Google +1 Button Page

Here you will find the Google + 1 button page, which showcases the buttons different sizes and basic installation information.

The official Google information about the +1 button

How to add the Google +1 Button to a WordPress site

Step 1: Add a Line of JavaScript to Your Theme Files

The +1 button tool page lays out what webmasters need to add to their website. For users who have a standard XHTML website (or are using Tumblr), copying and pasting

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script> before the </body> tag

on a website works just fine. WordPress users, however, will need to add that snippet to their theme files.

WordPress Footer Editor, Google +1 Button

Simply Go to the Appearances section in the WordPress dashboard and select “editor.” Then find the footer.php file in your template listing. Scan through the file until you see the area marked

</body>

, then paste in the JavaScript line.

Hit update and you’re ready for step two!

Step 2: Add a Button to Your Sidebar

After the JavaScript snippet has been added to your website, users can paste the wherever they want a button to appear. Using the +1 button tool, you can configure the button size and include other advanced options.

Another common use for the +1 button, besides on individual blog posts, will likely be in sidebar widgets on a homepage. This can act as a nice, generic hub for +1 activity.

To add the +1 button to a sidebar in WordPress (assuming your theme supports sidebars), simply go to the Appearances section in the Dashboard and select “Widgets.”

We’ll assume that you want to create a new widget for the +1 button, but other sidebar widgets can also be customized to display the button.

WordPress Widget, Google +1 Button

Drag a new “Text” widget to the sidebar location of your choice. You can add a header if you want, or you can leave it blank. In the text portion, paste the button configuration you want using the +1 button page. The standard code is

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

You can choose how you want the button to align itself using HTML or referring to CSS classes from your stylesheet.

Additional Tips

At this point, we’ve successfully added the +1 button to a WordPress website. Users can add the button to individual posts by entering the button code in the body of a post, or add it in automatically by adding a line to the WordPress loop in the post.php and loop.php theme templates.

Here are a few things you might want to take into consideration when using the +1 button on your site:

By default, the button doesn’t have a URL parameter set. Instead, the JavaScript will crawl your page and make its best guess for the URL that you are liking. If you want to specifically ask users to +1 a certain URL, add

[code]href="http://example.com"[/code]

to the button’s tag. For instance, if I wanted to add a +1 button that reported to Mashable, this is the code I would use:

<g:plusone href=”http://mashable.com”></g:plusone>

For sites with the popular Bad Behavior WordPress plugin it can interfere with the +1 button, at least as of this writing. Disabling the plugin will allow users to add +1 buttons to their site.

The Digg Digg WP plugin (written about here: Starting a Movie Website: WordPress Plugins) has been update with the Google + 1 button in all its sizes.

More on adding a Google +1 button to main index posts in WordPress

Now, simply adding the above code [<g:plusone></g:plusone>] on the homepage below each post excerpt won’t generate a +1 button for each individual post. To add the +1 button on WordPress homepage, use the code given below and paste it on the index.php file where you want it to appear.

<g:plusone size=”small” href=”<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>”></g:plusone>

This will now add a plus +1 button that corresponds to each post appearing on the index page. You can add the code in similar manner to category pages as well.

Thus, by modifying the code snippet given by Google by adding the URL attribute, you can embed the Google +1 button to WordPress blog homepage.

How to add the Google +1 Button to a Blogger site

The first method:

To add the +1 button to your blog directly without any code then you’ll need to enable Share buttons on Blogger. To do this, go to Design > Page Elements on your Blogger dashboard, find the Blog posts area, click on Edit, and select the “Show Share Buttons” option. If you are already using Share buttons, then you don’t need to worry as the +1 button will automatically show up as a new share button.

Blogger Share Buttons, Google +1 Button

The second method:

1. Go To Blogger > Design > Edit HTML
2. Backup your template
3. Search for

</head>

4. Paste the code below just above </head>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”> {lang: ‘en-US’} </script>

5. Now Check the “Expand Widgets Templates” Box at the top right corner. In order to place the button just below Post titles then search for this code and place the +1 button code given below just above it,

<div style=’float:left’>

<g:plusone size=”standard” expr:href=”data:post.url”/>

</div>

 

You can display it to “left” and “right” by adjusting left
You can change standard to medium, small or tall. Choose the size that may blend your template.

6. If you want the button to appear below blog posts then add the button code just below

<data:post.body>

7. Save your template to see it working.

A list of important Google +1 button facts to ponder:

Natalie Portman, Interview Magazine, September 2009

1. The +1 button will influence search rankings. Here is the exact quote from Google’s David Byttow, from when the feature was first announced: “We’ll also start to look at +1’s as one of the many signals we use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, including social signals from other services. For +1′s, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time.”

2. When a user searches, while signed in, their search result snippets may be annotated with the names of their connections who have “+1′d” the page. When none of the user’s connections have +1′d a page, the snippet may display the aggregate number of +1′s the page has received.

3. Google says publishers could see “more, and better qualified traffic coming from Google” as potential visitors see recommendations from friends and contacts beneath their search results

4. Google calls the +1 button “shorthand for ‘this is pretty cool’ or ‘you should check this out’.

5. One a user clicks the button, a link to the content appears under the +1′s tab on the user’s Google Profile.

6. Google suggests clicking the button when you “like, agree with, or want to recommend” something to others.

7. The +1 Button is not the same as Google Buzz, though there are similarities. They both appear on your Google Profile under different tabs, but +1′s don’t allow for comments (at least yet. I would not be surprised to see Buzz’s functionality get rolled into +1 eventually).

8. +1′s are public by default. Google may show them to any signed-in user who has a social connection to one. Users can choose not to have them displayed publicly on their Google Profile, however.

9. There are different sizes and styles of the button that you can use on your site.

10. The button is even more customizable if you want to get more technical. The API documentation can be found here: http://code.google.com/apis/+1button/

11. When a user clicks on the +1 button it applies to the URL of the page they’re on.

12. Still, multiple buttons can be placed on a single page that all +1 different URLs (refer to the above documentation).

13. While Google suggests you use the button where you think they’ll be most effective in terms of placement around your content, the company recommends above the fold, near the title of the page, and close to sharing links. Google also says it can be effective if you put it at the end of an article as well as the beginning.

14. By placing the <script> tag at the bottom of the document, just before the body close tag, Google says you may improve loading speed of the page (which is another factor Google takes into account in terms of ranking).

15. If you try to +1 a private URL, it won’t work, according to Google.

16. You have to be logged into a Google account for the button to work.

17. While everyone can see aggregate annotations, signed in users can also see personalized annotations from people in their Gmail/Google Talk Chat list, My Contacts group in Google Contacts, and people they’re following in Google Reader and Google Buzz.

18. Google points to these canonicalization strategies to ensure the +1s “apply as often as possible to the pages appearing in Google search results.” http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139066

19. The button is supported in 44 languages (though the annotations only appear in the English language Google.com search results for the time being).

20. The button will be seen in the Android Market, Blogger blogs, Product Search, and YouTube, in addition to any other sites that add them.

21. A lot of sites have already replaced the Google Buzz button on content pages with the +1 button

22. If you have a Blogger blog, you can add the button by going to Design > Page Elements on the dashboard, finding the “Blog posts” area, clicking edit, and selecting the “Show Share Buttons” options, where you should find the +1 button as an option.

23. The +1 Button will be available on YouTube watch pages under the “share” feature. Consider how valuable YouTube can already be to SEO, and take then take into consideration the search implications of the +1 button.

24. If you’re signed into your Google account, Google will show you +1 annotations from your Google contacts on YouTube search results.

25. Google says adding +1 buttons to your pages can help your ads stand out on Google. “By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search ads and organic results might appear with +1 annotations more often. This could lead to more–and better qualified–traffic to your site,” the company says.

26. The +1 button will appear next to the headline on search ads. Personalized annotations will appear beneath the Display URL.

27. Publishers can get updates about the button by joining this group.

28. Google may crawl or re-crawl pages with the button, and store the page title and other content, in response to a +1 button impression or click.

29. Google has strict policies for publishers that it says it will use (along with the Google ToS) to govern use of the +1 button. Here are these policies in their entirety:

Publishers may not sell or transmit to others any data about a user related to the user’s use of the +1 Button. For the avoidance of doubt, this prohibition includes, but is not limited to, any use of pixels, cookies, or other methods to recognize users’ clicks on the +1 Button, the data of which is then disclosed, sold, or otherwise shared with other parties.

Publishers may not attempt to discover the identity of a +1 Button user unless the user consents to share his or her identity with the Publisher via a Google-approved authorization procedure. This prohibition includes identifying users by correlating +1 Button reporting data from Google with Publisher data.
Publishers may not alter or obfuscate the +1 Button, and Publishers may not associate the +1 Button with advertising content, such as putting the +1 Button on or adjacent to an ad, unless authorized to do so by Google.

Publishers may not direct users to click the +1 Button for purposes of misleading users. Publishers should not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for +1 Button clicks. For the avoidance of doubt, Publishers can direct users to the +1 Button to enable content and functionality for users and their social connections. When Publishers direct users to the +1 Button, the +1 action must be related to the Publishers’ content and the content or functionality must be available for both the visitor and their social connections.

Google may analyze Publishers’ use of the +1 Button, including to ensure Publishers’ compliance with these policies and to facilitate Google’s development of the +1 Button. By using the +1 Button, Publishers give Google permission to utilize an automated software program (often called a “web crawler”) to retrieve and analyze websites associated with the +1 Button.

30. The button is not available on mobile search results yet, though users may still be able to see the buttons on your pages.

31. According to Search Engine Land, while they may still be a while away, Google will launch analytics for the button, to show webmasters info on geography, demographics, content, and search impact. Apparently Google is working with launch partners to make sure reporting is accurate before they offer it on a wider scale.

If you want the code for the button to add to your site, you can get it here.

Source: Mashable, Techattitude, Mybloggertricks, Webpronews

Outbrain

Outbrain’s official description:

Outbrain automatically places your best content at the foot of your article to guide your readers towards more of what you have to offer.

Our content recommendation system personalizes links for each of your readers. We blend contextual analysis, collaborative filtering (“people who read this article also read…”), and personalization to sift through all your content and select the best four or five links to show at any time

The widget is free, simple to install and will automatically inherit the look and feel of your site. Set your preferences…and in less than 60 seconds, your readers will begin seeing thumbnail images linking to great content.

Here is what a reader told me about Outbrain prior to trying it out myself:

It is just liked LinkWithin but much better. It wont display posts they’ve already read, more plugin options, automatically generates a thumbnail image even if you don’t have any pictures in the post (it’s a cool looking 3D view of the actual text of the article).

And what I didn’t like about the description of Outbrain’s other options

Outbrain also serves links to articles on other sites that partners are paying us to distribute. Like all our content recommendations, these paid links are targeted to provide your readers interesting content that we think they will enjoy. In return, you share in the proceeds, developing a significant new revenue stream based on high user engagement that complements your editorial mission.

I want to keep site visitors on my site for as long as possible and keep the bounce rate low. I’m not trying to up the pageviews of another site and send my traffic somewhere else. If this feature can be turned off, great, if not, I’ll pass. I do like that the ads can be turned though.

From Outbrain on how to install their widget:

1. Copy the JavaScript code below:
2. Paste the code into the template(s) where you want the Outbrain widget to show.
3. Replace the ‘DROP_PERMALINK_HERE’ text in the code with a variable that indicates each post’s permalink URL. This variable may be different depending on what platform you’re using, but it should dynamically pull in the permanant URL of each page where the widget resides.

I plugged in various permalinks into their code. Nothing (I do not have a computer science degree…yet). After that I said forget it. If I have to go into their forums or send them an email (they offer live chat also), I’ll stick with the right-out-of-the-box solutions e.g. LinkWithin and nRelate, written about here: LinkWithin and nRelate: Related Posts Comparative Analysis. I have posts and content to generate. After an undetermined amount of time, the widget finally appeared after using the permalink: my URL/%postname%/.

After Outbrain’s Installation

Using the “Get Blog Widgets” version of Outbrain, the entire title for the posts were included, causing a side scroll bar to appear next to the widget.

Needless to say I didn’t like the scroll bar though on other sites that currently use it like Firstshowing, the scroll bar is not present. LinkWithin automatically cuts off the long title text in the title of the post so that all of the titles are more or less the same length and no scroll bar is ever present.  NRelate does not truncate the titles but no scroll appears either.

One final note: The Outbrain widget did not show up in the mobile version of my website while the LinkWithin and nRelate widgets both did. This is either a good thing or a bad thing depending upon your perspective. I use five LinkWithin widget thumbnail boxes at the bottom of my posts and they are cut off in the middle of the third one on the mobile version of my website. This is why some websites have stopped using LinkWithin I imagine. If you do not want the widget showing at the bottom of the mobile version of your website, Outbrain is a good option for that. If you do, nRelate is probably the best bet. It aligns the thumbnails so that they all show on the mobile version of your website, even if you use five of them. Thumbnail links at the bottom of your mobile website posts means potentially more pageviews for your site and more ad revenue (if you have monetized the mobile version of your website and/or you sell ads on your website). Mobile website revenue was written about earlier here: How a Smart Phone improved a Website’s Mobile Presentation and Ad Revenue. Advertisers love high pageviews: that means more eyes on their products and potential customers for their products.

Vertical Acuity

Vertical Acuity’s official description:

Our Digital Curation engine gives editors up to the second stats on the web’s highest performing content and allows them to drag content that’s on brand and in demand onto their site in real time. Just-in-time articles, photos and video can be automatically curated and delivered dynamically, or manually curated through our drag-and-drop curation browser. Either way, you create the page views you want for the time period you want. All the brand rules and content usage rights are automagically managed on the back end. You can:

• Curate content manually or dynamically
• Syndicate content in real time with the click of a mouse
• Drive higher frequency, loyalty and duration
• Lower your cost of goods
• Protect and control your brand when bringing in syndicated content,
  as well as when you syndicate out

See their content management in action here.

After Vertical Acuity Service Evaluation

Vertical Acuity requires a service sign up and a approval process. This is understandable, especially if the service cares anything about controlling the quality of the sites using their services and whose content is accessible to its other publishers. For a prospective publisher looking to “kick the tires” and take it for a test drive before taking the plunge, this is cumbersome.

The availability to choose what related posts (the “web’s highest performing content…on brand and in demand…in real time. Just-in-time articles, photos and videoshows) on your website is good, very good but even if this process comes with an automated option, I do not want to show content from another website on my own unless that other website is also owned by me. By showing my own content in those thumbnails, I potentially increase my aggregate pageviews per post, per site visit. My site’s visitors (possibly) and other site owners (certainly) might be happy with Vertical Acuity’s related link thumbnails but my site’s pageview count will not.

I was also unable to see how Vertical Acuity’s thumbnails look on a mobile website or if they appear at all.

In Conclusion

Outbrain and Vertical Acuity are both looking to monetize related links thumbnail widgets and make related links thumbnails more dynamic. If this is your goal as a webmaster, Outbrain and Vertical Acuity give you options to do so, Vertical Acuity more so than Outbrain. If you are looking for a good ‘ol fashion related links thumbnail widget, Outbrain is your best choice out of the two though I was not able to give Vertical Acuity the type of once-over that I was with Outbrain.

Carla Gugino, Elektra Luxx

Be Consistent

Marcello: One thing I hope you have noticed about Japan Cinema is we update every single weekday, without fail. We even throw in some Top 10 lists on Saturdays. Now before I present this point, I know most blog sites are only ran by one person and you cant possible watch and review a film everyday. That is fine, but then I hope traffic isn’t a major concern for you. The best advice I can offer for people who want to increase traffic is to build up your brand by updating EVERYDAY (preferbly at the same time everyday). This builds up a reputation that people can go to your site and see new content everyday. Your audience doesn’t have to guess or hope that you wrote something on a given day. Nothing beats a reliable blog schedule. Nothing. Olivia: Marcello is a connoisseur of task masters and time tables. He updates the blog every single day, sometimes twice. Readers of JapanCinema will get an in-depth 500 word review on whatever film happens to be slated and a freebie on Saturdays. Don’t hate him, hate the game. It creates a faithful following (thank you!!) because people like to barrage themselves with new and exciting information and pictures preferably done at the same time every day. Meals and film reviews should always be on schedule. Do this consistently and they will love you for it.

My Take: Writing movie content consistently is indeed of paramount importance. Remember the 5-11-4 Rule for posting content on a website? In essence, Marcello and Olivia feel the same way. The 5-11-4 Rule is all about consistency which is a central belief of Marcello and Olivia’s. “Now before I present this point, I know most blog sites are only r[u]n by one person and you can[']t possible watch and review a film everyday. That is fine, but then I hope traffic isn’t a major concern for you.” That is hilarious and very true. If you do not care about website traffic (home page hits and certain search engine traffic), you need pay no heed to consistency or time tables. “The best advice I can offer for people who want to increase traffic is to build up your brand by updating EVERYDAY”. True and updating your website consistently also has the benefit of getting your website spidered more frequently by search engines, which will effect how some of your stories appear in SERPs and possibly their rank in them.

Always Evolve the Site

Olivia: Do you like to spend time talking to yourself? Well, a little bit for sure, but hours upon hours? We didn’t think so. That’s why commenting and building a community is so important. We want to hear from you – we think what you have to say is blindly fascinating because you are communicating to us from space! If you don’t create a following or at least a small readership, it’s almost like you’re talking to yourself the whole time. And while that may be fascinating for some, we are people persons. Answer your commenters. Boring? If it is you’re doing it wrong. Marcello: A great way to increase readership and gain comments is to keep chipping away at your site and add features. Comments are valuable, and without those, it starts to feel like your just talking to yourself. Now we aren’t big on commenting other peoples blogs but we know the value and importance of doing so. This BLOG, has evolved more into a website and that really isn’t our niche, nor do we have the time to check out fellow sites. What we do instead, is evolve the site. Starting with just reviews of Japanese films, we now review films from over 10 countries, present interviews with actors and artists, discussion forums, and feature Top 10 lists. A year from now, your site should not look or feel anything like it does presently. A blog that doesn’t evolve is a stagnant and boring blog.

My Take:  A film website, any website for that matter, should evolve its site design over time or it might be left in the dust but there are exceptions. Look at AintitCool. That site has looked the same for what, the last seven years, maybe longer, and it probably receives more traffic and readers now than it did back then. Like Marcello says, evolving your film site doesn’t just mean its design but its coverage as well. I use my interests, my gut, and tracked incoming traffic from search engines to determine what to post. If it interests me or I think its cool, I post it. If Google is sending me a good amount of hits on a particular topic or search term, I will replicate that in a new post with new content and post it. Regarding Olivia’s statement: “commenting and building a community is so important”, I agree. People comment to express themselves to the writer of the article and the world. Responding to that person can only be beneficial to the both of you. You want that person to respond, come back, and comment more don’t you? Engage them in meaningful conversation via your website’s comments or even Twitter and watch what happens.

Pick a Good Name

Marcello: I’ve seen a lot of blog names that try to use a humorous approach and name their blog a bunch of wacky things. The thing with this approach is not everyone has your brand of humor. Modern Family is a popular comedy show on ABC that a lot of people watch, but the show doesn’t do anything for me. In fact, lots of popular comedy shows get cancelled, because not everyone shares the same sense of humor. The same rules apply here. I have never chuckled, giggled or even smirked at ANYONEs blog name no matter how funny you think it is. If you want people to take you serious, unless you work at Schlotskys, name your blog appropriately. Olivia: Was unrequitedpassionsofcinema.blogspot.com taken? Aww too bad! Think so? Think again. Not every person who is reading your blog may want to type all that in or even owns a keyboard. Short, pithy film blog names, probably no more than 12 characters, are good. Engaging in the overly self-referential or ubiquitously obtuse (Hermione’sMineLoveHEr4Eva.com) will only serve to alienate your readers as to having to remember this grandiose blog name, and you will be relegated to the dusts and corners of fandom pages only. Not to say that you don’t love Hermione…or the girls from Bleach or those little monsters jumping around Naruto, but you have to remember your target audience if you are looking to build a good size following. If you are writing earth shatteringly dramatic film reviews for French hipster bourgeois you are most certainly not going to name your blog KuchiKuchiKuchiki.com.

My Take: Long website names are hard to remember, which is why the bookmark and history buttons in a web browser are beneficial. Regardless of length or humor,  I would choose a website name that possesses a keyword or multiple keywords within it. That is one of the first things you should be thinking about when you choose or formulate your website name. If you would like for your website to be more easily found in a relevant search in a search engines, that approach is one of your best bets as that name will appear in ALL of the URLs from your website. I spoke about this in more depth within this post: Starting a Movie Website: Choosing and Registering a Domain Name.

Design

Marcello: I know not everyone can be a graphic artist like myself, but you can take steps to make you blog stand out from the crowd. The L.A.M.B. hosts their blog awards every year and I am always shocked at the blogs that nominate themselves for best design. The biggest thing that can make your blog stand out is to buy a PREMIUM template. You know, ones that cost money? While finding free themes is fairly easy in the world of WordPress, the challenge is that just about all free themes are garbage (obvious exceptions of course). After hours of searching, they not only all start to look the same, but they offer severe limitation in functionality. You want a unique, impressive look that conveys professionalism and passion about your craft. You spend hours and hours of your life writing great content, why not make the presentation appealing as well. If the problem is you have no design sense, that is not a valid excuse. I see many blogs with distorted images, black copy on dark images, outdated fonts, dead links etc. Believe it or not, and speaking as a designer, most of what we do is common sense. Do you think McDonalds picked Yellow & Red on accident? Yellow and red are the colors that make us most hungry. Everything you do should be an ingredient in what makes up your site. Don’t just pick a template and throw in your homemade graphics you made in MS Paint. Browse the web for ideas, color schemes, and more! There are more than two blogs created each second of each day. If there isn’t anything special about your blog it will get swallowed up by the blogosphere. Olivia: You’re an artist. You’re just oooh sooo expressive!! You know that what people want to see is lots of flashing things! Like cats! We can’t stay away from it. But here’s the thing: your flashing lights may destroy me. They may wreck my dreams and give me a seizure. Bad design is as distasteful as asking for your boyfriend’s friend’s number. Tacky. Good design principles can be found at the old adage “less is more”. Luckily here at JapanCinema our founder Marcello has a preternatural gift for commercial design and graphics. It’s HIS JOB though. Not everyone will be so lucky. We get to have custom graphics for each film every single day because we are lucky street urchins who fell under his gaze. We have a PREMIUM web design. For the rest of you, think about presentation and find graphics that are both unique and high quality. Brevity is the word of the day and you can have the most kick ass of sites if it is well balanced, un-littered with hyper flashing lights, black backgrounds and that twinkle star dust. We aren’t 12 anymore. Also chose your fonts carefully and stick with a certain palette and color palette as well. Your sites readability will greatly affect the numbers you pull in.

My Take” Like Marcello said, many of the free templates are indeed garbage. Ggg-ggggarbage. I should know. I have probably looked through thousands of them while trying to choose one for myself. Free templates also “offer severe limitation in functionality. You want a unique, impressive look that conveys professionalism and passion about your craft.” Agreed. There are a few jewels out there but you have to dig far and wide, through untold buckets of HTML excrement to find them. That equals a lot of wasted time, time taken away from posting new content to your website. I’ve paid for a premium template in the past and I am currently have a custom theme built. I got sick and tired of the free theme search amongst other things. I am not a web designer so I can not do it myself like Marcello, more’s-the-pity. In case you missed my previous eloquence on the quality of the majority of free templates, they are ggg-gggg-ggggg…okay that’s enough.

Buy a URL

Marcello: This should be a no brainer. Sadly, 95% of the movie blogs i visit have a [name].wordpress or blogspot in their URL. So, let me get this straight, you pour hours and hours of work into your blog to show it off to the world yet you cant throw down $15 to buy a URL? NEWSFLASH: Nobody will take anything you write seriously if you have a URL with a wordpress or blogger name attached to it. That just tells me that you are voicing your amateur ramblings on a free template and you don’t care. It is like taking the training wheels off your tricycle. It is the cheapest, easiest, most effective way to be taken more serious and increase readership for your blog.

My Take: I both agree and disagree Marcello. What I agree on: movie blogs with a [name].wordpress or blogspot in their URL initially seem amateurish but that is only a cursory evaluation of the site. “It is like taking the training wheels off your tricycle. It is the cheapest, easiest, most effective way to be taken more serious and increase readership for your blog.”  I have suggested to people in this series: Start a Movie Website that purchasing a URL is the way to go over Blogger, Tumblr, Drupal, etc. I am on movie websites everyday of the week and 99% of the professional movie websites (or so they call themselves) do not have a .wordpress or blogspot in this title. Blogger now lets their users buy a URL and then use it as the address for their blog. I will be writing about it soon in my Start a Movie Website (Blogger Edition) series. What I disagree with: “That just tells me that you are voicing your amateur ramblings on a free template and you don’t care.” The real evaluation of movie blogs with a [name].wordpress or blogspot in their URL is their content. I have been on dozens of .blogspot sites where the content is in depth and well-written, better in some cases than the sites that are high-end and that purchased their URL. Quality has to do with the writer or writers and their content not the configuration of their URL. An example of this was the movie blog The Playlist (that’s theplaylist.blogspot.com) before indieWIRE acquired it. They would have never been acquired if their writing and article presentation were not good.

Stop Copying

Marcello: I see a lot of movie blogs that usually sit on the shoulder of their favorite big time blog, wait for them to post a news article, and then repeat. They usually don’t really understand what they are blogging about, and they have nothing new or interesting to offer, but if you don’t know any better you might get fooled into paying attention. If Slashfilm has reported that Jet Li is in talks to star in a movie with The Rock, do you really think someone is going to go over to read the SAME article over at ‘Jimmy’s Movie Blog’ (.blogspot.com)? Original content is king. Stop piggybacking other blogs.

My Take: Agreed. Expanding on what Marcello said: Your movie reviews, editorials, opinions are king. Your voice is what separates you from everyone else. Use it.

Review New Films Early

Marcello: This is one that most people are unaware of, but Google is your blogs friend. If you want to increase traffic to your movie site, a big movie opening a great opportunity to increase traffic. For instance, at the time of this posting, a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is opening up in American cinemas. The earlier you post a movie review, the better spot it gets on Google, which in turn makes your blog more searchable and increases viewership. If you go to watch the movie opening weekend, on a Saturday and post it on a Sunday or Monday, sorry you waited to long. Catch the midnight showing on Thursday, go home and POST your review. Like I said, there are two blogs being created every second on the internet. There are thousands of movie blogs, and if you don’t put the extra effort into your blog, it will reflect in the numbers. Olivia: Easy. No brainer right? Make it your mission in life the way you stood out in line to get your PS2..remember that time? It was raining and your Avatar patch was going to wash away off your carefully tagged backpack! Sad face. Well that’s the kind of dedication you will need to review films. You will need to become a hunter and persistently go TO THE MOVIES to get to the review first. This kind of serious dedication will be noticed. It may not be as endearing as standing in line hours in the rain to play Pokemon II, but it’s a start.

My Take: “The earlier you post a movie review, the better spot it gets on Google, which in turn makes your blog more searchable and increases viewership.” Agreed. Early film critic screenings help with this. Getting on those lists is the hard part so learning how to contact film public relations (pr) firms is essential. “If you go to watch the movie opening weekend, on a Saturday and post it on a Sunday or Monday, sorry you waited to long. Catch the midnight showing on Thursday, go home and POST your review.” Excellent advise, I have nothing to add except to make the titles of your movie reviews search engine attractive, ensuring that your early movie review posting is not in vain e.g. lost in the SERP shuffle (it ends up on page 2000 of Google search results). I wrote about post titles here: Tips on Title Tags, Post Tags, and Movie Review Posting Strategies, here: Post Title Importance to Search Engine Optimization, here: 4 Ways to Hammer Search Engine Terms, here: Keyword Placement for High SERPs (Search Engine Result Positions), and here: Movie Review Writing Strategies. If you want your movie review tweets to so show more than the nominal return and be a film review that is retweeted, read how to Advertise your Movie Review aggressively on Twitter.

Relate To Your Readers

Marcello: Last but not least. Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean your opinion is better then the next guys nor does it give you a platform to tell the whole world how much a elitest film snob you are. You know the type. They post film reviews you’ve never heard of, and talk about it like it’s Star Wars or something. Then they give your favorite film a 3/10. You hate them, but with their slick talk, they usually win. They’ll make you feel like since Inception wasn’t directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, it automatically sucks and films like Amelie or Citizen Kane are the best. Listen, Japan Cinema covers Asian influenced films, it is an acquired taste and most people don’t actually like the films we talk about within the blogs post, but they try really, really hard to understand why it has value. Because it must have value if it’s posted. Our readers know that, and so should yours. Olivia: It’s good to create a heightened awareness and selectivism but it’s bad business to bore the readers just because you’ve seen every post-modern Russian “masterpiece” and your review is topping 2300 words. Painful. Don’t do it. Unless your blog is this specific, you are the Criterion Collection or you have an overabundant literary gift for creating humor out of slime and fog, stay away from the dense blow by blow of minutiae that prevails over long, scholastic reviews. Few can even sit through some of these films, let alone read about them.

My Take: To relate to your readers first you must find your readers. They also have to find you. This is where search engine optimizing your website and its posts come into play. Regarding what Marcello and Olivia had to say about film review writing, I happen to like lengthy film reviews (if they are informative, well-thought out, thought-provoking), so do most film critic associations but boring film reviews are a waste of time to write and very few people will actually finish reading them because they are boring to read. Lack of passion in writing always comes through on the page. Write from your gut, what interests you, what you like in film or the things in the movie world that get you excited. This is why I only review films that interest me in some way, whether in a good way or a bad way. If the film is merely okay, I do not review it. My review will be lackluster because I have no real feelings on it either way. One film critic (currently inactive) whom I read,  his film reviews range from 2000 to 5000+ words per review and I read every single word. The problem (not really) is that he sends the reader to the dictionary like fifteen times because he uses words the reader will probably be unfamiliar with. I model my film review writing after  his now in certain ways e.g. my Black Swan (2010) Film Review: I break the film down into its components, cross reference the film with other films, cross reference the director and actors to their other work if appropriate, etc. This person writes on a blog that ends in .blogspot.com. This guy is no amateur like Marcello might have you believe. He is top-tier and many know it. Wow, that was a big digression, sorry but one of the reasons why ProMovieblogger was created was so I could fully express myself when it comes to the mechanics of all things film website. Movie review writing is an intregral part of that.

Hugo Weaving, V for Vendetta

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed reading Marcello article and seeing another webmaster’s thoughts on the game and hope you enjoyed and were informed by this one. Passion is the key. If your not passionate all your efforts will fall flat. …End of Line.

Source: JapanCinema

I immediately went to our movie website. The site came up in all its glory then I went to a few other movie websites and my eyes were not only opened to our folly but to numerous website owners’ folly as well. Unlike our websites and others, very few leading movie websites had a mobile version of their website fully operational and in place for mobile viewers when I first looked at them through the len of the Droid X. I immediately started obsessing about getting a mobile version of our websites online ASAP. I looked at other movie websites and looked at their mobile versions or lack there of. Some movie websites I could not figure out what mobile instrument they were using, some obviously had custom mobile versions made. I also read over this article on how to Mobilize Your Website for Mobile Web Users through Design, Plugins, Validators, and Emulators.

The problems with our previous websites and others without a mobile version:

• The buttons on the website are hard to select on a mobile device.
• You see the entirety of the site in a small or zoomed in version instead of the most important portion:  the posts, front and center.
• The text is hard to read unless you zoom.
• Its extremely hard to comment on the regular version of a site on a smart phone unless the commenting system the site is using has a mobile version. Disqus and Intense Debate both offer mobile versions of their commenting system.
• Site navigation is difficult because of the small buttons unless you zoom in.
• Running searches on the site is difficult becuase of the search box’s small size if you do not zoom in on it.

Being fiscally conservative, we wanted to use the mobile website option that came at the lowest price. We downloaded the free version of the WP Touch and began using that but found out rather quickly that you could not brand your mobile website with a logo or show ads with the free version (I had seen Google AdSense offering a new Mobile Ad service but never saw them in action until I brought the Droid X). Because of those two factors, we purchased the Pro version of WP Touch. We actually purchased the multi-pack version so that we could use it for multiple sites.

Because of the Treo 650, I never really got a good look at what our sites looked like on the newer mobile devices, the iPad included. After buying the Droid X, I was able to get a clear view of them and how they were represented to mobile viewers. You can get a clear view of what your website looks like on a mobile device through some of the smart phone emulators in this post: Mobilize Your Website for Mobile Web Users through Design, Plugins, Validators, and Emulators.

After the Mobile Versions came online

• Our websites are much easier to read and navigate on a mobile device.
• Site search can be conducted at the touch of a button.
• Post titles are bigger and much clearer instantly when a viewer comes to the site.
• Posts are front and center, easily clickable.
• Ads show at the top on the home page and on every post pages.
• We began generating revenue from mobile ads.
• Site visitors can switch between the mobile version of our sites and the regular versions they would see on their PC or MAC.
• Our sites now have iPad versions up as well which are easily switchable to the regular version.

In Conclusion

If it was not for the purchase of the Droid X, our sites would still look like all those other movie sites without mobile versions. Are you one of them or does your website have a mobile version?

Sara Ziff, Picture Me

Here are some ways to ensure that is the case.

The Font

Use a black font for the words in your post. This shows up best on the web, is the most common, and is the most easily read by site visitors. Don’t worry, your font is black by default in Blogger.

Related Posts

No matter the Blogger theme you choose to use, you will most-likely be able to use some related post gadget or be able to implant a related posts java script of some kind. Two such script choices are LinkWithin and nRelate, written about here: LinkWithin and nRelate: Related Posts Comparative Analysis. Once you have chosen which related posts code to use, locate the script as close to the bottom of your post content as possible. This immediately gives your post readers somewhere else to go after they finish reading your post, something else related to the post that they might be interested in. If you wish to uses the media thumbnails generated by Blogger for each post, read this post: Related Posts Widget for Blogger with Thumbnails.

A word of caution: Using a related post gadget or script of the main index (the home page and its subsequent pages) will cause that page to load slower than it normally would. This happens because the code will have to load related posts for each post in your main index. Here is an example: http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/.

One more thing, do not have anything between the bottom of your post and the related posts plugin. Send your reader right into your other content using the gadget or script as that launch pad. Show it to them right after they are done reading your post. Place your social bookmarking gadget, your ads, etc. after your related posts or somewhere else.

Social Media

Have Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and other social media buttons present in your posts and on your site so people can access your information, get updates on it, and share it with their friends and followers.

Blogger Dashboard, Design Tab

In your dashboard under Design, then Add A Gadget, then Featured is the gadget entitled Share It. There are other gadgets and services beyond Twitter and Facebook for sharing your posts as well under Add a Gadget. Here is a another way to implement a Facebook Like / Recommend Button in Blogger. I would suggest implementing any buttons you choose to use into the code of your pages manually. The more plugins you use on a page in WordPress, the slower that page will load. I am not sure how loading a gadget effects the load time of a Blogger page. Twitter button code can be found here and a Facebook button code can be found here.

The Sidebars

You will find some useful info about keeping readers hungry and coming back for more with your sidebar content in this post: How to Set Up a Movie Website Sidebar: For Content.

Recent Posts

I would suggest showing your website’s recent posts somewhere on one of your site’s sidebars. It lets people that are not on the front page of your site see that you have newly posted articles. Use a recent posts gadget or script with pictures: visuals with words get a higher response (clicks i.e. pageviews) than words alone. There are multiple Recent Posts gadgets in Blogger. In your dashboard under Design, then click Add a Gadget to the right side of the Blog Posts box. After that,  type Recent into the search box. The results will show the Recent Posts and Recent Posts gadgets. There are other gadgets for Recent Posts for your posts as well under Add a Gadget.

Popular Posts

You might want to try displaying popular posts on your sidebar but it is not a necessity. Starting out, you will probably have little to no popular posts. To add a popular posts gadget, click Add a Gadget on the right of the Blog Posts box (You don’t have to add the gadget there. You can add it anywhere you please). Under Basics you will see Popular Posts.

The Date

Use a theme that shows the date somewhere when the post was published on the home page of your site. If you are updating your site every day, this is a nice feature to have for your posts, especially in your main index.

Increased Pageviews by Other Means

Here are 5 Steps to Get Your Movie Website Indexed by Search Engines and tutorial on Using SEO optimized Images in your Posts to Increase Pageviews and 5 Ways to Optimize Images for Increased Pageviews and SEO.

In Conclusion

As you can see, content presentation for its own sake, for increased pageviews, and SEO can be visually attractive and achieved easily through a myriad of different ways. It can also be made easy through the information found in this post: Movie Review Writing Strategies.