right columns.

I still haven’t decided if I like how it’s set-up yet, or not. I may be changing things in the next few days.

Installing and activating the theme was easy, but then I had to spend a couple of hours adjusting the widgets to where I wanted them and modifying a few of them.

I think blogs are inherently difficult to navigate, so I wanted to make sure I had easy-to-find links to the pages, recent posts, and recent comments. That took only a few moments to set up.

Then, I left to do other things that really needed doing, like resting and taking naps.

In the interim, I was talking to a friend on Facebook about his new blog and how I thought it was hard to navigate. The only way to find other posts was to go to the home page and scroll down.

I wrote and suggested that he add at least the recent posts and comments, especially if he wanted to foster conversations on what he wrote via comments. I also suggested that he have “breadcrumbs” at the top and bottom of his posts that would point to previous and next posts.

Today, I came back and looked at both blogs where I’d changed the theme and noticed that they no longer had the breadcrumb navigation links. That’s when I realized that they were part of the coding of the previous theme I’d been using and it wasn’t included in this one.

So, I did some digging on another blog that still uses the previous theme and found the code to add the breadcrumbs to this and the other blog.

When I did it, it looked horrible. There was overlapping between the navigation links and the Title of the blog post. So, I had to spend some time modifying the CSS code so everything would look okay.

While I was at it, I decided to put the Adsense ads back at the top and bottom of each post. I’ll give it a month or so and see how it produces. If it’s profitable on these blogs, I’ll leave them. If not, poof, they’ll be deleted.

So, while it took only a few minutes to change the theme, it has taken five or six hours of tweaking and adjusting to get it to what I want, and I’ve only seen them in Safari on Macs, so far.

I had some good reasons for changing the themes, but I really didn’t expect it to take this much work to get them back to where I wanted them.

Just as I was about to call it completed for now, I noticed that the new theme was showing all the pages on this blog in a horizontal navigation bar right below the header, and then obscuring most of them. I didn’t like how that looked and I didn’t like that it showed some of the pages that weren’t the most important right below the header.

So, I took a few minutes and removed the code that automatically generated the list of pages and replaced it with hard links to what I consider to be the most important pages that should be shown in that part of the navigation menu. It was easy to do, but I almost didn’t see it.

I wonder what else I haven’t noticed, yet.

Have you had any interesting experiences when changing the theme of your blog(s)? Are you using free or premium themes? Do you have any advice to offer your fellow bloggers?

Act on your dream!

JD

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That was not my last post to 21st Century Affiliate Marketing

August 20, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 9 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Facebook, John Dilbeck, Musings 

Surprise! I’m back. (grin)

Apparently, the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, and it looks like that applies to this blog, too.

I came close to dying back in March, and things weren’t looking too good in May, either.

I’m happy to tell you that I’m getting better. I have a long way to go before I’m fully recovered, but I’m making substantial progress.

I wrote what I thought would be the last post to this blog in the middle of May, 2010. Since then, there have been some significant events in my life.

On April 1, 2010, my friend and surgeon resected my intestines, removed my gall bladder, and removed an 8-lb colon cancer. He was surprised to find the tumor in one large contained mass, rather than spread throughout my abdomen. That was a very lucky break.

Other, relatively minor surgeries followed.

A PET scan showed that I had suspicious spots in both thyroid glands and in the right lobe of my liver.

A biopsy of each thryoid gland showed that the growths were benign, not cancer. Happy dance!

A biopsy of the tumor in my liver showed it was benign. Happy dance!

However, a radiologist on the oncology team that would be doing the procedure on my liver called me at home from his vacation and said the biopsy report on my liver had to be wrong. He had seen the scans (two of them) and knew from the look and the growth that it was cancer. He didn’t want to rain on my parade, but he said — emphatically — that I should get the biopsy redone, and he would do it himself, if I wanted. I talked it over with my daughter and decided to have the biopsy redone. Dr. Moore did it using a slightly different technique and was right. It was colon cancer that had metastasized to my liver. At least, we knew it was something that had to be dealt with, as soon as possible.

In July, 2010, I went to Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, and Dr. Moore performed a radio frequency ablation of the tumor in my liver. It is good that I was a good candidate for this, because traditional surgery on the right lobe of the liver is a very serious operation. Basically, what he did was this: insert three needles (that are connected to a radio frequency generator) into my liver so that they surround the tumor. Turn on the generator to cook the tumor (think of this as a microwave oven).

Because of the size of the tumor, he had to use three needles and the results looked good on the ultrasound right after the procedure.

I went for a CT scan and checkup with Dr. Moore earlier this week and got the good news. There is no sign of cancer in my liver, the “cooked” portion completely enveloped the tumor and some surrounding tissue, and there are no signs of bleeding complications. Very good news, indeed.

So, now the surgical interventions are all done and I’m on my second round (of 24 total) of chemotherapy treatments.

Now, instead of expecting to die from this (as it looked back in March), we’re working together to cure it. That’s a huge change in expectations and perspective in only three months.

I’m a long way from being my old self. I’m tired all the time and have trouble thinking straight, but I’m definitely improving.

So, instead of closing this blog, I’ve updated it to the latest version of WordPress, changed the theme, and spruced it up for another few years of talking about affiliate marketing.

I will not be posting as often as I did previously, but this blog is not going to just sit here, either. I will definitely be putting more effort into building evergreen, content-rich, hierarchically-organized websites than I will into blogging, but both have a part to play in my marketing plans.

I want to thank everyone who sent me their encouragement and support in the comments here, on my Facebook profile, and in email and phone calls. It meant a lot, and still does. I think your outpouring of support, encouragement, and prayers is one of the major reasons that I’m looking forward to conquering this cancer, instead of being its victim.

So, that’s enough about me. Let’s get back to talking about affiliate marketing.

(Now, I have to remember how I added that subscribe via email form on this blog. Scratching head…)

Act on your dream!

JD

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This is my last post to 21st Century Affiliate Marketing

May 14, 2010 by John Dilbeck · 17 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, John Dilbeck, Marketing, Success and Failure 

Before I say anything else, I want to thank all of you who have been regular readers and who have made this blog better by sharing your thoughts and comments with all of us. You know who you are.

This is the last post to this blog and I will be shutting it down in the next few days or weeks, as I have the time and energy. I’m closing my marketing business and I’m out of affiliate marketing.

It’s amazing how much of a difference two months can make in one’s life.

Two months ago, I went to the emergency room because I could not get out of bed. After 7 units of blood, I felt a bit stronger, but that lead to the discovery of colon cancer, which was followed shortly after with intestinal surgery, gall bladder removal, and today I learned that I need surgery for cancer in my liver and a biopsy for possible cancer in one of my thyroid glands.

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be putting my energy into kicking these cancers’ butts. I don’t intend to let them beat me, but you never know.

I don’t know for sure what will happen to this domain name. If you’re a regular reader and contributor to this blog, I’m willing to listen to your ideas.

It’s been a wild ride for the last several years, and I’m sad to see the ride coming to an end.

I plan to continue posting (now and then) to JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com and to my Facebook account at facebook.com/johndilbeck .

Thanks for reading, contributing, and making affiliate marketing just a bit more interesting as we shared ideas and thoughts about the subject.

Continued success to you.

All the best,

JD

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I will be moving away from blogging in 2010

December 19, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 18 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Sitesell and Site Build It 

I enjoy blogging and I’ve been doing this for a long time, back before the words weblog and blog were even coined.

This is the last year where blogging will be part of my marketing plan, however.

The plain truth is that blogging hasn’t been worth the time and effort in terms of receiving an income from all I’ve done. So, since I’m going to be concentrating on increasing my revenue next year, I’m going to focus almost entirely on what works for me and I’m dropping what hasn’t been fruitful.

There is a good chance that this blog won’t be here a year from now.

I’m turning my attention back to what does work for me – what pays the bills – and another thing I enjoy, which is building static, hierarchical websites focused on particular topics.

I’ve been building websites since shortly after the introduction of the world wide web and I have used lots of different tools to build sites that attract visitors and earn money from sponsorships, advertising, affiliate sales, and in other ways.

One site, that I’ve sadly neglected because of health issues that have interfered, still earns more in one month than all my blogs earn in an entire year — and I haven’t done much to that site at all in the last year.

That should be a lesson to me. Concentrate on what’s working and stop playing with all the shiny red balls that bounce by.

I enjoy blogging

I enjoy blogging and the social aspects of commenting on other blogs. These discussions have been fun and I’ve met some great people around the world as a result.

But, let’s face it. We talk to each other, but we don’t buy from each other. You don’t buy from me and I don’t buy from you. That’s the bottom line when it comes to a marketing business.

I’m still going to follow blogs and bloggers that I like and I’ll still have something to say now and then when Mitch or AussieSire, or several others I enjoy reading, writes something of interest, but I’m not going to spend nearly the time and effort that I have in the past on my own blogs.

I don’t like being poor

My goal in having an online marketing business is to earn a good living at it, not just barely get by.

This has been an unusually hard year for me, but that’s the way life happens. I’m hoping that it was just the bottom of a bad cycle and that things will start moving upwards, soon.

That’s another reason to concentrate on what’s working.

The majority of my income this year has been from a brand new site I started back in July when I had to replace the affiliate income I lost.

I’ve been playing around with promoting my adopted home town and the people and organizations here, but I turned that into a business this year when I launched Murphy Gold and its companion social networking site at Murphy Connections.

This is a more-traditional business structure.

Local business owners pay me to promote them and I write about the products and services they offer and other things they do throughout the year, such as special events.

Over time, even in a small town like Murphy, NC, this can be profitable.

Now that I have all the infrastructure in place, it’s time to hunker down and focus on that.

So, you’ll see less of me here. I’ll still drop in on your blogs now and then and I’m following some of them in email and RSS, but I won’t be saying much, unless you write something that really captures my interest and I think my comment may add value to what you’re saying.

This answers my question: WordPress or SBI?

I can clearly show on my profit and loss statement that SBI delivers much more income and more visitors who actually buy something than all of my blogs put together.

SBI takes less work, doesn’t have to be updated every time I turn around, and now with Content 2 being available to all of us who power our sites with Site Build It, it gives me an easy way to let others write pages for the site and comment on them.

That adds the social aspect to SBI sites that I’ve enjoyed on blogs.

So, there you have it.

I’ve been promoting SBI for years and telling you how much I love it, so I’m going to go back to using it and rebuilding my online marketing business.

Blogging has been a fun experiment.

Act on your dream!

JD

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New Comments Policy

November 4, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 10 Comments
Filed under: Blogging 

(This is a follow-up to my post about comments: Why do I accept or delete comments?)

Today, I adopted a new Comments Policy for this blog.

It’s pretty straightforward and in line with things I’ve said before. I don’t think any regular reader of this site will be surprised.

It all boils down to a few simple principles: I want to know who you are, don’t use keywords in your comment link, play nice in this sandbox, and add to the discussion.

Starting today, no matter how good your comment is, if you use keywords in the link, *poof*, it’s gone. Deleted.

Use your name. I only want to talk to real people. If you don’t like that, please leave and go elsewhere, preferably offline.

Add to the discussion. The only reason I have comments active here is because I want to hear your view on the topic. I want to share what I know and learn from others.

If you want to leave a comment here, read the policy.

And, again, I want to thank all the other people who leave thoughtful, informed comments that add to the discussions and help us all increase our knowledge and skills.

Good discussions bring a blog to life and I’m very happy that there are some great people adding to the quality of this site. Thank you.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Twitter Tools is not tweeting about new blog posts

November 3, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 16 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Twitter, WordPress 

I just noticed that Twitter Tools, a plug-in that I’ve come to rely upon, is not tweeting about my new blog posts.

In fact, it appears that it hasn’t been working for the last couple of weeks.

I’ve been using Twitter Tools for some time on several of my blogs and have come to rely upon it. I wonder what’s happened.

One more thing to look into and see if I can fix.

What about you?

Do you use Twitter Tools? Is it working for you?

Act on your dream!

JD

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How do the new FTC guidelines affect affiliate marketing?

October 6, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 15 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Opinions 

Yesterday, October 5, 2009, the FTC published their final guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. This ruling will affect celebrities, bloggers, testimonial advertisements, and probably more.

The press release is here:

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

The actual guidelines are in a pdf file that I have tried to download several times, but, so far, have only been able to get a portion of it.

The actual guidelines are described as:

16 C.F.R. Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising: Notice Announcing Adoption of Revised Guides

They are available as a pdf file:

Text of the Federal Register notice

As I said, previously, I have not been able to read these new rules, yet, so I’m just wondering out loud at the moment.

How does this affect affiliate marketers?

Are blog posts with affiliate links covered under these new guidelines? How?

(Disclaimer: I am not now or ever have been a lawyer. I do not give legal advice. I don’t even play a lawyer on TV or the Internet.)

I can read from the press release that anyone who is posting sponsored articles to their blog will be affected. Since I don’t do that, I haven’t given the ramifications much thought.

I almost never receive a freebie in return for writing a review, but I have no problem disclosing that fact when it happens.

Most of us would never fall under the label of “celebrity” and never get paid huge sums of money to endorse a product on a talk show or in social media, but if you do, now you have to disclose that fact.

Still, how does this affect bloggers who are affiliate marketers?

Does every link have to be disclosed as a possible money-making link?

Will it be enough to add a few lines to our disclosures page?

Are we even covered by the new guidelines?

What about you?

Will these new FTC guidelines affect how you run your business and how you advertise and market products and services?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Why do I accept or delete comments?

October 2, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 11 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Musings 

Even though I have had little to say on this blog for the last month or so, I’ve been here reading the comments that have been submitted, and I’m sad to say that the great majority of them have been deleted. Some have been submitted to Askimet as spam.

I don’t like doing that.

I deliberately set up this blog to follow comment links and I think that’s fair if you’re going to take the time to contribute to our discussions.

However, the word “contribute” is the key word in that sentence.

A one sentence response telling me I’m doing a good job just isn’t contributing to the conversation, and I delete those. I’ve deleted several dozen of these non-helpful comments over the last month.

Trying to spam this blog with off-topic comments, especially when they link to sites I’d never link to, is a good way to get sent to the spam page where your comments will be deleted and reported to Askimet.

If you want me to approve your comment and welcome you, then there are several things you should do.

Tell me who you are.

Either use your name as the link back to your blog or sign the comment with your name. Preferably first and last name.

A marginal comment with a name in the link and the comment will generally be approved.

However, if you use keywords or the name of your site in your link, that’s one strike against you.

If you don’t use your name in the link and don’t sign your comment, that’s a second strike against you.

If your comment is marginal and you have two strikes against you, I’ll delete it. This isn’t baseball, so I don’t have to wait for three strikes.

On the other hand, even if you have two strikes against you and your comment is relevant, useful, and adds to the conversation, I will usually approve it.

I like talking to real people, not keywords and not site names.

I’m going to be even more strict about this in the future.

As much as I enjoy discussing these topics, I hate not knowing to whom I am talking.

There are other reasons I would delete a comment, but I don’t feel a need to go into all of them here.

Once I get back on track to where I feel like I can add information related to affiliate marketing, I’ll resume posting here.

I’ll be looking forward to your comments and discussions, as long as you are a real person who treats me like a real person, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Thank you, Mitch

September 2, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 10 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Musings 

I want to take a moment and thank my friend, Mitch, for the very kind words about me on his Blog Day 2009 post.

I also want to thank him for introducing me to the Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online. I have a feeling that reading what Marelisa has to say will become one of my favorite early morning activities. It’s nice to find someone who thinks about a lot of the same things I do, but expresses her thoughts much better. She’s not even afraid of writing a long post! ;)

Thanks, Mitch. You’ve been kind and expanded my world at the same time. I appreciate it.

Act on your dream!

JD

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What can Twittorati do for bloggers who are not in the top 100?

July 31, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Twitter, Web Services 

I received an email this morning from Technorati telling me about a new service they have just introduced: Twittorati.

It combines the top bloggers with Twitter and currently ranks the top 100 blogs, as welll as tweets and tags.

I find it interesting to have a list of the top 100 blogs and there are a few that I’ve never seen before, so eventually, I’ll look at them and see what I can learn.

They say that other blogs will be added in the future. I wonder what Twittorati can do for those of us who aren’t even close to being in the top 100.

I haven’t had time to think about this, yet, but wanted to pass the word along and see what you think about this new service.

Act on your dream!

JD

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