The Internet is based on cooperation and reciprocity. When you link to another web site, be as nice as possible:

• Mention the web site name if possible – no typos please
• Include a link not only an URL
• Keep the link in a readable position (in the post body, in normal text size)

In short: “Link as you would like to be linked.”

Technorati has quickly become the reference in blog tracking. Technorati users are exposed to blogs that have been claimed bytheir owner. Open an account on Technorati, go to the blogs tab and start the claim process. It may be as easy as getting the code, creating a claim post, informing Technorati, then removing the claim post. Mere seconds.

You may want to monopolize your visitors’ attention. But the fact is that they are also living out of your web site. One of the best way to stay in touch is to identify where they go. And be there. You’re supposed to share a lot with them, so it shouldn’t be a burden.

In my case, for YLovePhoto.com, I am spending pleasant time and energy in RedBubble and Flickr which are obvious hubs of Internet quality-oriented photographers.

Most blogging softwares give you the choice between RSS feeds providing the full contents of your posts or some sort of limited extract. While big time bloggers may wish to avoid loosing readers to their feed, most of us normal people should merely help our most technically-inclined visitors get the maximum from the RSS feed.

So, make sure that you publish full feeds. And if, later, you perceive some small loss, think about the fact that those visitors are the most influential ones (bringing a lot of other ones). Then, maybe, you will want to include a low level of advertising with the help of something like Feedburner and Google Adsense.

The feeds to your blog are a great way to keep visitors coming back to your site. Make sure that your RSS feed button is placed prominently: I suggest 2 strategic locations, one at the top of the editorial section, one in the footer of the page (they will be easy, but out of the way). To that, add another link/button just after the last words of each individual article (to catch the eye of the reader before he/she leaves).

In any case, always use the standard logo, since readers will be looking for it, and it catches the eye.

Also, make sure that the HTML headers of your pages point to your site RSS feed: It ensures that RSS-aware browsers like Opera or Firefox will find/recognize it.

Here is the example extracted from this real web site:

Easy to follow to get the following RSS orange icon in the address bar of your visitors browser.

It’s time to upgrade your WordPress blog or web site, to warm up the FTP link and to shiver with consequences. The first consequence will be a set of new features, some of them quite useful:

• A new code editor with syntax coloring and some documentation. It won’t visible to most users, but it is my preferred interface to format properly the HTML code of my posts
• A class generator to handle the BODY tag
• Faster
• Easier theme installation
• Special RSS thread generation function
• Improvements to the admin interface (slicker and more options)

On my own, I started to upgrade all of my web sites. It takes quite some time, but it’s not hard:

• Security backup
• Download and install
• Database upgrade (this is offered by the software itself)

Easy!

You may want to think that your best work is the most recent one, but visitors disagree and made some posts as most popular either by page views or comment count. Since those may be far from the front page make it simpler to jump to them by adding a list of these to your sidebar or menu, with one of the popularity-oriented plugins.

When you look for images, you often want to find pictures not only based on a keyword, but find something similar to one of the results shown. Live Search and Google offer such technologies.

YLovePhoto describes such image seach engines based on similarity.

Useful to populate your web site with exactly the right image/picture/photo content.

A sizeable part of your traffic will always come from the exterior (search engines, StumbleUpon, Digg). It is important to convince them that they arrived in a great web site. One easy way is to show them what other interesting things they could find around. Just use one of the many plugins that find and display “related posts” (posts that have the bigger chance to keep them reading and coming back later for more). Show such a list near the end of your best posts (or all of them).