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Using Catalyst Theme To Build An Authority Site

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The original title of this site, when it was on blogger, was building an online income one website at a time.  I figured I’d need about 100 websites.  I’ve hung onto the niche website model for longer than most. I may well go back to it. But at the moment I feel like I’m swimming against the tide too much, and I’ve decided to build an authority site – just to see what happens – oh and to make lots and lots of money (of course)!  I’ve already have one authority site – this one – but I built it my accident, I want to build this one deliberately.  As  Regev asked a question in my last Catalyst Theme Review  I thought it was time to add a bit to that earlier review – by describing how I used the theme’s flexibility allowed me to achieve what  I want to do now, and how I can evolve the site  to what I want in the future, without a complete re-design.  The Two Main Types of Travel Readers  In my view, there are basically two types of people who read travel articles, be they blog posts or magazines:  armchair travellers, those reading about [...] Read more »

Catalyst as a Post Page Associator Alternative

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I’ve used Post page associator plugin for a while. Its a handy plugin which allowed you to do what it says on the pack; add a list of your posts in a certain category, at the bottom of the page. I used it here for example.  However the developer has been under criticism for included a “please donate”  large ad on your main dashboard if you hadn’t paid – in fact I had give a donation – but I was buggered if I was going to donate for EACH blog I used it on – so I found the advertising a little annoying.  There was toys tossed in the WordPress forums though, some users found the nag VERY annoying,- and the developer has taken his toys home – or in this case made the plugin paid only (and quite expensive at that). Free Option: List Category Posts Plugin  You’ll find this plugin if you search on the install plugins page. It works – you add a short code somewhere in a page where you want the listing of posts to occur – and it does. Now there are a bunch of options, but making it look pretty involved php and [...] Read more »

Catalyst Theme Review

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Yup its all changed around here again! Well not the content just he look and feel (ie if you are reading this via RSS – click thru !). I had hoped that going from Thesis to Frugal would be my last major change.  However Eric Hamm -the guy who created Frugal – upgraded the product so much – it now has a new name – Frugal is now Catalyst ! Catalyst actually came out just before I took off for a 2 month overseas trip with a 10″ netbook – netbook are good for lots of things but doing site design is not one of them! When I got back I had a look at Catalyst and upgraded some of my niche sites with it. I liked it – but it didn’t have Frugal’s easy to install front page – with a wide choice of widgets. So I  didn’t upgrade this site. Then back in February Catalyst upgraded to 1.1 – and YES now there are EZI Widgets – which allows a flexible front page – like Frugal’s – but with even more options! Still I hesitated – this site is a pain – it has a number of different [...] Read more »

Catalyst Theme and SEO Options

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From time to time I mention the theme I like de jour – but my most abiding love affair with a theme is Frugal Theme – now replaced with Catalyst Theme – and I like them both! (Well sort of replaced I haven’t got around to doing this site yet – its still in the “not broken – haven’t fixed it yet”) pile. But with the release of Catalyst v1.1 I am pretty darn impressed and even WordPress 3.1 is appearing to be stable enough to upgrade to – so here’s my first Catalyst Theme Tutorial. So how is Catalyst for SEO – well its pretty good – its flexible, it won’t do it for you – but you can set and forget it. First if you are already using a plugin such as All-In-One-SEO or Platinum SEO – then you can keep on using them, they play happily with Catalyst 1.1. However if you are starting a new site – you can probably skip the plugins and just use Catalyst’s built in SEO. Once you’ve installed Catalyst and the Dynamik child theme – you will have a Catalyst Sub Menu on your main WordPress menu and under that three [...] Read more »

Can’t Integrate Adsense and Analytics? FINALLY SOLVED

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Unbelievable! I am doing OK with Adsense. And I am not stupid technically, and I’m a woman so I can follow  instructions. I have several degrees, and  I can connect a TV to a digital box and a DVD player, I can waltz..   But I have never ever  been able to integrate my Adsense and Analytics account until today. I have followed the standard instructions, I tried them again, I have changed themes,   I have deleted and reinserted code ad nausaeum, I’ve used plugins for WordPress – nothing bloody worked! If you have never tried to integrate your Google Analytics and Adsense accounts – you will probably get directed – to this page and if you have multiple domains running Adsense and a single Analytics account this is the relevant part of the page: This scenario is for people who want to track more than one website in their Google Analytics account. For each website, you may have one or more profile assigned to it. On the ‘Getting Started’ page, you’re prompted to select either ‘Create my free Google Analytics account’ or ‘I already have a Google Analytics account. Please link it to this AdSense account.’ Select the [...] Read more »

Free On-Page SEO Tutorial – Using Your Keywords In Your Site

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OK so this is part 2 of my free on-page SEO tutorial last time we talking about what is a keyword – today I’m going to tell you what to do with that keyword – now you’ve found it.  So let’s say -your site is about – oh I dunno – websites for small business maybe? Ideally – if I wanted a site completely focussed on websites for small business I would do the following: I would  try to get the exact domain name match e.g. websitesforsmallbusiness.com (or net or org) – there is definitely a bias from Google in favour of exact match domains (this does not extend to .info, .ws. .biz .co or any other extension). In this case those domains are unavailable and I wanted to focus the site on a particular country, so I went with the .co.nz extension. I would include the keywords I was targetting in the  blog’s title – sometimes you can’t get, didn’t get, didn’t think before you established a website – so end up with a stupid domain name e.g. lissowerbutts.com – but you can still target a totally different keyword by using the title tag. Ideally though I’d have had an exact match domain [...] Read more »

Frugal Theme Review – Frugal and Thesis Themes Compared

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I've been running Chris Pearson's Thesis Theme on this site for over six months. By the time you read this post I will have switched over to a new theme called Frugal Theme - by Eric Hann. This is the why I made the switch. Read more »

Passive Income Online – Now Running Frugal Theme!

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Update April 2011 – I have updated the theme again – Frugal became Catalyst – which is a really, really turbo charged version of Frugal -which I got a free upgrade to as an existing customer. To read more about Catalyst check out my Catalyst review Hi all – if you click thru and get your  yourself onto the actual site – you will see some stuff has changed around here! I am still getting the  edges smoothed off but Passive Income Online has had a spring clean and  is now running the Frugal Theme by Eric Hamm. I have a (very) long post coming out in the next few days describing why I decided to move away from Thesis ( a theme I’d already paid for) and install Thesis Frugal – this is the short version in case anyone happened to notice (or care) about what happened around here. In case you have already forgotten: this was this site running Thesis 1.7: After a bit of practice with Frugal (I’ve owned if for a couple of weeks) I took the deep breath and installed it here. Out of the box – i.e. just after I hit activate after uploading [...] Read more »

What is a Long Tail Keyword? Keyword Identification for the New and Clueless

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What is a keyword – or more specifically what is a long tail keyword phrase -  caused me endless confusion when I first began. I totally didn’t get it – that’s why products like Scribe SEO exist – to prey on beginner’s confusion. That’s unacceptable in my view – so here is the information that you need about keywords. Its here for free, you don’t have to sign up for any membership site or even a one off payment. There are heaps of erudite SEO expert posts on keywords out there – this isn’t one of them. Instead this is an attempt to take it back down to basics – stick with me because I want to start to with a real world business example – and then we will move onto niche sites and blogs. Keywords For a Service Business I’m going to tell you how to do it for free. Lets assume you offer house washing services – purely because I am in the market for the same at the moment. Now I may search for “house washing” now this gives me a mixture of results including DIY articles on how to wash my house down and news [...] Read more »

WordPress Themes – Should I Pay for a WordPress Theme?

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I’m a fan of WordPress – this blog actually started off on blogger a very long time a go – but I go so frustrated with their technical limitations I moved Passive Income over to self-hosted WordPress and never looked back. WordPress is free and of course there are approximately a zillion free WordPress themes around but I have now spent money on three different options for paid wordpress themes – given that I don’t like spending money – you might well ask why? Two reasons really – support and re-saleability (is that a word ?). I’ll explain. I had this particular blog on a free theme but the down side with WordPress is that it gets updated regularly – way too regularly sometimes. Its settled down recently but at one stage they were realising updates every week or so. These updates are usually to fix security holes so you ignore them at you peril. The problem that arises of course is that the update sometimes breaks the theme, or maybe its the updated plugins you are using are broken – anyway you can spend many unhappy hours trying to fix the support. And with free themes you get the [...] Read more »

I Upgraded to WordPress Thesis Theme

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OK all you lurkers in the RSS feed – get over here to the Passive Income blog and check out the cool new renovation! Yes I haven’t been doing nothing much over the weekend – but decided to have a fiddle with the look of the blog and finally get around to installing a new WordPress theme  – Thesis. Now if you have been living under a rock you may not have heard of Thesis – but otherwise you will have heard the a-listers – starting with CopyBlogger and ProBlogger telling you that thesis was the best thing since sliced bread – oh and here’s my affiliate link to buy thesis. So in the passive income tradition – here’s my warts and all review. Its all entirely my own opinion, yes I do get a commission if you buy via my link, and no I don’t think everyone should rush out and buy it just to keep me rolling in online passive income! What I like About WordPress Thesis Theme it costs. Yes that’s right I like that because I really wanted a theme which has ongoing support – and I think this one has got the initial customer base [...] Read more »