[Journal/Method/spoonfeed] The 'Crashed Challenge' 30 Days to Money...

Great thread. I've got around 100 UVs so far (it's the second day I'm into the challenge). Still waiting to be accepted by MaxBounty, but have done all the rest, except one.

When I try to login to Twit It Away, I get an "application error". Could crashed look into this? Thanks.
 
I've noticed that my "categories" are only appearing underneath posts, does anyone know how I can add them permanently onto every page? So visitors (when I actually get some lol, just starting Day 2) can browse posts by category easily?

Thanks
 
I've noticed that my "categories" are only appearing underneath posts, does anyone know how I can add them permanently onto every page? So visitors (when I actually get some lol, just starting Day 2) can browse posts by category easily?

Thanks

Hi Dodge, You should be able to add categories to your sidebar (depending on which Theme you're using). Go into "Appearance"... "Widgets", and then drag and drop whatever widget you want (in this case "Categories") over into the Sidebar area on the right of the screen.

Alternatively, (and this is a bit more complex, but fun to play around with)... You can create a sort of drop-down top bar effect (so it looks more like a 'proper website' and not just a generic blog), simply by putting each post onto separate pages & subpages. In my opinion it can look more professional and (maybe) easier for readers to navigate.

HOWEVER, I suspect it may affect the way in which Google sees each post (because you wouldn't have every post going onto the same 'page', and therefore wouldn't get the linear effect of an ongoing chain of blog posts). I'm really not sure whether this would make a scrap of difference from an SEO point of view - probably not, as the important thing is to have fresh content going onto your site every day, and as I said, I tend to think it looks more 'professional' and 'authoritative' (depending on your subject manner).

It would probably mean that you can't schedule future posts in quite the same way as with a conventional blog, and it probably means straying away from Crashed's blueprint slightly.... BUT if you want to have a play, try this: (You can always backtrack later)...

(1) Go into your Wordpress dashboard and click "Pages"..."Add New"
(2) For the sake of this example, I'll call the new page "Ice Cream Sculptures"... Write a quick dummy article & save the page.

Depending on your theme, the title of your new page should show up in your top bar index thingy alongside "Blog"... "About"... etc.

(3) Now add another page, but this time we'll make it a subpage of "Ice Cream Sculptures". I'll call it: "Great Ice Cream Sculptors of the 18th Century"...

(4) Now before 'publishing' this page, look at the right hand side of your dashboard, and you'll see a section entitled "PAGE ATTRIBUTES". This is where we will make it into a subpage of the previous page.
Where it says "Parent... (no parent)", click there and select the PREVIOUS page we created ("Ice Cream Sculptures"), and 'save'/'publish'.

Now, when you look at your site, you will still see "Ice Cream Sculptures" as one of the options on the top bar. When you hover your cursor over it, it should open up a drop down list of whatever posts you have allocated to 'subpages' of that parent category. ("Great Sculptors of the 18th Century", and any other similar pages you might have created in the same way). You can rearrange the order of these drop-down sublists in the Page Attributes menu, and can even create sub-sublists, so it creates a sort of nested menu effect.

As I said, this might not tie in exactly with what Crashed has in mind, and I've no idea precisely what impact it might have on Google rankings etc, but since we're not primarily concerned with SEO, it seems sensible to me to try and make your site look the way you want it to.

Hope this makes sense...
 
Hi Dodge, You should be able to add categories to your sidebar (depending on which Theme you're using). Go into "Appearance"... "Widgets", and then drag and drop whatever widget you want (in this case "Categories") over into the Sidebar area on the right of the screen.

Alternatively, (and this is a bit more complex, but fun to play around with)... You can create a sort of drop-down top bar effect (so it looks more like a 'proper website' and not just a generic blog), simply by putting each post onto separate pages & subpages. In my opinion it can look more professional and (maybe) easier for readers to navigate.

HOWEVER, I suspect it may affect the way in which Google sees each post (because you wouldn't have every post going onto the same 'page', and therefore wouldn't get the linear effect of an ongoing chain of blog posts). I'm really not sure whether this would make a scrap of difference from an SEO point of view - probably not, as the important thing is to have fresh content going onto your site every day, and as I said, I tend to think it looks more 'professional' and 'authoritative' (depending on your subject manner).

It would probably mean that you can't schedule future posts in quite the same way as with a conventional blog, and it probably means straying away from Crashed's blueprint slightly.... BUT if you want to have a play, try this: (You can always backtrack later)...

(1) Go into your Wordpress dashboard and click "Pages"..."Add New"
(2) For the sake of this example, I'll call the new page "Ice Cream Sculptures"... Write a quick dummy article & save the page.

Depending on your theme, the title of your new page should show up in your top bar index thingy alongside "Blog"... "About"... etc.

(3) Now add another page, but this time we'll make it a subpage of "Ice Cream Sculptures". I'll call it: "Great Ice Cream Sculptors of the 18th Century"...

(4) Now before 'publishing' this page, look at the right hand side of your dashboard, and you'll see a section entitled "PAGE ATTRIBUTES". This is where we will make it into a subpage of the previous page.
Where it says "Parent... (no parent)", click there and select the PREVIOUS page we created ("Ice Cream Sculptures"), and 'save'/'publish'.

Now, when you look at your site, you will still see "Ice Cream Sculptures" as one of the options on the top bar. When you hover your cursor over it, it should open up a drop down list of whatever posts you have allocated to 'subpages' of that parent category. ("Great Sculptors of the 18th Century", and any other similar pages you might have created in the same way). You can rearrange the order of these drop-down sublists in the Page Attributes menu, and can even create sub-sublists, so it creates a sort of nested menu effect.

As I said, this might not tie in exactly with what Crashed has in mind, and I've no idea precisely what impact it might have on Google rankings etc, but since we're not primarily concerned with SEO, it seems sensible to me to try and make your site look the way you want it to.

Hope this makes sense...
Wow thanks for that! Appreciate the effort gone in :)

I'm about to start writing my 5 articles for Day 2, so will take a look and play around with this later.

I know I'm behind most of you guys, but hopefully after I've done these articles I can start catching up!
 
At the moment, I am just creating unique articles for my niche and then I will start Day 0. My Paypal got limited the day I wanted to take action, so I am completely stuck right now, haha. Still looking for some way to pay for my domain and hosting.

*Though, if someone can spot me the cash needed, I will return them 2x their investment if this goes through. Which, I'm sure it will.
 
Hello, I would like to know if this gonna work if I will be using a free co.cc domain or a blogspot blog?

Cheers,
Nick
 
My apology if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but when do you plan to start your backlink building, social media bookmarking, etc?
 
Is it just me, or is the latest day, day 16? :p

Yes, Day 16 is the most recent update. Things have slowed down a bit during July, presumably because Crashed is busy. He's already given a ton of great advice though and plenty of ideas to run with. Have faith, young Derviie - I'm sure our non-Guru will return...

BTW, It's much easier to follow the individual steps if you go to "CrashedChallenge.info", rather than hunting back through this massive thread.
 
Last edited:
Okay so just on Day 7 (skipped ahead because I have posts scheduled for the next 5 days anyway and will do the next 25 over the weekend!) and I wondered, rather than using SocialOomph would it perhaps be better and easier to use something like http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-to-twitter/? So each time you post to your WP it automatically tweets a link and custom message too?

Would appreciate peoples thoughts on this!
 
No, the reason for social oomp is so that you can schedule other more random tweets in between your post tweets to make your twitter look less like a feed and more personal...
 
This might seem like a silly question, but seeing as we're all using essentially the same text for our Privacy Policy (via the plugin Crashed recommended), wouldn't that page count as 'duplicate content'?

Is it wise to spin the wording a bit, or am I being unnecessarily fussy?
 
Quick hint for people who are keen to play around with alternate layouts, and don't want to mess up their main blog.

If your hosting package allows multiple MySQL databases (most will, but the more basic ones may not), then you could create a "test dummy version" of your main blog, for experimental purposes.

Let's say your domain is at "MyAmazingBlog.com", and your main moneymaking blog is located in the root. You could install a second instance of Wordpress in a subfolder (eg. "MyAmazingBlog.com/Experimental") and have a spare copy of your blog there, where you can test out new layouts or all those fancy alternate plugins which look so appealing, without any risk of damaging your main page or scaring away your hard-earned visitors.

By going into "Settings - Privacy" on your 'test blog', you can select "Block Search Engines" so that your wilder experiments don't end up going public and messing up your reputation.

Just thought I'd mention it, as it took me a while to realise that you could do this without using a totally separate domain to host it on.
 
This might seem like a silly question, but seeing as we're all using essentially the same text for our Privacy Policy (via the plugin Crashed recommended), wouldn't that page count as 'duplicate content'?

Is it wise to spin the wording a bit, or am I being unnecessarily fussy?

It's unnecessary since it's a Privacy Policy. It's not "content" per say.
 
It's unnecessary since it's a Privacy Policy. It's not "content" per say.

Cheers Marc. Obviously it's not a copyright issue or anything like that - I was just unsure whether Google's bots would blindly detect it as "duplicate", but I'm sure many perfectly legitimate sites have roughly identical privacy policy blurb. Thanks again for clarifying. :)
 
yeeeessss!!!! a few minutes ago i have been calling :callyou: by Valerie (MaxBounty manager) and guess what?! you must be know the answer! yes, i'm getting an approval to be a member of MaxBounty.

it's just fast approval, I contact her in AIM and have a little chat a few minutes later Val call me, and again a few minutes later my account has approved

Thanks a lot Val:You_Rock_

FYI: for someone here that doesn't know how to contact Valerie this her AIM valhmaxbounty
 
Last edited:
This might seem like a silly question, but seeing as we're all using essentially the same text for our Privacy Policy (via the plugin Crashed recommended), wouldn't that page count as 'duplicate content'?

Is it wise to spin the wording a bit, or am I being unnecessarily fussy?

With the privacy policy it is a requirement for google adsense, required by UK law and by federal goverment in the USA.

It is not duplicate content as your email, site name etc are all unique in it. Also as its a footer link and clearly shown as privacy policy google will not really rank you on it...

And anyways, who doing the challenge wants to rank for privacy policy? :P
 
Back
Top