New Post - new blog layout - new everything!

[indy107]

The new blog layout is coming along nicely (I think). So here's a
real life test to see if everything works for you. Play with it. Let
me know what you find. Even the feeds are probably different. Please
try out the commenting too.

Michael Jackson's Real Life Thriller?

http://magicofbelieving.com/supernatural/54-real-life-thriller

[Boreas]

I think it works well Chuck. The ads work well with it too. I have
been thinking lately how ads can really make a site look high traffic
and professional. Only thing I would say is to move the donate box
down to the bottom and not the top, since seeing it right away makes
me wonder if your website is a non-profit of some kind...

[Sean Bissell]

Chuck,

For some reason I don't see that post, it gives me a 404 error.

But in my hunting I noticed that your site has no Page Rank.

If you haven't been getting much traffic, or wondering why you haven't been ranking for keywords you want...

Page Rank is a huge factor.

How do you get page rank?

Well lots of it has to do with the links you get back to your site, and what page rank they have.

If I were you, I'd find some keywords you really want (do some reading on keyword research first if you haven't already) and find some high volume & low competition keywords.

Then build links back to your site with the *anchor text* as your keywords you want to rank for.

Anchor text is whatever the link says that you click on.

The code for "Magic of believing" would be something like this

If you've ever wondered what the <a href="http://www.magicofbelieving.com>magic of believing</a> can do for you, then check out this site...

See how it encapsulates "magic of believing" <---- that's a signal to Google that you're relevant for that search phrase.

So you want relevant links to your desired keywords + lots of back links to build relevancy and Page Rank.

Hope that helps,
-Sean

[chuck]

Thanks for the info Sean, and sorry about the link.....

Right after I posted the article, I noticed that annoying '54' in the
URL, which is Joomla's item ID. I downloaded a SEF plugin to rewrite my
URLs and of course that changed the link.

You're right, I have no page rank. In a 1 year period, from 7-1-08 to
7-1-09 my search engine traffic was 1%. I had lots of links back to my
site but still no search engine traffic. Hence why I switched
platforms. In just one week I am listed on google's first page - wait
let me check - ok #7 today - have been #1 and #2 consistently :-)

According to Analytics my search engine traffic - for just one week -
7-1-09 to 7-9-09 is now 22%.

I think there was something buried within my old site, I blame the
template, but it could have been an accumulation of things I did wrong,
that was causing my problem.

So I started completely over. Besides, I was discovering that most
Wordpress sites, especially using the free templates, look exactly the
same. I wanted to stand out, create a fresh look, and make it possible
for more people to find me. I think I accomplished all that in just 1
week's time.

Thanks for the hint on relative links though. I will change my
signature links in the forums I frequent to reflect that.

Overall - do you like the redesign?

chuck