If you’ve installed CommentLuv on your blog and are seeing an Internal Server Error when leaving a comment, here’s the problem.

First of all, your site is probably hosted with Hostmonster or BlueHost. These two hosting companies have the same owner. Both hosting companies use CPU throttling if a script or chron job is taking too long to process.

Unfortunately, I did not know this until now. This site is hosted on Hostmonster. When I checked my Control Panel, I discovered my host is throttling my site more than normal, probably because of high traffic volumes.

Anyway, there will sometimes be a conflict between caching plugins and CommentLuv. It seems like this conflict is more common if your site is on Hostmonster or BlueHost. (Ironically, I switched this site from GoDaddy hosting to Hostmonster last year because I thought Hostmonster would be better.)

Fortunately for me, another CommentLuv customer discovered that WP Super Cache was causing the Internal Server Error. When he disabled that plugin, CommentLuv worked just fine.

As it turns out, I was also using WP Super Cache, so I disabled it. Problem solved!

I tried installing the Quick Cache plugin in place of WP Super Cache, but the Internal Server Error returned. So, for now, I am not using any caching plugin on this site.

To sum up, you might get an Internal Server Error when one or both of the following conditions are met:

1. Your site is hosted by Hostmonster or Bluehost.
2. You use any cache plugin with CommentLuv at the same time.

Andy Bailey, the creator of the CommentLuv plugin, responded to me in the support forum. I thought his response was quite helpful:

cache plugins are notoriously troublesome for anything that requires a dynamic site. there are plenty of blogs that have commentluv and use cache plugins but because there are so many options and configurations of hosting I cannot give an exact set of settings to use. the truth is, if you are not completely familiar with cache plugins settings and what they do then it is pretty much hit and miss when you install one if it will work or not.

there are also many users on bluehost that use commentluv with no issues. it is possible that your site is saying internal server error because an error is happening when commentluv tries to fetch posts.

there is no way to tell what is going on in your case until you check your error log. that should show you what is going wrong.

I hope this post helps you solve any Internal Server Error you get with the CommentLuv plugin.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. Click here if you’d like to add CommentLuv Premium to your blog.Similar Posts:

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I bought and installed the CommentLuv Premium plugin over the weekend.

Now, every time you leave a comment, CommentLuv will automatically pull in your latest blog post and create a link to it.

Because I have the Premium plugin, there are some additional things you should know:

• Once you’ve left 10 approved comments, you’ll be able to choose any of your last 10 blog posts to be linked instead of only the most recent.

• If you’ve left fewer than 10 approved comments, you can Tweet, Like, or +1 the post to get more posts to appear as options to be linked.

Even better, I’ve reverted back to the standard WordPress Comment system. I’ve also installed and reactivated the DoFollow plugin, which means all CommentLuv links will pass PageRank back to your site.

If you’re looking to improve your site’s search engine rankings, you’ll benefit simply by commenting on the posts I write.

I hope you like the new commenting features.

And I look forward to more of your comments.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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When I asked for you to vote on your favorite blog header graphic, I got a number of insightful comments and questions. If you voted or replied, thank you.

I also got a couple comments from readers who questioned why I was removing the red subscribe button from the header graphic. For example:

why are you taking out the email updates portion

And another one:

I wouldn’t be on your list if it weren’t for that red subscribe button ;-)

These are valid questions and concerns. Why remove something that’s working?

Why I’m Ditching the Email Subscribe Button

I’m getting rid of the button for a few reasons:

1. It competes with the Hello Bar I use on the site. I split-test various calls to action in the Hello Bar, one of which is to subscribe to email updates.

2. The entire header graphic — not just the red button — was linked to the opt-in page. I found this a little confusing. Header graphics, if they are linked, usually link to the home page. So removal of the button and the link eliminates confusion.

3. I’m planning to implement other avenues for new site visitors to opt-in to my email list. I’ll be rolling out these design tweaks over the next few weeks.

Keep Your Blog Fresh

It’s important to keep your blog fresh.

Obviously, publishing new content is part of that. But making changes to your site’s design is another important aspect that most bloggers overlook.

Over time, regular blog readers develop “ad blindness.” They fail to see the ads, links, and calls-to-action that surround your content.

Small design changes can make them reexamine your site and see things they may not have seen before.

Technology Is Changing Fast

What’s more, technology is always marching forward. I find this is especially true in the field of social media plugins. I think I’ve gone through at least 8 different plugins designed to enhance social media sharing.

• ShareThis
• Sexy Bookmarks
• Sociable (Pro Version)
• Topsy ReTweet Button
• Active Share by OrangeSoda
• SERPd button by Chris Burns
• Google Plus Widget by WebpageFX
• Google +1 Button by Jacob Gillespie

And I’m currently using Slick Social Share Buttons by Lee Chestnutt.

Some of the plugins didn’t quite work like I wanted them to. Some worked great, but failed to generate the response I was hoping for. And so forth.

The point is, you should always be testing to see what design elements work the best.

And to do that, you’ve got to try a number of different things, measure response/reaction, and keep making those gradual improvements every single week, month, and year.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. The winner of the blog header contest was Design #2, which is now at the top of this blog. It got 67% more votes than Design #1.Similar Posts:

• Vote on New Blog Header
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This year one of my goals is to make incremental improvements to my blog every single week.

With that in mind I had two new blog header graphics designed. Both are fairly similar. My goal was twofold: To get rid of the red subscribe button and to make the header graphic load faster.

Please vote for the one you like best after looking at each one. (Each graphic opens in a new window when clicked.)

Blog Header Graphic #1

Blog Header Graphic #2

Vote for the One You Like Here

Thanks in advance for your help.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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It’s now been 4 years since I started the blog you’re reading right now. During that time, I’ve written more than 400 articles and received more than 5,000 comments. I’m not crushing any records, but I’m pleased with the results.

Obviously, I’ve discovered quite a few lessons about blogging during that time. With that in mind, here are 7 tips for maintaining and growing your blog:

• Write new posts on a regular basis, especially when you’re starting out. Now that I’ve got a large base of articles, I can skip a week or two without much consequence. But it’s important to publish at least weekly (preferably three times a week) during your first year or two of blogging.

• Don’t shy away from controversy or unpopular opinions. If your blog is filled with boring “me-too” articles that merely parrot what everyone else has already said, then chances are you’ll never get much traffic or attract any kind of loyal readership.

• Encourage conversation. I’ve noticed that some of the most loyal readers are also some of the most regular commenters.

• Over time, you’ll notice a handful of articles will generate the majority of your site’s traffic. Use Google Analytics or another tracking service to determine your top 10 most-visited pages. Optimize those pages so that they drive some sort of action that’s beneficial to your business.

• Always look for ways to improve your blog. Figure out ways to generate more email opt-ins. Look at how you can improve your blog’s design, site navigation, category structures, and more.

• Clean up old articles, comments, and dead links. I’ve noticed that strange characters and comment duplication will sometimes sneak in during WordPress upgrades and transitions between themes and commenting systems. Make sure those strange characters and duplicate comments are deleted. Use the Broken Link Checker plugin to find and “unlink” dead links.

• Market your blog regularly and consistently. Build backlinks for your core keyword phrases. Use article marketing and guest posting for long-term traffic benefits.

These are just a few tips I use to maintain and grow my blog. You may find them useful, too.

If you have any tips of your own, feel free to add them below.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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Some people blog to get good search engine rankings. But getting good rankings should not be an end in itself, but rather a means to an end.

That’s because a first page ranking, by itself, does you very little good.

Visitors search, they click, they read, they leave.

Search engine visitors rarely return. They find what they are looking for. Then they move on.

This is why it’s important to build an audience. Visitors are good; an audience is better.

So make sure your blog or web site is designed to capture visitors and turn them into loyal subscribers. Easier said than done, right?

Here are a few things I’ve done to build my audience:

• I’ve written about what I feel are important issues.
• I’ve been willing to embrace controversy when I felt it was necessary.
• I’ve offered some of my best ideas for free on this blog.
• I’ve written guest posts for other bloggers and business owners.
• I’ve encouraged visitors to subscribe to my mailing list.
• I’ve tried to be genuine and transparent in my writing and interactions.

And, over time, my audience has grown.

It’s grown slowly — in fact, far slower than most well-known blogger phenoms — but it has still grown.

Your blog is primarily a platform for spreading good ideas… for connecting with other people… and for building an audience.

Search engine rankings are just a way to achieve these things faster.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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I started my first business blog on Typepad.

I called it “On Copywriting.” It was about copywriting, advertising, and marketing.

But because I’m a freelance copywriter, I attracted mostly other freelance copywriters as readers.

In January 2008, I started my new blog here at RyanHealy.com. I decided to reposition my blog to focus on business growth, with copywriting and advertising as sub-topics.

I did this because I wanted potential clients to read my blog. People who want to grow their business may be more inclined to hire a direct response copywriter. That was my thinking.

I’m now strongly considering a redesign of this blog (this will be redesign #4). As part of that makeover, I’m also strongly considering changing the focus of what I write about.

With that in mind, I’d like to ask for your input. I’ve already got three overarching ideas I think would be good for me to focus on — mostly because I have experience in these areas and they are topics of interest that I would enjoy writing about.

But just because I think the ideas are worth pursuing as the topics for this blog doesn’t mean they’re the ones I should pursue.

So… of the topics I’ve listed below, which ones should I be focusing on? You can select 5 different options in the poll below. You can also see the results if you are interested.

Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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Although I’ve used Thesis on this blog for a few years now, I’ve been experimenting with different themes on other WordPress sites I run.

So when I began to create PaidOnTime.net with my friend and business partner Ken Gary, I began to look around at other options.

I knew I wanted the site to have a “slider” at the top so I could quickly convey the main selling points. And I also wanted the site to have a clean, professional look.

Finally, I settled on Woo Themes. I actually joined their WordPress Developer Club so I could try out any of the 90+ themes they have, and I settled on the Biznizz theme for Paid On Time.

As I’ve learned more about the Woo Themes framework and functionality, I’ve begun to like them even more.

For instance, because of how they’ve built their themes, it’s very easy to add slick-looking buttons and quote boxes to your site. You can add them to any page or post using “short codes” from a drop-down menu.

You can see an example of how the short codes work on the PaidOnTime.net sales page. All the call-outs and the order button at the bottom were inserted using the Woo Themes short codes.

The reason I mention this at this particular point in time is because Woo Themes is running a special Easter sale.

Right now, you can get 5 themes for the price of 1, which is a pretty good deal. That’s 5 WordPress themes for $70.

And if you prefer to join their Theme Club and get access to all 90 themes, you can get 20% off the initial fee.

Woo Themes doesn’t run sales that often — only a few times each year. I know that because I was trying to find a sale when I signed up. So if you’re interested, you can check out Woo Themes here…

• Click here to learn more about Woo Themes

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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Last week, I tried an experiment.

Normally, I publish one or two or three blog posts a week. I hold back a lot of my ideas because I don’t want to email my list too much.

But last week I wrote and published a blog post whenever I felt like it. I didn’t hold back.

Now, I continued to email my list like normal — but no more than once a day. I picked the best post of the day and let them know about it.

I didn’t tell them about the other blog posts, but left it up to chance to see if they’d find them or not.

At least one person noticed. Stephen Dean said, “Ryan Healy was busting out blog posts this week like Lindsay Lohan on stimulants.”

While Stephen’s description made me laugh, the question is not, “How similar is Ryan Healy to Lindsay Lohan?” The question is, “Did more frequent blogging increase traffic to my blog?”

The answer is… yes. In fact, traffic to my blog increased quite a bit. Here’s a graph from Google Analytics:

Saturday is consistently my lowest traffic day every single week, so I have noted that above. Monday-Thursday are my highest traffic days.

Conclusion: More frequent blog posts generated more traffic to my blog even though I didn’t increase the frequency that I emailed my list.

You may find the same is true in your market. It’s something worth testing.

Explaining Alexa Traffic Spikes

While Alexa isn’t perfect, I do like to check Alexa to see how I rank against similar blogs. I also like to analyze the charts to see why I’ve gotten more or less traffic than normal.

Here’s a chart of my blog’s Alexa rankings compared to Terry Dean’s blog MyMarketingCoach.com.

As you can see, our sites have similar traffic levels. But I’ve had a couple recent traffic spikes that are explained on the chart.

Ray Edwards is a colleague of mine. He’s a freelance copywriter, as I am. And our blogs have similar traffic levels. But check out this Alexa chart:

As you can see, my Jeff Walker post and more frequent blogging both created noticeable traffic spikes.

But those spikes pale in comparison to an organized promotion where multiple friends and/or affiliates promote your product on the same day or within a narrow window of time.

Last week, Ray promoted his new book Writing Riches. I promoted Ray’s book, as did a number of other bloggers and marketers. This caused a massive spike in traffic to Ray’s blog.

3 Ways to Increase Traffic

If you’d like to increase traffic to your blog or web site, here are three proven ways to do it:

1. Be controversial.
2. Blog more frequently.
3. Get friends and affiliates to promote a product you sell.

As the charts above demonstrate, an organized promotion can generate far more traffic than either of the first two strategies.

This is because people are generally more motivated by money and obligation than the opportunity to share something new or controversial.

Have a great week.

-Ryan M. HealySimilar Posts:

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If you’d like to get more of your blog visitors to “Like” your Facebook page, then it’s important to add a Facebook “Like Box” to your blog’s sidebar.

Here’s how to do it, step by step:

1. First, you have to create a Facebook page. I’m assuming you already have one.

2. Go to the Like Box page on Facebook to design your custom Like Box.

3. Copy and paste your Facebook page URL into the first field.

4. Customize the width of your Like Box so it will fit in your sidebar. (Don’t worry too much about this. You can get it to fit with a little trial and error.)

5. Check or uncheck boxes to change the content of what appears in your Like Box. I’ve unchecked the “Show stream” box because I feel it’s unnecessary to display my most recent blog posts on my blog a second time.

6. Click the “Get Code” button. Copy the code.

7. Next, log-in to your WordPress control panel. Click on “Widgets” underneath the “Appearance” menu.

8. Click and drag a new Text Widget into your sidebar.

9. Paste the code (from Step 6) inside the text area of your new Widget and click Save. You’ll notice you do not need to enter a title because the Like Box already includes a title that says “Find Us on Facebook.”

10. Check your blog to see how the new Like Box looks. If it’s too wide, simply go back to the Facebook Like Box page, reduce the width, grab the updated code, paste it back into your text widget (overwriting the previous code), and hit save. After a couple tries, you should have the perfect size Like Box on your blog.

11. Last step! Get people to your blog and ask them to “like” your Facebook page. :-)

Although I’ve listed a lot of steps here, it’s actually a fairly simple process. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. By the way, since we’re already talking about it, I’d really appreciate it if you “liked” my Facebook page. Just look for the Like Box to the left and click the Like button. Thanks!Similar Posts:

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