March 20th, 2008

QnA - Don’t Be Shy, Ask Some Questions

written by Keith James Lock

I get emails to my inbox with questions about blogs, web sites, affiliate marketing, etc. all the time. I too often click Reply and start answering. I'd like to change that. The questions that I get are likely questions that a lot of people would like answers to. They won't do any good (except to 1 person) buried in my Sent Items folder.

From now on, I'd like you to submit your questions to me in the comments of this post. There is a link to this post in the left sidebar to make it easier to find later. So, submit a comment with your question, subscribe to my full RSS feed (or get updates by email) and you should see a response in the form of a post in no time.

Take a look through the past posts to see the types of things that I generally blog about and you can probably see quickly the topics that I am most capable of submitting answers for. Some of the topics include (but aren't limited to) WordPress, blogging in general, web design and affiliate marketing.

The sort of questions that I usually get are asking for step by step procedures. Well, actually, a lot of the questions are asking me to do the work for them. My responses, that included the necessary steps, were a subtle, polite way of saying "do it yourself, but I'll tell you how".

I don't mind helping people, in fact I love to help people...but now doing it this way, it's easy for you to give something in return. By submitting your questions in this post, I am getting content for my blog. And as we all know, content is important. The answers given, like I said, will be in the form of a post, therefore more content and value to others. After your response is submitted, I ask that you Social Bookmark or spread the word somehow, often it only takes a couple of clicks.

I realize that people are at different stages as far as their skill levels go. When creating step by step procedures I "will try" to follow a simple plan. I will separate major steps with bolded headlines. That way, if you know how to perform the step in the headline, you won't have to read everything in that section. I'll try to write in such a way that is helpful to most everyone but it might not always work out that way, so just use the comments to ask for further clarification.

And, of course, questions specific to an existing post, should obviously be in the comments of that post. This spot is for new questions on things that haven't been covered.

So...go ahead and submit your questions in the comments below. I look forward to helping out.

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22 Responses to “QnA - Don’t Be Shy, Ask Some Questions”

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?)
March 20th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

Hey, Keith, could you show me how to create a Link in Wordpress? Maybe with a screen shot?

Thanks in advance.

Joyce

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?) March 21st, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Hi Joyce, Thanks for submitting a question… here is the response: http://www.keithjameslock.com/links-in-posts

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?) March 27th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

Keith, how do I get a picture from stock.xchng onto my Wordpress blog? Thanks

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?) March 28th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

Hi Joyce, your post is coming up. I’ve never heard of stock.xchng but I’ll write up a post that shows you how to get the pictures from your computer to your posts…I’ll describe general ways to get them to your computer. I’ll let you know when it’s finished. Thanks for the question.

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?) March 28th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Joyce, your response has been posted: http://www.keithjameslock.com/uploading-pictures-to-use-in-posts

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?) April 6th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Wento to my Wordpress Blog, and got a message that there’s a new version, and I should upgrade. Clicked on upgrade, and got a screen asking me if I wanted to Save, or open. what do I do with this? Will I have to do the same for my other Blog? Please tell me what it is I have to do. DUH!! Thanks.

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?)
April 8th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

@Joyce - I wrote a post about upgrading WordPress. You can view it here:
http://www.keithjameslock.com/upgrading-wordpress-to-the-latest-version

Yes, you probably have to do this for all of your WordPress blogs.

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?)
May 15th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Keith. I’ve been studying html. When practicing it all seems so easy. When I go on my blog, do I have to do the “thingy?
I mean there is a special line to put your Title. Would I just have to put <h2……… around the title? Or nothing?
Then, when I go to the body do I hve to start that with:

? And then start?
Or is that all done automatically when I use “code” and not the “Visual”.
I guess I’m the epitome of Newbie-ness.
Thanks, buddy.
Joyce

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?) May 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Keith. Oops, forgot to ask something else. If I decided to write my post in “Visual”, could I switch to “Code” just to put my link in? It seems to come out properly only if I do that in “code” And then, after that can I go back to “Visual”? Thanks

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?)
May 15th, 2008 at 3:12 pm

Hi Joyce….it’s awesome that you are learning HTML! I admire your courage.

The thing with Wordpress and making posts is that you can limit the amount of HTML that you use. For example, the Title of your post when displayed on your site should already be wrapped in the appropriate tags…assuming the theme is SEO proper. But for the most part you won’t have to worry about title tags.

Within your post though you can create subheadings and use h2 (I think) or h3 tags for those. I read somewhere that more than 1 h2 tag on a page is bad but multiple h3’s is OK but I’m not sure.

Also, the skills you learned in HTML, just apply the basic one’s when making posts. For example, if you are comfortable go ahead and make your links with the anchor tags in code view. You can also use strong or bold tags or italics, etc.

Don’t use head tags or body tags though, those are created for you within your theme.

It’s simpler to understand for people transitioning from designing sites with HTML to starting to use Wordpress. It doesn’t hurt however to learn the basics of HTML when using Wordpress but it is designed in such a way where you may never need HTML knowledge at all. Instead of wrapping strong tags around a word to bold it (from code view), for example, you can highlight a word in Visual view and click the Bold button. It will wrap the strong tags around it itself.

As far as changing font attributes (type, size and color) that is usually done with CSS. I know that I’m throwing words at you that you may not understand, you seem to be interested enough in learning this field that it may be helpful.

Here’s what I would do in your case: Solidify your understanding of HTML and practice using Notepad and creating html files on your computer or at http://www.w3schools.com (free education and free practice). Then learn CSS and practice on your computer or at W3Schools.com. Then find ways that this can help you when using Wordpress. (when you are at that point, let me know and I will try to point you in the right direction)

When using advanced HTML in Wordpress posts it is easy to unintentionally alter the look of theme and/or break the site. Wordpress disallows certain HTML tags I believe but the one’s it does allow can still cause damage.

I consider myself to be somewhat advanced in HTML and the only time I really go in Code View is to add tokens for plugins…I don’t really mess with the HTML that much at all. One of the best features that makes Wordpress user friendly is allowing us to create beautiful web sites or blogs without knowing a lick of HTML.

A great way to spend some time is to get to know the buttons in your editor and I think that if you learn the power of those you might reconsider going too deep in the HTML and code rabbit hole.

Come to think of it…I think I know where your desire to learn HTML comes from because I recall you asking about adding different things to your blog…the extra fancier things you may want to add would involve knowing some basics of PHP and editing the theme files. That’s a different can of worms.

With this big long winded comment reply complete maybe I’m better off asking why you want to learn HTML?

Take care Joyce…and thanks for being an active member here!

Comment by Nate (SezWho?)
May 19th, 2008 at 10:08 pm

Some people seem to promote a million different offers, a shotgun approach. This of course seems to take a million different sites with a million different domain names. Do you think that a person could make good money (I mean the kind of money these other people make, let’s call it 5 figures monthly), but dominating just a few niches, say even 2 or 3??? Or is the only way to make TONS of money by promoting all different kinds of chap stick zip submits and debt management email submits and acne treatment free trial submits until you’re blue in the face?

I ask because the idea of coming up with new offers everyday or week seems daunting as opposed to being the guy that dominates a few things that he is good at.

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?)
May 19th, 2008 at 11:52 pm

Good question Nate…You can definitely earn a great living by concentrating on just a few niches, in fact, some would recommend it. It allows you to stay focused and create some long term income. You get to know more about your niche that way as well.

For me..I have a general blog that I slap up some zip and email offers as well as other things. I also create landing pages on the blog with a template that doesn’t have all the bloggy features. It allows me to test some offers out. It’s not the best way to test but it’s definitely better than direct linking in my opinion.

I like these types of blogs also because it generates some unpredictable income. I have got to the point where I pretty much know what I’m going to earn on my bread and butter campaigns on a daily basis but the generic blog gives me some pleasant surprises now and again plus it’s fun when you get sick of looking at your other sites and need a change.

If I could start over, I wouldn’t go further than 1 campaign until it was solid. I would then move up from there because of course you shouldn’t have all your eggs in one basket cause the money faucet can turn off at any time. The thing is though, you’d be surprised at the potential of just one campaign if you milk it for what it’s forth. Do everything in your power to improve on it.

One of the best things that I did in this business was to stop looking at every offer available. I was amazed how much cash comes out of 1 obscure niche and you will be too.

If all you do is Article Marketing for example, you might need more niches to see the potential of just 1 if you apply everything that you know to the 1…On page SEO/Off page SEO/PPC/Link Building/Foreign language etc.

Thanks for the question…hope you are participating in the upcoming contest.

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?)
May 21st, 2008 at 11:33 am

Thanks, buddy. I started looking at html because I just thought it was the thing to do.
Now, you mentioned something about PhP, which immediately caused me to hyperventilate.
And yes, I would like to dress up my blog a bit. I’ll play around with things, and will ask you when I need halp.

Joyce Thorburns last blog post..Want your Questions answered?…….Go to WealthyAffiliate Forum.

Comment by Nate (SezWho?) May 26th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Hey Keith, can you explain what eCPC is, and how it works and why it’s important. Maybe an example with actual or even made up numbers would be great. Thanks.

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?) May 26th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

@Nate - Definitely…Expect a post about it soon…thanks for coming by…

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?) June 24th, 2008 at 9:26 am

Hi Keith, I haven’t been here for a while. I was busy, writing articles, making posts and experimenting with different things. And of course, as I already told you I accidentally deleted all of my posts on “productcommentaries.” OUCH!! They were really not all that good, so I’m in the process of changing them and adding. You mentioned something about CSS for changing colors. I’d been trying to change all the links on my page to blue, using the html “thingy” Well that didn’t work, so I tried to use “change of a block of text: I used it just for the writing after the link, the text they actually get to click on. Well that didn’t work. Of course I hadn’t seen your last answer yet, but found it “later” So, I’ll be off to look at CSS and see if I can find the answer. I’ll let you know how I make out, and might still need an explanation from you. Thanks for all the help so far. I know I’m improving a bit, technically.

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?)
June 24th, 2008 at 9:29 am

Oops, I forgot. Give Maizey a cuddle from her self proclaimed, surrogate Nana.

Joyce Thorburns last blog post..WealthyAffiliate is by far the Best Membership Site.

Comment by Keith James Lock (SezWho?)
June 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Hi Joyce…I’ll give your surrogate granddaughter a “cuddle” right now!

Good luck with the CSS. Remember, in general, the CSS is a global setting. Your theme uses a brownish colour for links right now. You can change it so they are blue but it will affect all (or most) of the links on your blog.

If you want it to just be for some you can create a new class and apply it to the link or use inline CSS for the couple of links you want to change.

After reading a bit about CSS, everything above will make sense. Like with HTML, PHP, etc. W3Schools is a good place to start learning CSS. It allows you to do live tests to see the outcome of your actions.

Comment by Joyce Thorburn (SezWho?)
June 25th, 2008 at 12:31 am

Keith, I*’m using John Gilson’s 44HTML Tutorials. I used http://www.w3schools before and wasn’t comfortable with that. Only the first 21 lessons are free. But that might be enough for now, anyway. At least now I’m getting an idea how those things basically work.
I’ll keep you posted.
Take care.

Joyce Thorburns last blog post..WealthyAffiliate is by far the Best Membership Site.