PHP professionals conference, more exposure to your PHP blog, Classes blog posts RSS feed, Make money from blogging about PHP classes - PHP Classes blog

By Manuel Lemos
manuellemos.net
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Hello,

- Conference for PHP professionals in Brazil

I would like to start this month editor newsletter with a reminder in particular to PHP developers in Brazil.

CONISLI is a free software conference that takes place in São Paulo every year. This year edition will take place in SESC Itaquera in São Paulo on November 3, 4, and 5.

The ProPHP organized several conferences of interest for PHP professionals. I will presenting several talks and tutorials on the following subjects:

* Methodology to go implement PHP projects using RUP (Rational Unified Process) - Mapping use cases into PHP business rules classes

* Accelerating PHP database application development using Metastorage object-relational mapping code generator tool

* Developing self-sustained sites communities using free software - PHPClasses.org case

There are also other interesting PHP talks that cover subjects like highly interactive sites with AJAX techologies, PHP 5, PHP in the enterprise, etc..

If you are near by São Paulo, do not hesitate to attend. You may find more details here:

http://www.phpclasses.org/newsletter/#initiatives


- Get more exposure to your PHP blog

The number of blog posts about classes released in the PHP Classes site has been growing. This is good because it reflects increasing user interest, not only in using, but also in commenting about the most interesting classes that are published.

As you may be aware, the PHP Classes site can automatically track the release of many blog posts of classes by supporting the trackback protocol. You may see the listing of the latest blog posts tracked this way here:

http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/latest/trackbacks.html

Currently, the site does not send any alert messages when a new blog post is tracked. However, you can see the latest blog posts in the site newsletter.

If you have a blog site and you make posts about classes released in the site, this may be a way to get more exposure of your blog.

All posts are moderated. So, only those really about the site classes are approved. The site also approves posts in non-English languages. During the moderation process, quotes from the blog post may be translated to English to help everybody understand what the posts are about.

All you need to do is to use a blog system that has enabled support for the trackback or pingback protocols, like Word Press, Movable Type, Serendipity, etc.. You may find more details about this here:

http://www.phpclasses.org/tips.html?tip=trackback-links

Certain blog sites like Blogger do not seem to support the trackback protocol. If you use one of those sites, you may want to consider switching to another blog system.

Here is a list of blog software which support the trackback or pingback protocols:

http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm


- Classes blog posts RSS feed

For those who prefer to be kept more up to date, now there is also an RSS feed that lists the latest blog posts:

http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/latest/trackbacks.xml

If you are a Yahoo user, you can add this feed to your My Yahoo page by going here:

http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.phpclasses. ...


- Make money from blogging about PHP classes

Blogging may be an interesting activity but it takes time and talent to do it well.

Fortunately there are ways to monetize that effort. This means that you may be rewarded if you are a regular blogger who writes articles interesting to your community.

One way to make money from blog posting is to join the Google AdSense program. It allows you to make money by placing relevant ads in your blog site.

It is all automatic. All you need to do is to place some HTML tags to make the ads appear in the site. Google takes care of making relevant ads appear in the pages on which you place the ad tags. You can place these ads in sites in many languages, not just those in English.

It works well enough that I can recommend it to anybody with a site with interesting content. The PHP Classes site has been placing these ads since 2003 and they generate a significant portion of the site's revenue.

Keep in mind that to make this work well, you need to satisfy two main conditions:

1. You are only paid for the ads on which legitimate users click.

The ads must appear with colors that match your site design.

The ads also must be placed in a spot on your pages where a visitor always sees them. Placing the ads at the bottom of your pages or other spaces very few people may go to is not going to help.

Do not click on the ads yourself nor encourage others to do so. Google may just ban your site permanently.

Google provides an extensive list of tips about placing, colors and rules to succeed in making money with AdSense.

2. Your site needs to get good traffic. The more visitors your site gets, the more ads visitors can see and click. So, keep publishing new articles regularly. This helps the site become more visible in search engines results, which in turn lead to more site visitors.

Publishing blog articles about classes released in the PHP Classes site also helps. Once the PHP Classes site tracks a blog post about a class, it links back to your blog post page. This helps to increase that page's rank in Google and similar search engines.

The greater the page rank of your blog post, the greater are the chances of seeing that page in the first search engine result pages.

So, do not forget to use blog software that supports trackback and make sure that the trackback support option is enabled.

If you make a blog post with a link to the page of a class in PHP Classes site and it does not appear in the site in the next few days, just send a message to info@phpclasses.org so I can help you figure what was the problem.


You can go here to learn more about how to join Google AdSense program:

https://www.google.com/adsense/


Happy PHP blogging,
Manuel Lemos