Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 8 of May , 2008 at 5:40 am
This WordPress tip is aimed at those who have not bothered to update their software for sometime. If use or rely on Technorati they will soon stop indexing sites that have not upgraded to the latest software.
Technorati are taking this action due to the number of security breaches that have been detected in recent times. These breaches include the insertion of hidden links on blog pages created prior to the version 2.3.3 update. To quote a lengthy piece from Technorati’s blog post on the topic:
Blogs that have been compromised by this security vulnerability are typified by having links to spam destinations inserted onto the blog page. These link insertions may be invisible to casual observations; the links are often obscured by style attributes that render them invisible.
You can check your blog for links using the page source code or the Tools - Page Info - Links option in Firefox. The ramifications are, again from the Technorati blog:
Because of this ongoing problem, we’re discontinuing processing crawls of blogs that exhibit common symptoms of being compromised. We strongly recommend upgrading your WordPress installation. Even if you haven’t been afflicted by a compromise, by the time you are aware that you have been a number of negative consequences may have already occurred (for instance, flagged spam by Technorati, Google or Yahoo!) — this has been reported by many WordPress users.
The last thing you want is to suddenly lose your rankings within Google or Technorati due to ‘link selling’ when in actual fact you have been spam linked. The biggest WordPress tip for the year so far is to upgrade to the latest software, check your pages for any spam links, and protect your hard earned rankings.
Category: WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 26 of April , 2008 at 5:41 am
And with WordPress there is always more. One of the reasons that WordPress remains as the number one blog software platform is due to the fact that it stays up to date and constantly releases fixes to any known problems.
WordPress 2.5.1 has been released to block a possible security breach and patch 70 (yes 70) known bugs. These bugs include:
[sourced from WordPress.org]
- Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
- Better performance for those who have many categories
- Media Uploader fixes
- An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
- Widget Administration fixes
- Various usability improvements
- Layout fixes for IE
Depending on your installation, you may be able to upgrade through your web host particularly if you are using cPanel. If not, you will need to download the upgrade and install it manually. Full instructions are available with the download.
Category: Blog Software, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 11 of April , 2008 at 6:16 am
Scrappers are everywhere at present and often you will not even be aware of there presence. For those who are uninitiated, a scrapper is someone who copies your content and publishes as their own. These tips may at least help to thwart them.
My first tip, whilst it wont stop them, it certainly provides you with links back to your pages and advertises to the world that the content has been scrapped. The tip, include a least one link within the post to one of your pages. You can also use a second little trick which involves publishing your post, noting its url, then editing the post and including the url somewhere near the end.
Having you post covered with your links may not stop them, it will however provide you with some links. The second step is to actually determine if you are being scrapped. This can be fairly easy. Copy a paragraph of text and paste it into Google’s search engine. If your content is out there Google should find it.
If you have been scrapped, contact the owner and ask them to delete the post. If they don’t, contact the host. At the same time advise Google of content theft. If they are displaying Google ad units they will most likely be suspended.
Scrapping is hard to combat particularly some of the new smart scrappers. They are subscribing and using your RSS feed as a post. This is often only the first paragraph and they are smart. They will link back to your site to ‘read the rest of this article’ but use a written by fictitious name.
If you have been scrapped, and who hasn’t these days, get your feed published through Feedburner. This often gets your new page indexed quickly, faster than a scrapper can get it published. Together with your links in the content the search engines will generally assume yours is the original the scrappers dulplicate content.
You can try to sue but these guys are fly-by-night so it is rather pointless. The are many WordPress tip on how to stop these guys. The bottom line often is to just let them go, milk them for links, and notify Sheriff Google each time.
Category: WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 28 of March , 2008 at 2:31 am
Probably not busted but this WordPress tip reveal 6 of the main myths and debunks them totally.
WordPress is really for amateurs: Really, does that make me an amateur. One of the good things about WordPress is that it is great for everyone - amateur to professional. You can virtually use it ‘out of the box’ or customize it as much as your skills allow. There are many professionals who use WordPress as their preferred blogging tool.
You can build a complete site with WordPress: No. WordPress is a blogging and CMS (content management system). There are themes and plugins that enable you do a lot with the software. In practical terms, WordPress is to heavy on CPU usage to be a viable web page. Dedicated web pages are leaner, meaner and much quicker.
WordPress can handle as many plugins as you want: No. There is a point where even WordPress cannot cope. Your server will most likely suspend you before that happens. WordPress uses a lot of CPU time and each additional plugin simply puts more stress on that CPU time. When it comes to plugins, leaner is meaner. The more plugins you have, the slower it all becomes.
WordPress is easily hacked: Only if you allow it. WordPress is as safe as most sites. If you keep your version up to date and pay attention to any notices from WordPress regarding security, you will be fairly safe.
It is hard to find help for WordPress: There is probably more documentation on WordPress than any other blogging software. WordPress.org has pages and pages of help. A simple Google search will find millions of article on just about any WordPress issue.
WordPress is limited to just 10 text boxes in the sidebar: There are several fixes to this issue. The reality is that you can have as many text boxes in your sidebars as you want. The reality. Just like plugins, the more text boxes you have the slower it all becomes.
WordPress is free: I just knew I would come across one myth that I couldn’t debunk. Yes, WordPress is free and so are many of the themes and plugins.
WordPress is a robust and very popular blog software platform that is used by millions every day. There are thousands, if not millions of WordPress tips, it just takes a little sifting to find the right ones - or you could just come back here occasionally.
Category: WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Sunday, 16 of March , 2008 at 7:51 am
WordPress is arguably the number one platform for bloggers in today’s Web 2.0 environment. Everywhere you look there are blog plugins that can do everything from changing your admin screen to administering comments to monetizing your blog - and everything in between. Not only are you faced with so many plugins, everywhere you look there is another WordPress tip about which blog plugin is best for your blog.
As a blogger it can be difficult to know where to start. Which blog plugin is right for me? Which WordPress tip should I follow? At the risk of being added to those questions, here a few tips to help you out.
Less is More: Start with the bare bones and build slowly. Don’t add every plugin that sounds good. Plugins actually slow down the load speed of your blog so the fewer installed, the less drain on your blogs load time.
A Plugin Should Solve a Need: Plugins should really only be installed if they are either solving a problem (for example, a spam filter for spam comments) or fulfill a need (for example, improve your RSS feed). I have come across blogs that have had both Askismet and Big Brother installed - and they wondered why they were having problems.
Plugins Should be Optimized: If you install a plugin then read the install files and the usage files. If there is a configuration option then ensure it is configured to do what you require. Some plugins will not work unless configured correctly.
Blog plugins are generally written to fulfill a need. At last count there were over 1500 plugins - possibly more. It is obvious you are not going to need all of them. You need to be selective with your choice of plugin. If it doesn’t do the job required, de-activate it and delete it and find a plugin that will do the job.
Category: Blog Plugins, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, 3 of March , 2008 at 3:41 am
This WordPress tip covers a subject that has been written about many times over the years. Over the last week I have probably spent more time rescuing sites than actually working on the content. Two of my friends had their WordPress self hosted blogs hacked in what I can only describe as a very curious way. Never the less it was devastating.
It seem that someone had been able to download the latest WordPress upgrade files and rather than installing them into a sub-directory, they had installed them straight into the route directory. Of course this overwrote all their files and made access of their WordPress blog all but impossible. Fortunately I had backed up their blogs the week before. The net loss was a weeks worth of posting.
Having resolved those problems I found that all the domains on the host I use had been hacked with a particular radical page. Fortunately this only involved the removal of the offending index file and renaming of the original file.
Backing up any work is so important in this day and age. If your blog is valuable then back up daily. If possible use a host that provides a daily backup service. If you are doing it yourself, it only takes five minutes at the end of the day to back up your files, particularly your database and store away from your blog. You can safely store it on your PC where it will be safe from any potential problems.
Every day we read plenty of WordPress tips, this is one WordPress you don’t want to ignore. Backup frequently. Backup for peace of mind.
Category: WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, 18 of February , 2008 at 7:26 am
Our previous post on WordPress Tips looked at decreasing the time it took to load and run the PHP code together with plugins and widgets. Today we will take another look at the sidebars but first, one of the biggest enemies to time when it comes to loading a page, graphics.
Graphics, particularly the memory hungry high resolution photos can take forever to load. Just visit some of the celebrity sites - and grab a coffee while you are waiting for it to finish loading. I am sure you have witnessed this effect.
There are a number of ways to sidestep the slow loading. While it may sound obvious, reducing the size of the graphic helps. You can do this using a good graphic editor. If you cannot reduce the size physically, then try reducing the size within the graphics link. You can use either pixels or % and use the <height=”xx”> and <width=”xx”> tags. You can also use a blog plugin like ImageScaler to do the job more efficiently. Another option is to use a plugin that render thumbnails of the image. Hover the mouse over the image and it appears full size. Images are always going to effect the load speed of a blog. The key is to use them wisely.
The second WordPress tip to a faster blog involves the sidebars. WordPress by default allows a maximum of nine text boxes. You do not have to use all nine boxes. Wherever you have related code, for example, banners with links, they can be combined within the one text box. If you have nine text boxes in use, each box is loaded into memory, the code run and the results rendered to the screen - one box at a time. By combining the code into only a few text boxes you will gain extra speed on loading.
These WordPress tips work well to help your blog load faster. What is most important is that you take the time on a regular basis to review your blog. Make sure everything is up to date. Remove what is no longer needed and keep everything optimized for speed.
Category: Blog Plugins, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 14 of February , 2008 at 6:11 am
WordPress tips abound however they are generally encouraging another plugin or more code within the header, footer, index or page files. These WordPress tips are a little different. They are designed to speed up you blog, not slow it down.
The problem is fairly simple. The more widgets, plugins or PHP code that WordPress has to load, the slower your blog will get. If you have a blog that also relies on graphics, you have probably got a snail for a blog. Loading speed is one of the greatest turn-offs when it comes to visitors bouncing away from your blog.
The following WordPress tips will help to optimize your blog with hopefully some noticeable increases in load times.
- First and foremost. How does your blog load? By this I refer to the load order which is generally header, left sidebar, right sidebar, content and footer. If your sidebars are busy then the last thing your visitor will see is the content and that could be after 10 or even 15 seconds. Look out - they are gone before the content loads. WordPress Tip One: select a theme that loads content early, preferably first.
- PHP is actually a slow language to run. The PHP code is run and converted into HTML which the browser then renders to the screen. You can see the results by viewing the pages source code (View, Page Source or Control U or right click View Page Source - FireFox). Generally speaking, the Pages header and footer are fairly static. Once you have your page setup it is normally only the sidebars and of course the content that changes. Have a look at the source code - it is in HTML. WordPress Tip Two: Cut out the middleman (PHP). Copy the header and footer HTML code from the source code screen. In the Presentation - Edit Theme section, paste this code in to replace the PHP code for the relevant sections - take care and back up the files first.
- Sidebars are notoriously slow at loading. Humans are notorious for adding every new gadget that comes along. WordPress Tip Three: The easiest tip to work on. Go through every widget in your sidebars and really consider whether or not you need them, particularly if they are repeating the same information, eg, recent posts, most visited posts etc. If it is not really adding to the benefit of your reader - get rid of it.
- Plugins are another area that can slow your blog considerably. WordPress loads all plugins whether or not they have been activated. WordPress Tip Four: If the plugin has not been activated, delete it altogether. While you are at it, check that each plugin is up-to-date and is really necessary. If you don’t need it - delete it.
- A lot of blogs like to advertise who has been visiting with widgets from BlogCatolog or MyblogLog to name two. WordPress Tip Five: if you have a widget from one of the social directories, check to see if you can create a full width widget (you can with BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog). If you can, place it in the footer so that it appears across the bottom of your blog. The footer is the last to load - after the content.
Each of these WordPress tips may only improve your blogs load speed by a half to one second. Put them all together and you have as much as five seconds reduced from your blogs load speed. On the internet, that is quite a reduction. Keep a lookout in the coming weeks for more WordPress tips on how to increase your blogs load speed.
Category: WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, 29 of January , 2008 at 7:33 am
Yes - another blog plugin to create sitemaps - this one’s a little different. This is a plugin for WordPress that creates a real sitemap, not an XML sitemap for search engines, this a sitemap for your visitors.
DD Site Map Gen is from Dagon Design and generates a sitemap that can be placed on a dedicated static page. As it uses dynamic code it is constantly being updated. The sitemap can be customized to sort all your posts, all your pages or both your posts and pages. The sitemap can be produced sorted by date and or by category. I find it useful to sort by category first and then date. This produces a very professional looking sitemap in the old list web page list style.
The plugin has language files for English, Albanian, Brazilian-Portuguese, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. It is very easy to install, configure and use.
A good sitemap like this is one way to instantly produce an enormous number of internal links for blog.
WordPress tips:
If you file posts in more than one category then that post will appear in your sitemap under each category - file a post in three categories and it will appear three times in the sitemap.
Unless you have a large number of pages, by large I mean more than 300, then produce your sitemap on one single page.
Category: Blog Plugins, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 26 of January , 2008 at 6:51 am
This is an unusual blog marketing tip, but one that is probably not utilized by most bloggers. For the initiated, this may serve as a reminder, for every one else, you are probably asking - what is a 404?
You have probably come across 404’s before - it is simply a page not found error - and a very frustrating error. Think about it. You click on a link and get an error message. The page cannot be found. What have you done in this situation? Clicked refresh just in case; hit the back button; or just moved on? The majority of people just move on. If that was your page, you have just lost a visitor and every visitor is a potential customer.
How do you resolve the problem. For the big time bloggers, their 404 Page Not Found is a blessing - they use it to promote their main pages, their affiliate pages or their products. The easiest solution is to make sure that every link is unbroken and does not result in a 404. It is always good to have a backup for those times when you cannot repair the link, for example, a link that is normally unbroken is temporarily broken due to server errors.
It is very easy to redirect your Page Not Found to any page that suits. I will concentrate on WordPress, however the concepts are the same for any blogging package. Before moving on, a blogging tip for everyone - make a backup of the file you intend making any changes to.
WordPress normally has a file aptly named, 404.php. To redirect the browser to a page of your choice, open the 404.php for editing and add the following:
<?
header ("Location: http://your page url/");
?>
Replace the ‘your page url’ with the url of the page you want to have displayed. The best choice is either to redirect to your very best post or back to your home page. Even better, if you have the skills, is to have a dedicated page that advises the visitor that the page requested is not currently available, has a search option to find similar pages, at the same time promotes who you are, you current posts, products or services. This WordPress tip is very straightforward. For those using other platforms it is just a matter of finding your 404 file in your blog design and making the adjustments.
As a marketing tool, the 404 Page Not Found error should never be wasted - it is an opportunity to promote your business.
Category: Blog Design, Blog Marketing, Blogging Tips, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 25 of January , 2008 at 7:13 am
I have not seen this WordPress tip in many places, however I think it can be a worthy blogging tip to put into practice. If you receive a lot of trackbacks on your blog you will notice that they get mixed in with the comments. First, a simple definition of a trackback.
[source] A Trackback is one of three types of Linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog software programs, such as Wordpress, Movable Type and Community Server, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published.
So essentially a trackback is one blog advising another blog that there is a link connecting them and that the link comes from a particular article. The receiving blog pings back and it is that ping back that often ends up in the comments area. You have two choices, delete the trackback or leave it inplace. Trackbacks can be valuable for linking so it is often wise to leave the trackback in. However the trackbacks dotted through your comments make it look a little untidy. Follow these steps and our comments will not only look tidy, they will look professional. Before starting - make a copy of your comments.php file, just in case you make an error.
Step one: Open for editing your comments.php file and locate the following code.
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?> immediately after this code place this:
<?php $comment_type = get_comment_type(); ?>
<?php if($comment_type == 'comment') { ?>
Step two: locate the following piece of code:
<?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?> place this code on the line before:
<?php } /* End of is_comment statement */ ?>
Step three: locate this piece of code:
<?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?> immediately before place this code:
<h3>Trackbacks</h3>
<ol>
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
<?php $comment_type = get_comment_type(); ?>
<?php if($comment_type != ‘comment’) { ?>
<li><?php comment_author_link() ?></li>
<?php } ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ol>
All done. Save the file and go into any post that has a mix of trackbacks and comments. This WordPress tip is easy to put into place and provides a nice neat look to your blog software.
Category: Blog Software, Blogging Tips, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 19 of January , 2008 at 6:34 am
Gotbanners is one blog plugin that has several applications. Written specifically for WordPress to counter the banner blindness that can occur when returning visitors see the same banners every day, this plugin is quick to install and quick to configure.
The plugin works by taking the assigned banners and rotating them. Whenever the pages is loaded (or refreshed), the banners are shuffled into a new display order. To configure Gotbanners, simply copy the banners code into the configuration panel, save, and place the widget into your sidebar.
Whilst designed for affiliate 125 x 125 type banners, I can envisage this blog plugin being used for any banner campaign. If you want to promote static pages, competitions, related sites, or any other link; create a series of banners and let Gotbanners do the rest. The plugin is also capable of handling double width columns to display two columns of banners. This WordPress tip will certainly help to avoid any banner blindness.
Category: Blog Plugins, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, 16 of January , 2008 at 7:03 am
A lot is written on the topic of Blog SEO but I see very little written about the use of graphics. Your graphics are just as important as the text, in fact more so if they do not render well on the screen.
Each browsers uses a different set of rules to render the graphics to the screen. If you use FireFox, particularly some of the older versions, you may find that when hovering your mouse over an image nothing happens. Internet Explorer on the other hand will display the ALT tag text. Some users prefer to have the graphics function of the browser switched off - in other words, they do not want graphics displayed. This can make a page look rather strange unless you code the graphics correctly.
The Insert/Edit image function in WordPress has a very limited capability. When inserting an image into your content you can use the Insert/edit image function but you will need to enter the code window to clean up the graphics tags.
Optimized Graphics Tags:
<img src=”http://yourimage-url.here” alt=”name of image” title=”name of image” border=”0=none 1,2,3 etc for thickness” width=”xx%” height=”xx%” align=”left, right, center” vspace=”10″ hspace=”10″>
That is a long tag. A quick look at each component.
The IMG SRC (image source) tag tells the browser where to find the image.
The ALTÂ tag is the text that is placed on the screen if the browsers image function is switched off or if the path to the image has been broken (the image may have been deleted for example) - use keywords in this text.
The TITLE tag is the text that is displayed when the mouse hovers over the image (you can get clever and use promotional text here - for example - “click here to see more on blog SEO“) - again, use keywords in the text.
The BORDER tag sets the thickness of the border - zero for no border or you can leave the tag out altogether.
The WIDTH and HEIGHT tag allow you to render the graphic in a size other than the original. You can use sizes greater than 100% but always check how well the graphic appears. You can use just the width tag as most browsers will automatically resize the height according to the width. I find it best to use both tags.
The ALIGN tag places the graphic to the left or right of the text or centers the graphic with text top and bottom. If you are looking for a magazine affect with the text wrapping around the graphic - use the left or right attribute. (note again, not all browsers render this correctly).
The VSPACE and HSPACE are measurements in pixels that tell the browser how much ‘white’ space to place around the graphic. If you leave this tag out the text will placed hard up against the graphic.
Once you have placed the graphic, if it is a third party graphic (taken from another site) then it is always a good idea to link to the graphics source in the accompanying text.
If you follow those tips, your graphic should render well in most browsers and search engines will know where the graphic came from and its importance to the content.
Category: Blog SEO, Blogging Tips, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, 14 of January , 2008 at 6:16 am
These WordPress tips can be used to present your blogs content using some attributes that are not present on the WordPress toolbar. To use these tips you will need to enter them through the code screen when creating your content.
You are probably familiar with the bold and italics attributes. You can also use strong or emphasized to highlight your text. Other attributes include big and small and superscript and subscript.
To get this effect use the following codes either side of the text you want to enhance.
<b> </b> for bold
<i> </i> for italics
<strong> </strong> for strong
<em> </em> for emphasized
<big> </big> for big
<small> </small> for small
<sup> </sup> for superscript
<sub> </sub> for subscript
One attribute that is a little more complicated is the horizontal rule that I have just used. It is good for breaking up topics within the one post. This code includes parameters such as ALIGNMENT - left, right and center. WIDTH - the length in pixels of the line and SIZE - the thickness in pixels. The noshade command determines whether or not the line is filled or hollow as sown below.The code for the above line is:
<hr align=”center” noshade=”0″ size=”4″ width=”400″ /> and for the line below:
<hr align=”center” size=”4″ width=”400″ /> (note the omission of the noshade)
Several points to note with this code. All the attribute parameters are inside double quotes. The tag, HR, is between the < and > - note the trailing / - this closes the tag.
A short word of warning. If you pride yourself on having 100% strict xhtml then do not use the HR tag as it is not supported. You should also check your formatting in both Internet Explorer and FireFox - there are times when what works in one will not work in the other.
For headings, use a heading tag. Note the closing tags at the end of the line - these must be used. The tags for these are <h1> </h1> through to <h6> </h6>. You will also need to take into account your themes CSS which is file of code that changes some of the attributes. The CSS for this theme has been altered to display the <h1> </h1> code in white (which does not work on a white background> so I have omitted the code from this list. Your template may well support the use of it.
heading 2
heading 3
heading 4
heading 5
heading 6
Category: Blog Content, Blogging Tips, WordPress tips
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 12 of January , 2008 at 7:38 am
One WordPress tip that I don’t see posted all that often is WordPress’ ability to save numerous posts without publishing.
The worst thing that could happen to any writer is writers block. Conversely, I am sure there are times when you could write all day. If you post using the WordPress platform then it is very easy to create all that content without actually posting it.
What about holidays. Do you worry about keeping your blog up to date whilst on holidays. A simple solution is to take your laptop with you everywhere. Of course you do have the problem of reliable internet access. You could also post via your mobile phone. There are simpler ways to do things. You can enjoy your holiday or your time away and still keep posting, every day if that is your schedule.
Here’s How
The graphic on the left is a screen shot from the Coolayla WordPress panel and is taken from the sidebar in the ‘Write Posts’ tab.
WordPress has a feature known as ‘Post Timestamp’. One of its uses is to allow a blogger to write an article that will be published at some time into the future.
To use the feature, write your post as usual - however do NOT publish it. Once completed, check the check box (item one) marked ‘Edit timestamp’. Then modify the time and date that you would like to schedule the article for publication (item two). Finally, ensure that the ‘Post status’ - ‘published’ check box is checked (item three).
Hit publish and WordPress will file the article away until the designated date and time. The article will be automatically published on that day.
The other feature I mentioned, which is to create content without publishing, is very straight forward. Once you have completed your article, ensure that the ‘draft’ check box in ‘Post status’ area has been checked. Then simply hit the save button rather than the publish button. At any time in the future you can load up that article, make any changes, check the published button in the ‘Post status’ area and hit publish.
It is often a good idea to have a number of articles pre-written this way. You never know when writers block is going to hit, or when you are going to be called away. A simple WordPress tip that can save a lot of time and worry.
Category: WordPress tips
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