I just finished working on this piano music site just the other day:

It is actually a Wordpress blog that is made to look like a website. The blog is just a subset of the design:

The site is not exactly new. This was its past design.

The site owner, Michelle, decided to host this site on Bluehost to save on paying for the $20 per month. The Bluehost package that she had taken allowed her to create as many blogs as she like to have. She included this one with her existing set of blogs in Bluehost to take advantage of the deal.

Since this site advertises professional piano services, I had decided to adapt a clean classy look for it. At one point I had considered black or even a combination of red and gray, but I decided to settle on browns and yellows.

The template was customized from the header to the background. I had also changed the RSS icons and the individual “bullet” icons at the sidebar. I’ve configured this one so that the sidebar appears only when the blog section is clicked by the visitor.

Under its hood, I had added a number of Wordpress plugins for the site, such as the sideblog, Google sitemap generator and a number of useful plugins to catch spam and allow cache on the site.

Here is the working site: http://www.strictlypiano.com

I suddenly remembered my new good-looking online friend, Jaypee. I was busy these past few days because I had some outsourcing job to do.  As I had announced in my previous post entry, Jaypee provided me the hosting space for this blog. He also made it easier for me to learn Wordpress by sharing what he already knows about this stuff.

He had been a lot of help and yet he was still inviting me to his Christmas Giveaway contest - well this is my first time ever to join a blog contest, really!

Although the contest had been announced last November, I was able to blog about it this very last day. As I’ve said, I got knocked off from the net, then I had to catch up on everyone. Just recently, I had accepted an outsourcing job that would make up for the lost money-making opportunity when I was offline.

I am particularly interested in any of the prizes that are offered - really. I’m falling in love with self-hosted Wordpress and all the power that comes with it. Sadly, Jaypee doesn’t want to give all the prizes for one person. Well, I still hope luck smiles on me on this New Year.

• 3 Revolution Two Pro Plus Memberships (each worth $149.95) - courtesy of Brian Gardner
• 2 Mimbo Pro Single-License Copies (each worth $89.99) - courtesy of Darren Hoyt
• 2 FlexxTheme Single-Use Copies (each worth $79.95) - courtesy of Cory Miller
• 1 WP-Member Plugin Ten-Site License (worth $67.87) - courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 3 WP-Member Plugin Five-Site Licenses (each worth $44.78) - courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 5 WP-Member Plugin Single-Site Licenses (each worth $27.13) - courtesy of WP-Member.com
• 2 Elegant Themes Membership Licenses (each worth $19.95) - courtesy of Nick Roach

As I am writing this, I am three hours  hours from the contest deadline which is December 30, 2008 midnight US Pacific time. If you happen to read this post, have a self-Wordpress blog and want a chance to upgrade to a new look this New Year, then hurry up (like me) and join this one!

Let’s not also forget the sponsors of this wonderful contest:

1. Revolution Two WordPress Themes
2. Pro Theme Design
3. iThemes Premium WordPress Themes
4. WP Member - Advanced WordPress Membership Plugin
5. Elegant Themes - Premium WordPress Themes

Hey guys! I’m back, and with a bang. I hope you notice the new look of this site, but that is not the only thing that you’ll see here. The Lady Programmer is now on self-hosted Wordpress!

new look on a new home

A good thing to have this Christmas, and just in time for me to realize that I have just turned to be a one-year old blogger!

I was so so very very happy to be given this push by Jaypee, a interesting Plurker behind the blog JaypeeOnline. He offered me the chance to move from Blogger platform to Wordpress. As I prepared my blog weeks before, he had helped me with some things that he already know about setting up a self-hosted Wordpress blog.

I did the header and took a fitting theme and made more changes. I have also decided to change my Entrecard widget while I modified the theme extensively. I still have some few loose ends left, but I think this blog is now ready.

I hope you like the new look!

Don’t miss this!

By the way, Jaypee is now having a grand Christmas give-away with prizes worth more than 1,000+. The contest is up to December 30, 2008.

You’ve probably noticed that there is no obvious change in this blog’s template. A few days after I had published the announcement that I am going for my own template design, an angel was suddenly sent down from heaven to help me grow my blog. I would not be putting much detail on what this sudden change is all about. For now, I’m sorry to disappoint everyone, but chances are, I’ll still be using a free template. However, the change is much different - and more exciting - than sporting a new look.

I promise.

Oh, I still hope everybody is still checking me out. I have not visited you guys for a while. I do blogging as a part time work right now so I don’t get to update all my blogs and I find myself running out of time to promote my stuff. But I will find another effective way to make up for the lost time.

I miss you guys.

I am not yet done with this blog’s redesign. Anyway, I just made a quick drop to inform all of you about contest. Here’s one that will appeal to those who are into those geeky programming stuff like me:

Are you the next XML superstar?

This contest is being made to raise familiarity in XQuery, XML and DB2. It is open to all students, professionals and hobbyists. It is even divided into five separate tracks, which is based on the skill level of the individual. Enter into one, or enter all of them and get bigger chances of grabbing the top prizes.

The video mania is probably the easiest way to participate and grab a prize, which is actually in the form of a Nintendo Wii. However, if you want to get the most attractive prices in the form of an iPod Nano, an IBM overseas lab trip or an iPhone, then a contestant must challenge himself or herself by participating in programming contests.

If you think you are now up to this challenge, then take part now in this IDUG contest, help raise awareness, boost your programming skills and win a prize. Be sure to check out the website for the detailed mechanics of this contest.

UPDATE: Application for EC advertising are disabled temporarily.

When I start to see that this blog looks ugly whenever I need to post or respond to comments, I know that there is something that I had to do:

I need to change this blog’s template - ASAP!

When I first dressed up this blog with this coffee theme, I thought that design was cool. But of course this coffee theme is freely offered around the web. As I began to promote this blog, I keep on seeing more and more blogs sporting the same look. This might be a big coincidence, though!

Now I need to take the time off from posting to work on the back end. This will even include rewriting the “about” page and optimizing this page for on-page SEO (as far as this blogger blog can go). I know that SEO-ing this blog is not as great as those Wordpress blogs, but I believe I am not yet ready to move to that platform.

Unlike the other two blogs, this time, I prefer not to use the free templates offered around the web. I am going for a creation that comes out from my mind. It’ll be the first time that I do this, but the first two custom designing that I did for the other two blogs are enough for me to go for the custom design that I really wanted.

After all, my blog’s title should be a reflection of my career, and so a custom template design should be in place.

I will still be updating the other two blogs regularly while I work on this. It’ll just be this blog where I’ll be posting less.

One of the first things I did with Twitter was to announce what I am working on. As I use Twitter more often, I noted that many bloggers had been using it to promote their blog posts. Like many of these enlightened bloggers I followed what they had been doing and began to announce my post as soon as I hit the publish button. I even got Twhirl installed to help me manage and post out tweets.

What makes me visit and reply to your tweet? Of course the message has to be interesting enough.

• You are one of the first few to blog or announce breaking news.
• You have written those posts like “how to”, “top ten” and other catchy titles similar to the title of this post.
• You always have other articles, videos and pictures to share other than your own blog posts.
• You have an opportunity to offer that make some money or other similar incentive.
• You really interact with people by sending replies.
• You ask help.
• You ask questions.
• You’re not too obvious in announcing a new blog post.
• You post out status updates on what you’re doing, thinking and feeling - without being negative.
• You love to spread the positive attitude around and easily relate to everyone by simple greetings.

I had noticed that most of the people I am following on Twitter often start their tweets with the words “new blog post”. With the Twitter population growing, I think “new blog post” is fast becoming an outdated style of promoting a blog. Being creative and interactive is must! Most of those tweets that belong to the reasons would get me scurrying out to check your blog post.

Of course, that’s what attracts me in using Twitter. I might be on a lonely planet where everyone does not agree with me.

Don’t forget to join me in Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ladyprogrammer

I got “busy” updating other social networks which had made me not to update this post often. I even removed EC dropping from my daily routine.

The brief blogging absence made me realize that I had to define priorities in what I need to accomplish each day. I had to remove some of the tasks to make way for other activities that I need to do. This means I had to drop ECs less and even post out content less frequently.

I need to keep up with other social networks.

and plurk: http://www.plurk.com/ladyprogrammer

I don’t just submit my own content on Digg and StumbleUpon. I had to grow a profile that looks interesting, particularly on StumbleUpon. As I do this, I had to communicate with others at Plurk and Twitter. I plurk and tweet the best content from this blog and the other making money online blog.

Plus learn SEO too.

I had mentioned previously that there are freelance SEO skills is always sought in many web design jobs. Many clients are now finding people who can optimize their sites for search engines.

Here are some job offers found in various freelance sites:

• Web designer and SEO optimization
  Need assistance updating current eCommerce website selling childrens products.  Need images optimized for website.  Need current webpages re-designed (using pappashop webhost interface) to new design parameters.  Need site optimized for search engine.
• Landing Page Specialist
  Create themed, siloed websites for specific keywords.
  Knowledge of creating landing pages that comply to Google Adwords Quality quality standards.
• Search Engine Optimization and Backlinking
  I am in need of SEO of my website. I am looking for someone to go through my website and update the PHP code with:
  1.  Keywords.  You can come up with a list and I can also give you the keywords.
  2.  Metatags.
  3.  Description.
  4. Create backlinks
  5.  Submit to search engines.
  6.  Link building

Not every trained programmer and web designer came out of school armed with an idea of what search engine optimization is. I met a lot of IT personnel who had no idea what good SEO can really do to their company websites.

I’ve done a series of posts about paid blogging sites. I hope you did not miss any of these past posts:

• Earn by Doing Paid Reviews with PayPerPost
• Make Money Doing Paid Reviews with SponsoredReviews
• SocialSpark: A Paid Review Site with a Social Networking Twist 
• Other Sites That Lets You Earn Money From Blogging 

All of these cover how a blogger can earn from simply doing paid posts. Of course, these are not the only ways to earn from blogs. There are also other means like affiliate marketing, ad networks like Google Adsense and selling links. The last post on other sites that lets you earn money from blogging simply covers other paid review sites.

Disadvantage of Page Rank Loss

One downside to accepting paid reviews is that these blogs are prone to Google pagerank loss. To be accurate, Google is NOT against all paid reviews; Google penalizes links that have no “rel=nofollow” code. So far, SocialSpark is the only place where I can fully retain pagerank while doing sponsored posts, because their posts always require the use of “rel=nofollow” code.

I had been a firsthand witness of this. I was doing paid posts with SocialSpark then I suddenly hit PR3. Now I’m back to zero because I had accepted “dofollow” paid posts.

Matt Cutts, a high ranked employee of Google, had approved the way things are SocialSpark. Don’t believe me? You can read all about it in this IZEA post.

Unfortunately, props was not given to PPP. I guess everyone knows the issue about PPP bloggers getting spanked by Google. I strongly believe that PPP bloggers are not the only ones that get affected but any blogger that does sponsored posts with no “rel=nofollow” code on links.