Google Page Rank gets updated about every three months and recently I noticed one of my blogs had a nice little PR bump from PR4 to PR5. Unfortunately I haven’t been working on this blog much so still no PR. Neither do I plan on working on building back links for this blog so we may never have a Page Rank nor any kind of following. It’s not a big deal as I’m just trying to document my results for selfish purposes.

This brings me to another goal that I can set for myself in the coming months. I’m currently working on 6 different websites and I set some money making goals in a previous post.  One additional goal I’d like to add is the PR rank for all six sites.  At the moment only one site has PR (PR2) all of the other sites are either shells or just domain names and an idea in my head.

My goal for these 6 sites is to have all sites between PR2 – 5 by the end of the year.  That gives me approximately 2 Google Page Rank updates and 7 months to achieve my goal.

My understanding is that the PR update I am talking about is only what is shown in the google toolbar and the actual page rank is always changing based on the dynamic nature of the web.

What about you?  Do you have a Google Page Rank Goal?

These stats are not for this website, but for a conglomoration of websites I am currently working on.

This is my first official month for reporting stats and offering some analysis. Up to this point my biggest concern was generating traffic to my main website not monetization. After about 1 1/2 years of blogging I’m going to start work on monetization and complementary web properties.

Income – May 2009

Adsense = $106.80

Amazon Associates = $12.30

Total Income Earned during May 2009 = $119.10

Not a staggering total, but at least I cleared the hundred dollar mark. I’ve joined several other affiliate and pay per click programs, but until this point I’ve followed the path of least resistance (probably not the best way to make money). However, the good thing is I already have accounts with some of the major programs including Chitika, Clickbank, and Commission Junction. In the coming months we’ll hopefully see some income from these programs as well.

My ultimate goal is to offer products of my own. Hopefully that will come to fruition by years end.

Lets go easy on ourselves and shoot for an income goal of $150 next month as I plan on hopefully seeing an increase in dollar totals on our flagship site, but no income on the other 5 sites..

Subscribers

My subscriber numbers mainly revolve around my newsletter subscribers. For some reason it has been difficult getting RSS subcribers, but I think that may just be the nature of my niche…that is…those who follow my niche are not usually web savvy.

April 30 2009 – 985

May 31 2009 - 1,094

I busted over the thousand subscriber milestone and increased my subscriber count by 109 new subscribers. We’ll keep tracking and lets go with a conservative goal of 150 new subscribers for next month putting us over the 1200 mark. I should be able to get around the same or more subscribers through my flagship site in addition 50 subscribers for my 5 other startup sites shouldn’t be a reach.

Traffic

Site Usage

Visits = 21,133
Page Views = 36,200
Pages/Visit = 1.71

Traffic Sources

Search Engines = 15,747 (74.51%)
Referring Sites = 4,674 (22.11%)
Direct Traffic = 707 (3.35%)
Other = 6 (.03%)

These totals all come from my flagship website and does not include stats from the other 5 sites I’m currently working on. Next months totals will include statistics from all six sites so hopefully we’ll see a good bump in all of these numbers.

Lets shoot for 25,000 visitors and 45,000 page views. That should also bump my Pages/Visit slightly.

Here is my month-by-month comparison chart:

After checking my monthly chart everyone probably thinks I’m a failure….how can you drop in all your stat categories…significantly and consider the month a success. Well, if you look a little deeper into my April stats you’ll notice that I had a bit of an anomaly that month. We had one page that would normally generate no more than 100 visitors receive over 10K visitors. I won’t go into detail, but we happened to be in the right place at the right time notching a huge spike in our traffic.

If we compare this month to March totals then we notice almost identical stats which is pretty good considering I only added 7 posts in May and 3 posts in April.

How did your stats turn out last month?  Do you track your stats on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?

Yep, you heard it right. I’m setting my new years goals right now and we’re almost done with May. Better late then never! I’ve come to realize that it’s important for me to setup a plan. Lately I’ve been just kind of running around with my head cut off. That plan starts here on the Bloggers Project pages.

I think my biggest hurdle right now is information overload, and reading, but not acting upon all the great (and not so great) information on the internet.

For openers I’ve been wanting to accomplish several things on the internet and start my own little internet empire…moohaaaahaaa…

Current state of the Koala Kingdom

1. I’ve started a fairly successful blog in my niche that draws in about 1000 visitors a day.
2. I own several domain names in said niche and wish to develop each into a stand-alone website.
3. The sites I wish to develop are:
   1. Blog in the Niche – developed and going strong
   2. Blog in the sub niche – partially developed and needs daily articles
   3. Second blog in the sub niche – Undeveloped
   4. Membership Website – Undeveloped, but currently attending a highly regarded online course about membership sites.
   5. Static Service related website with blog to keep content fresh – Undeveloped
   6. Database Driven Website – Undeveloped and will require outsourcing

Instead of setting goals I think I’ll create a timeline. My end goal is to launch the membership site by November 10th, 2009

• May 21-31, 2009 – my goal for today is to work on developing blogs number 2 and 3. Put together at least 1 article for blogs 1, 2, and 3. Create a list of top 100 bloggers in my niche and start forming relationships. Create a list of top 5 forums in my niche and start networking and creating relationships.
• May 22, 2009 – May 25, 2009 – Memorial weekend I’m playing in a hockey tournament, but I’m bringing my laptop so all is not lost. Don’t expect much to get done during this time period.
• May 26,2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• May 27, 2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• May 28, 2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• May 29, 2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• May 30, 2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• May 31, 2009 – Write articles for blogs 1-3. Continue development on blogs 2,3.
• June 1, 2009 – Finish development on blogs 2 and 3 including all pages completed and at least 5 articles
• July 1, 2009 – Start creating content for Membership site,
  • start list of beta testers for membership site
  • start membership site design and development
• August 1, 2009 - Launch membership site for beta testers
• September 1, 2009
• October 1, 2009 – Complete first 3 months of content for Membership site
• November 3, 2009 – Begin Membership Site Pre-Launch
• November 17, 2009 - Launch Membership Site
• December 1, 2009 – Membership site maintenance
• January 1, 2009 – Begin work on Service and Database driven sites.

The Koala Kingdom Goals

• 20-30 hours a week into the Koala Kingdom – possibly more if I feel I’m coming up short on deadlines
• End of year goals – complete membership site and blogs 1-3. Service and Database Driven sites are secondary for now and at the latest should be complete by the middle of 2010.
• Create a list of goals and accomplishments on the 1st of every month to keep on schedule.
• Create a day by day timeline using calendar software at the start of every month.
• Read less do more!

Some other Random Goals

Sorry if this doesn’t make sense to you. Unfortunately, this is something I wanted to write for myself to prioritze and organize my thoughts. Now moving forward may I suggest adding a timeline to Google Calendar or maybe the Zoho Calendar.

That brings me to a question that I’m sure others have asked before me Zoho or Google? I’ll see I’ve I can answer that in an upcoming post.

Is there a Google AdSense Bug going around?  I don’t about you guys, but yesterday I noticed my page impressions in Google AdSense were spiking (too bad my click through wasn’t doing the same).  I figured…”another spike from StumbleUpon”, but upon further analysis I noticed that my channel numbers did not add up to my total page impressions.  In fact I had approximately twice as many page impressions as I should have had according to my channels.

I dug a little deeper and took a peek at my Google Analytics data and sure enough I had way more page impressions according to Google AdSense compared to Analytics.  One final test…my AWStats.  AWStats were also at a normal level leading me to believe that there was an issue with Google AdSense.

Google AdSense Bug?

My initial thought was that someone copied some of my pages and pasted it into their own site Google AdSense code and all thus accounting for my increased page impression number.  I did some research and sure enough came across a few forums mentioning this possibility.  Hmmm…time to contact Google and let them know that trouble is afoot?  Nope…time for more research.  I went to the Google site and while looking for a contact form I came across AdSense Help.  I searched the forum and found that people were having a similar problem in a thread started yesterday.  Here’s the thread I came across: Unusual Page Impressions.

People in the forum are calling it a Google AdSense Bug, but I don’t think anyone is really sure what we’re experiencing.  My main concern was that someone scraped my publisher ID and I was afraid of a Google Ban.  However, if it’s a Bug or Google just making changes to the way they report AdSense statistics then I’m not really concerned.

How about you?  Is anyone else experiencing this phenomena?  Is this a Google Adsense Bug or something else?  If you know what’s going on or have any theories please let us know in the comment section below.

Is it too late for New Years Resolutions?  I’ve known for years the importance of networking and building relationships after all I did work in sales for four years.  However, knowing the importance of something and acting on it are two completely different things.

So starting today I’m going to work on networking and building relationships.  I’m the shy type, but I figure as long as I put this down in words I’ll start changing my actions.

Why Networking And Building Relationships Is Important

There are many reasons, but I just want to point out the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head.

• I look at the success of Linkin and think about the connections and relationships made there.  Today’s connection can lead to tomorrows job.
• I see Joint Ventures all the time.  If I don’t build relationships there will never be a joint venture.
• I’m not a natural when it comes to building relationships, but I do meet people through friends and sports teams.  Recently I’ve come into contact with three contract jobs and some possible volunteer work.  That’s without trying…imagine the kind of work I could get if I set my mind to building relationships.
• People you trust are more likely to give you work.  This might be a bad example, but I recently heard that a local school district were bidding for a new payroll system.  Unfortunately, they received a system that didn’t cover there needs and required a lot of work to get working properly.  Why did they choose such a poor fit for their new payroll system?  Someone had built an existing relationship with one of the decision makers and made millions on the sale of their payroll system.
• Another point I’ve noticed and you can ask this of yourself.  Who gets the job?  The best qualified?   From what I’ve seen the best qualified doesn’t usually get the job, but the person who knows or has a relationship with the boss.

I know there are many other important reasons for building relationships, but for some reason the points listed above have been really standing out in my head.  Please feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think and please add to the list.

How I Plan on Networking And Building Relationships

Offline

• Just be more friendly with people
• Work on remembering the names of new people I meet.
• Engage people in conversation
• Attend more social outings

Online

• Blogs – Use a commenting strategy to make a connection with key bloggers.
• Forums – Respond to relevant posts and add to the conversation and make contact with key members.
• Websites – Make contact with key website owners

This is a great start, but I also know the importance of organizing and tracking the people you meet.  For now, I’m going to test out Zoho CRM and see if that will suit my needs.  After a thorough testing period I’ll add my thoughts on Zoho CRM.

Anyways, this is just another rant and something I was thinking about today.  Let me know what you think and please add to the conversation and start building a relationship today!

I’ve been managing websites for years manually changing the copyright date as each year passed by and surprisingly this is the first year I thought about how to automatically update my WordPress copyright date.  It’s a very easy process and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it sooner.  All you have to do is take your WordPress footer include page and replace the copyright year with a little piece of PHP code.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

How To Automatically Update Your WordPress Copyright Date

1. Log in to your WordPress Blog
2. Click the Appearance Hyperlink in the left navigation bar.  This will bring you to the Appearance page and also expand the Appearance dropdown.
3. Click the Editor Hyperlink under the Appearance drop down.  This will take you to the edit themes page.
4. In the right navigation you will see your theme files.  Depending on your theme these files may differer, but all themes should have a file named Footer (footer.inc).  Click this hyperlnk to open the file in the theme editor window.
5. As I mentioned everyone will have a different theme and the contents of your Footer file will most likely be different then mine.  However, if you have either a static (meaning you’ll see the actual date like “2008″)  copyright date then you need to change this to a dynamic (meaning depending on the year the date will programmatically change to the current year) copyright date.
6. You can automatically update your WordPress copyright date by adding the following code instead of the current year you see in your footer.inc file.
7. Delete the year (for instance “2008″).  Replace the year with <?php echo date(“Y”) ?>
8. Click Update File

*Note – depending on your theme you may not have a copyright date or your copyright date may already be automated.  To verify your copyright date just take a look at the bottom of your blog and make sure you see the current year.  If you’d like to add a copyright date just follow the same steps as above and add the following code where you’d like to see the copyright date:

Copyright &copy; <?php echo date(“Y”) ?>

That’s it!  Now you no longer have to worry about updating the copyright date in your future years of blogging.  It may seem trivial, but the copyright date is something I usually remember to update around February.

I always try to keep my blogs up to date and up until now I’ve used the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin.  A great little plugin that simplified the WordPress upgrade process.  Recently WordPress has added automatic upgrade functionality as a standard feature.

WordPress Automatic Upgrade Fatal Error

Today I was going about my daily blogging business and noticed that WordPress 2.7.1 was available.  I attempted to use the built in automatic upgrade and received the following error:

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class pclzip in /home/mysite/public_html/wp-admin/includes/class-pclzip.php on line 171

Here’s what I did to try and fix my problem:

1. I decided to try my handy WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin instead, but it informed me that I was already up to date (even though I wasn’t).
2. I next tried upgrading one of my newer blogs.  It upgraded just fine without fail.
3. I did a little research on the internet and found that my faithful WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin was causing the problem.
4. I went to my plugins panel, deactivated WordPress Automatic Upgrade, and attempted the built in Automatic upgrade.
5. It worked like a charm!

Now my blogs are all upgraded to WordPress 2.7.1.  One final note: I also read that if you do not have the WPAU plugin and you are experiencing this problem you might try disabling all your plugins then try the built in autaomatic upgrade again.

As a new blogger one of the most basic things you need to know and master is how to install a WordPress theme.  It’s not too difficult and not too technical, but you do need to have a few skills already mastered.  If you can browse the web and you have basic windows navigation skills then installing a WordPress theme should be no problem for you.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

How To Install A WordPress Theme

I’m going to assume that you found the WordPress theme of your dreams and have already downloaded the zip file…the adventure begins…

UPLOADING YOUR WORDPRESS THEME

1. Most (if not all) WordPress themes can be downloaded in a zip file.  The first thing you need to do is extract the contents from your zip file.
2. The process for unzipping a file may vary slightly depending on your “zip program”.  I usually just double click (open) the zip file and drag the contents from the zip file to my desktop.  There are other ways to extract contents from a zip file and hopefully you already have this skilled mastered.

1. The next step is to upload your extracted file to your web server.
2. Have you used FTP (File Transfer Protocol) before?  If so, use your FTP program to upload your extracted zip file to the following directory: /public_html/yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes
3. If you don’t know what FTP is then I have an easy way for you to upload files to your web server…that is as long as your web host uses cPanel…if your host doesn’t use cPanel then your shit out of luck…kidding…just contact me and I’ll do my best to walk you through FTPing your files.
4. Access your cPanel by going to http://yourdomainname.com/cpanel.  For this blog it would be http://www.bloggersproject.com/cpanel.
5. Enter your username and password – by the way, if you don’t normally access your cPanel here you need to know your 8 letter login name.  My account uses the first 8 letters in my domain name for instance, “bloggers” would be my domain name.  If you know how to access your cPanel through your host’s front page then access it there and look at the upper left corner of your cPanel home page under stats you’ll see your username.
6. Click on the little Unlimited FTP button (grouped under “Files”).  This runs a little Java program that allows you to use FTP inside your browser.  If you don’t have Java installed then you’ll need to take care of that now

1. You should be looking at two file directories now.  The left one has your local computer file directory and probably looks similar to what you see when you use windows explorer.  The directory on the right side is your web server directory.
2. Navigate through your file directory (left side) and find your extracted zip file.
3. Navigate through your web server directory (right side) to the following location: /public_html/yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes
4. Now just use your mouse to drag the extracted zip file to the directory mentioned above on your web server.

ACTIVATING YOUR WORDPRESS THEME

1. Go to your WordPress blog admin panel: http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
2. Enter your username and password.
3. Click the Appearance hyperlink in the left navigation.
4. Click the Themes hyperlink under the Appearance drop down in the left navigation.
5. The themes window should open and you should see an image of your new theme
6. Click the image or hyperlink with your theme name.

1. This will open a lightbox popup with your new theme (this is a sample of your site).  Click “Activate” ThemeName in the upper right corner.
2. Test your blog by going to your live website/blog.

That’s it!  Lots of little steps that should get you up in running in no time.  Of course there are always little snafu’s so if you’re having a problem feel free to contact me in the comments area below.

What do Google Analytics and Mark McGwire have in common? Yeah, I know it’s a question only a nerd would know or even want an answer to.

So, why am I even pondering such a question. Well, I was reading Google Analytics 2.0 and I came across this short paragraph about Mark McGwire that really caught my attention in light of the recent allegations from his brother about his steroid usage.

Here’s what I read:

…Comparing what a good analytics package does to what a good site-stats package does is like having Mark McGwire bat right before the Little Leagues’s MVP. One could be kind and say it’s a Major League to Little League comparison, or like putting a man next to a boy, but the truth is that analytics are like site stats on steroids.

This quote was in reference to AWStats and Google Analytics. Obviously Google Analytics is Mark McGwire in this analogy and the author is getting his little jab in on his thoughts on Mark McGwire’s steroid usage.

Anyways, if you’re a nerd like me then I just thought you’d find this humorous as well.

If you want to learn more about Google Analytics check out:

The other day I was sitting, listening to the news on the radio or television, hearing all about the bailout/economic stimulus package and how it was approved by the Senate and blahblahblah….the rest just kind of drowned out into oblivion except for the number a trillion dollars.  I’m not sure why I heard that number or why it stuck in my head, the “economic stimulus bill” is for $838 billion…not too shy of the magical one trillion dollars.

What Is A Trillion Dollars?

I know one trillion is a big number, but the real reason it caught my attention was because I was reading about numbers the other day and the article I saw was trying to put one trillion dollars in perspective.

So, what is a trillion dollars?

1. A Trillion Dollars = $1,000,000,000,000.
2. A Trillion Dollars is a one with 12 zeros to the left of the decimal point.
3. A Trillion Dollars is a million million dollars.
4. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from Earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills.
5. One trillion would be enough to buy about a thousand boxes of Girl Scout cookies for every person in the US.
6. A trillion barrels of oil would – at current consumption levels – fuel the world for about 33 years

source: npr.org

…and the article I was reading:

Let’s say you came up with a great business idea about the time Jesus of Nazareth was born. And let’s say that business made one million dollars every day, day-in and day-out, 365 days a year from that point forward.

You wouldn’t earn a trillion dollars until October of 2737. – source: Teaching Sells.

So when you hear about bail outs, economic stimulus packages, and other government spendings remember What Is A Trillion Dollars?