Verifying Google Authorship
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Feb 24, 2013
Back in October I talked about Google authorship for the first time. If you follow that link, you’ll see an example of what it can do for you, but for those who are new to this concept, it allows for the possibility of people actually seeing your image next to a search term if it comes up during a Google search. If someone knows you it’s even better, but if not they might visit your link just because there’s a picture next to it. It can enhance your online presence greatly… isn’t that pretty cool?
What I’m finding out is that many people aren’t sure how to do it, or haven’t done it. Goodness, I knew about it, yet I figured out yesterday that I hadn’t completed it for all of my blogs; what a moron! I’d have slapped myself if I could have gotten my hands in the right position. lol
In any case, this is a quick tutorial, and the video below, with my Hot Blog Tips Hangout buddies, will talk more about it and its importance, and you can hear me giving this same advice there if you hate reading everything.
First, you have to have a Google Plus profile; without that, none of this will work. Once you have that, or if you already have that, you come back to your blog and, if you have WordPress software as your platform, you go into your User profile. I’m betting that most of you haven’t been there since you created your blogs. You’ll see what’s below, although in a totally different color:
Notice that last category saying Google+? You copy your Google profile About page link into this space. This is what G+ will be looking for when it goes to verify that it’s you. If you have multiple writers on your blog, if you enter this for each of them and they put their profile information in it’ll show them in search results as well.
After you’ve done that, go back to your Google profile and look at your About page. It looks like this:
The email address you have here has to match the email address you have on your blog associated with that blog. If you notice, since I have 5 blogs, I have 5 email addresses. What you don’t see here is the word “verify” next to each email address, since I’ve already done that. You’d click on that word and it will send an email to that address with a link in it. You’d click on that link, then come back to your profile where you’ll see this:
That’s when you know you’re good to go. It can take anywhere from a week to 3 weeks before your image finally shows up next to your content, but the first time you see it will make you happy. And, if you didn’t go back to that other post, know that during a search your image will only come upon the first post you’re found for, even if you’re showing for all the listings. I guess even Google only wants to see us just so much. 
There you go; easy peasy. If you want more, watch the video below; we’re always entertaining:
http://youtu.be/lzP2zFmjL68
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Mitch Mitchell
Posting Times On Social Media?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Aug 29, 2012
I’ve always been someone who has given a lot of thought into when I should have my posts show up on Twitter and on other social media platforms. I really didn’t have anything to go on so I used my own judgment.
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For the last 2 years I’ve had the posts on my blog go live between 9 and 10AM Eastern Standard time. In my way of thinking, it would be the time that most people on the East Coast, where I live, would be alert, probably already at work or have started their working day and have some energy.
Then, later in the evening or early morning, I find myself reposting my links to Twitter, often between midnight and 1AM, trying to reach a second audience that I figure is either on the West Coast or in other countries that might just be coming alert or waking up.
Anyway, these were my preconceived notions. I never had any data. Now I do, as this post on Kissmetrics titled An In-Depth Look at the Science of Twitter Timing was kind of illuminating. In essence, the person who wrote the article found some statistics that pretty much blew my mind.
The article is mainly about Twitter but in my mind if it works on Twitter it probably works on other sites as well. The main thing it stated is that 80% of the American audience on Twitter is in Eastern and Central time zones; that’s just wild! It also stated that based on user patterns, the majority of people who are apt to read and retweet posts do it between noon and 6PM, but that 5PM is the best time of all.
Talk about something that freaked my mind out. I’ve never thought about posting in the afternoon as a strategy. My mind said that’s when people were looking to go home from work and thus would be otherwise engaged. But numbers don’t lie, do they?
What to do, what to do… Well, that’s the blessing of having multiple blogs, isn’t it? Since I have 4 blogs that are the most regular, I’m going to split the times up better so I can do my own testing. I’m not sure as I write this, which is about 2 weeks in advance, of which blogs will post when. I do know that this particular blog’s feed goes out around 7PM every time I write a post, so I’ll have to take that into consideration.
What do you think of some of these stats? And if you’re in other parts of the world, do you think they’ll hold true for you as well?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
3 More Things To Know About In Your WordPress Admin Area
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Feb 25, 2012
For some of you I hear the question now: “Why only 3 more things?” Because if you’ve followed this blog for awhile, or not, you’ll remember that I had my first post in September 2010 on 5 Areas You Should Know More About In Your WordPress Admin Area, followed a month later with 5 More Things To Know About Your WordPress Admin Area and finally 4 Things You Can Do With Your WordPress Blog You Might Not Know Already. Frankly, I think I’ve shared more about the admin area than almost anyone else except WordPress.
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So today I have 3 more things I’ve discovered that you might not know about or haven’t paid any attention to. I have to make sure I’m not copying myself either; let’s see what happens.
1. Did you know that when you’re addressing comments if you hover over a person’s link under their name on the left side that WordPress will bring you an image of their website or blog? That’s pretty neat and it might help you decide if you want to keep the comment or not, deciding that a site might not be one you want to help promote via CommentLuv or through the link to the side if it’s just a website.
2. Did you know that, if you’re running CommentLuv, you can remove the “luv”, if you will, while keeping the comment? I don’t do this often but there are times when I look at the link and decide “no, this thing looks dangerous”, especially in combination with the first tip I just gave you. Of course if you’re like me most of the time you might have decided the comment isn’t worth keeping either in which case just delete it all, but this is another option if the comment seems legit.
3. Did you know that you can install plugins directly from your WordPress menu instead of downloading and then uploading them? All you do is go to Plugins over there and slide down to Add New. Once there, you can type in the entire name of the plugin you want, or if you’re unsure just type in a few words and do a search, and most probably lots of choices will come up with a ranking system from 1 to 5 stars. Much easier and saves time as well.
That’s it. What, you wanted more? Maybe next time! lol
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
Sidebar Toolbars; The Next Scourge Of Blogs And Websites
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 13, 2012
For those of you who are relatively new to this blog, let me tell you something I hate: toolbars. That is, I hate them on websites and on blogs; I don’t mind if you want to have a toolbar on your browser because that’s not getting in my way, although I keep fighting the Google sidebar (a toolbar in its own fashion).
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Of course I just led into my newest gripe; sidebar toolbars. In a rant I wrote last June on things that irritated me about blogs, I commented on these toolbars getting in the way of trying to read a post for a couple of reasons.
One, I like reading things a little larger than the norm. When I increase the size of the font, these toolbars increase as well, and suddenly they’re blocking all the content, making me bring everything down to size again. That’s irritating.
Two, you have your sidebar following me down the side as I try to get into some of your content. Now it’s not only big, but I can’t outrun it; that’s irritating as well.
You know, I get it. You read somewhere that you need to make sure people know how to share your stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, etc. You’ve tried other things and you’re not sure if people are actually seeing these things because you have no idea if your traffic is going up or not. So you’ve figured “hey, if this thing is always in their line of sight, there’s no way they can miss it.
You got that right; what you don’t have right is that now people can’t read your content, and if they’re like me they’ll just leave and, well, so much for anyone sharing anything. And if I don’t like you I’m never coming back; so much for traffic as well. See the image above? That’s what I’m seeing with my text enlarged. Not only did it cover text, but as you can see the bottom part is cut off anyway, so if I’d wanted to share it via the final 3 options it gives me I’d have to reduce my text just to see it.
The funny thing is that what finally prompted this post is that someone I like recently wrote a post talking about how her traffic has dropped, and I can’t read it unless I make everything smaller because there’s this large sidebar toolbar blocking everything on the left side, and no matter where I go it’s there. I’m thinking that can’t help. And no, I’m not naming names; I’ll say something if she sees this post.
Of course, though I’ve been busting on sidebar toolbars, I can’t resist busting on those other little toolbars that follow you as you’re scrolling down a post as well. They’re sometimes on the bottom and sometimes on the top, and the purpose is the same as those moving sidebar toolbars; irritating as sin because it distracts you from reading. At least it distracts me.
I’m seeing these things starting to pop up on news sites as well, and it’s driving me nuts. I know I talked about our reluctance to market ourselves but this isn’t the way to overcome that if you ask me.
Folks, how many times does one have to state the fact that if you have things on your blog that irritates people and it’s not the content that you’re going to drive people away? Toolbars, popups, music playing when you get there, too much flash, people walking out from the side and talking to you (that always freaks me out)… stop it! lol
I know I can’t be alone on this one; speak y’all!
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Mitch Mitchell
29 More Black Social Media Influencers
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Aug 10, 2011
Yup, I’m back again with another list of black social media influencers. Of course, like last time, I have some things to say before I post this list of very qualified people.
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Why 29? The first time I did this I wanted to find 50 people to create my list. However, once I got started I found that the search was more difficult than I had expected it to be, and thus I could only come up with 21. The search was difficult this time around as well, but mainly because I pumped the parameters up a bit.
Once again I had my set of rules, and this time I stuck with them. I used Klout to help me select people and the lowest Klout score I was allowing was 60. Also, every person had to have a blog, and I had a couple of decisions to make about that.
One, About.me isn’t a blog but more of a resume service, if you will, so I excluded those.
Two, I don’t consider Tumblr a blog either. I’ve never seen anyone use it as a blog, but as a place to put a lot of pictures and quick thoughts. Sorry, that’s not really blogging, per se, although a couple of blogs here that deal with fashion have lots of posts that are mainly photographs, but some of their posts are actual posts as well so there’s a differentiation. I also included blog platforms I don’t particularly like, which I did last time as well. However, sticking with my own rules about the types of blogs I won’t subscribe to for new folks, it means some of these folks I only follow on Twitter.
Three, as long as it took me to put this thing together, if I had to go off and research to find out who someone’s real name was or to find a blog, I just wasn’t doing it. This left some folks with really high scores off the list but so be it. I can’t figure out why people won’t put either their websites or blog links on their Twitter page. I did check out business pages looking for blogs if one was listed, but some folks linked to their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter pages. I mean, what the heck, why are you linking to your Twitter page on Twitter? People are already there and see what your Twitter link is! 
Four, no “real” celebrities. That sounds odd on the surface until you see one of the names I put on the list who’s kind of a celebrity and kind of not, at least at this juncture of his life; Hey, I got to make the call, right?
And five, I stuck with my rule about no group blogs. At least I don’t think any of these are group blogs. They can be business blogs, but the idea was to highlight individuals, just like last time.
I will say this. The previous post got a lot of response, and I was happy about that. It was great finally giving a group of people largely ignored some well deserved press. I hope it goes as well this time around but truthfully, I’m expecting it to drop off. That’s too bad, but history shows that the first “Dream Team” always outperforms the second Dream Team, even if the players are just as good. But who knows, since Ileane will probably help push this baby strongly; after all, many of the people on this list are on a list on Twitter she created and talked about in a comment on the previous post, Black Social Media Heroes.
So let’s get to it. Very short descriptions, much shorter than last time, and links to people’s blogs to make it easy for you to get there. And for those of you who know that I normally write my articles very fast, this post took me 4 hours including research. This will be the last time I do a list like this; I’ve hit 50, so now someone else can take up the cause. And, like last time, I’m not going out and telling any of these folks I put them on the list, so I hope some of y’all will let them know; I’m tired! lol
Rohan @365thingstododc 63
Writes about the happenings around Washington D.C.
http://district365.com/
Anise Smith @AniseSmith 73
Writes about online and offline technology
http://anisesmith.com/
Tami Highbaugh @AriesGDIM 70
Writes about graphic design, internet marketing and the internet in general
http://ariesgdim.com/
Baratunde @baratunde 74
He writes about politics and happenings around the world from a comedic point of view
http://www.baratunde.com/
Carolyn Edgar @carolynedgar 68
Writes about her life and opinions as a lawyer
http://carolynedgar.wordpress.com/
Rene Syler @ReneSyler 60
Writes about relationships and life in general
http://www.goodenoughmother.com/
Monique Neeley @InspiredMomma 68
Writes about social media
http://moniqueneeley.com/
Mark Anthony Neal @NewBlackMan 61
Writes about civil rights and diversity issues
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/
Mike Street @streetforce1 61
Writes about entertainment
http://http://greasyguide.com/
Adria Richards @adriarichards 69
Writes about the internet and technology
http://butyoureagirl.com/
Marshawn Evans @marshawnevans 62
Writes about media
http://marshawnevans.com/blog
Patrick Allmond @patrickallmond 68
Writes about search and social media
http://allaboutfocus.com/the-full-blog/#
Elon James White @elonjames 75
Writes about black issues from both a serious and funny angle; creator of videos “This Week In Blackness” on YouTube
http://bccostudios.com/blog/
Candice N. Mackel @CandiceNicolePR 63
Writes about fashion, entertainment, and public relations
http://www.candicenicolepr.com/
Danyelle L. @TheCubicleChick 70
Writes about relationships, pop culture and even HR issues
http://www.thecubiclechick.com/
Kris Cain @LittleTechGirl 67
Writes about technology and lots of cool stuff
http://littletechgirl.com/
Brent Leary @BrentLeary 63
Writes about business & CRM (customer relationship management; had to look that up)
http://crm2.typepad.com/
Kevin Powell @kevin_powell 69
Writes on social issues, and as a sidebar is one of the original Real World folks
http://www.kevinpowell.net/blog/
Sharnell Tull @therealSharnell 63
Writes about music, poetry and art
http://therealsharnell.com/
Charlie Gilkey @CharlieGilkey 64
Writes on business and being successful
http://www.productiveflourishing.com/blog/
Alicia Gibbs @LaFashionChica 64
Writes about fashion
http://www.chica-fashion.com/blog.html
Olivia Brown @OliviaBrown82 61
Writes about entertainment
http://oliviabrown82.blogspot.com/
Jose Vilson @TheJLV 70
Writes about politics, education and race
http://thejosevilson.com/
Kimberly C. Ellis, Ph.D @drgoddess 71
Writes about politics, media and entertainment
http://drgoddess.com/
Miranda Parker Dee @deegospel 62
Writes about literature
http://www.mirandaparker.com/blog/
Douglas Idugboe @douglasi 71
Writes about social media
http://www.smedio.com/
Denene Millner @MyBrownBaby 70
Writes on family issues and black parenting
http://mybrownbaby.com/
Stanford Smith @pushingsocial 63
Writes about blogging and social media
http://pushingsocial.com/
Rosetta Thurman @rosettathurman 68
Writes about nonprofits, leadership & motivation
http://www.rosettathurman.com/
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