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15 Useful Twitter Plugins and Hacks For WordPress

1. WordPress Hacks For Twitter

WordPress plug-ins are good, but if you have 50 different plug-ins active on your blog, you should obviously expect longer loading times and even some inconvenience. This is why we love hacks! First let’s dive deep into WordPress and see what hacks can do to enhance our blogging experience. In the second part of this article, we will also show you some useful Twitter plug-ins for your WordPress blog.

Automatically create TinyUrls for your blog posts

Because of the restriction on character numbers in Twitter, you have to use a URL shortener when tweeting URLs. So, to help your readers tweet about your posts, you should definitely provide short URLs for all of your posts.

Here’s how to automate that task:

Open your functions.php file and paste the following code:

  1. function getTinyUrl($url) {
  2. $tinyurl = file_get_contents(“http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=”.$url);
  3. return $tinyurl;
  4. } 
function getTinyUrl($url) {
    $tinyurl = file_get_contents("http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=".$url);
    return $tinyurl;
}

Once done, paste this in your single.php file, within the loop:

  1. <?php
  2. $turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID));
  3. echo ‘Tiny Url for this post: <a href=”‘.$turl.‘”>’.$turl.‘</a>’
  4. ?> 
<?php
$turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID));
echo 'Tiny Url for this post: <a href="'.$turl.'">'.$turl.'</a>'
?>

To see this in action, visit my website, WpVote, and look at any post.

Source: How to: Automatically provide TinyUrls for your WordPress blog posts

Display your latest tweet without a plug-in

If people like your blog, they would probably also enjoy your tweets. Displaying your latest tweets on your WordPress blog is a good way to gain new subscribers. A plug-in can do that, but for such a simple task, I prefer a hack. This one grabs your latest tweet and displays it on your blog.

This ready-to-use code can be pasted anywhere in your theme files. Just don’t forget to change the value of the $username on line 4. The $prefix and $suffix variable can be used to insert a title, and the div element can be used for further CSS styling.

  1. <?php
  3. // Your twitter username.
  4. $username = “TwitterUsername”;
  6. // Prefix - some text you want displayed before your latest tweet.
  7. // (HTML is OK, but be sure to escape quotes with backslashes: for example href=\”link.html\”)
  8. $prefix = “<h2>My last Tweet</h2>”;
  10. // Suffix - some text you want display after your latest tweet. (Same rules as the prefix.)
  11. $suffix = “”;
  13. $feed = “http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from:” . $username . “&rpp=1″;
  15. function parse_feed($feed) {
  16. $stepOne = explode(“<content type=\”html\”>”, $feed);
  17. $stepTwo = explode(“</content>”, $stepOne[1]);
  18. $tweet = $stepTwo[0];
  19. $tweet = str_replace(“&lt;”, “<”, $tweet);
  20. $tweet = str_replace(“&gt;”, “>”, $tweet);
  21. return $tweet;
  22. }
  24. $twitterFeed = file_get_contents($feed);
  25. echo stripslashes($prefix) . parse_feed($twitterFeed) . stripslashes($suffix);
  26. ?> 
<?php

// Your twitter username.
$username = "TwitterUsername";

// Prefix - some text you want displayed before your latest tweet.
// (HTML is OK, but be sure to escape quotes with backslashes: for example href=\"link.html\")
$prefix = "<h2>My last Tweet</h2>";

// Suffix - some text you want display after your latest tweet. (Same rules as the prefix.)
$suffix = "";

$feed = "http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from:" . $username . "&rpp=1";

function parse_feed($feed) {
    $stepOne = explode("<content type=\"html\">", $feed);
    $stepTwo = explode("</content>", $stepOne[1]);
    $tweet = $stepTwo[0];
    $tweet = str_replace("&lt;", "<", $tweet);
    $tweet = str_replace("&gt;", ">", $tweet);
    return $tweet;
}

$twitterFeed = file_get_contents($feed);
echo stripslashes($prefix) . parse_feed($twitterFeed) . stripslashes($suffix);
?>

Save the file, and your latest tweet is displayed on your blog. Nice, huh?

Sources:

Display your latest tweet as an image

Because of Twitter’s success, a lot of third-parties have started promoting additional Twitter services. TwitSig is one of them. This website is very ugly but also very cool because it allows you to get an auto-updating image that displays your latest Twitter entry.

While using this image as a signature in forums would be good enough, integrating it in your WordPress blog, under your posts for example, would also be great.

  1. Go to Twitsig.com. You don’t have to register: very nice!
  2. Simply enter your Twitter username in the text field.
  3. And your Twitter image is ready, displaying your latest tweet. The image is automatically updated when you update your Twitter status.
  4. Open any of your WordPress theme files and paste the following code (make sure to replace my username with yours!):
    1. <a href=“http://twitter.com/catswhocode”><img src=“http://twitsig.com/catswhocode.jpg”></a> 
    <a href="http://twitter.com/catswhocode"><img src="http://twitsig.com/catswhocode.jpg"></a>

Create a “Tweet this” button

Twitter is definitely a great way to gain exposure on the Web. This is why I created a fancy “Send to Twitter” button and implemented it on my blogs (see links at the bottom of the article). Go here if you’d like to see this hack in action.

  1. Open the single.php file in your theme.
  2. Paste the following code where you’d like your Twitter button to appear:
    1. <a href=“http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>” title=“Click to send this page to Twitter!” target=“_blank”><img src=“send-to-twitter.png” alt=“” /></a> 
    <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Click to send this page to Twitter!" target="_blank"><img src="send-to-twitter.png" alt="" /></a>

Some time ago, in my “Mastering WordPress shortcodes” article here on Smashing Magazine, I showed you how to create a “Send to Twitter” WordPress shortcode. I also wrote an article on Pro Blog Design about creating a “Send to Twitter” WordPress widget. You can read that tutorial here!

Detect a visitor from Twitter

Visitors coming to my blogs from Twitter now represent something like 10% of all my traffic, which is quite a lot. Because many Twitter users re-tweet blog posts that they like, it may be a very good idea to detect Twitter visitors, welcome them and, of course, remind them that their re-tweets are appreciated.

To do this, open your single.php file and paste these lines where you’d like your “Welcome Twitter user” message to be displayed.

  1. <?php
  2. if (strpos(“twitter.com”,$_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER])==0) {
  3. echo “Welcome, Twitter visitor! If you enjoy this post, don’t hesitate to retweet!”;
  4. }
  5. ?> 
<?php
if (strpos("twitter.com",$_SERVER[HTTP_REFERER])==0) {
    echo "Welcome, Twitter visitor! If you enjoy this post, don't hesitate to retweet!";
}
?>

This code will detect readers coming from Twitter and display the message only to them.

Create a Twitter page on your WordPress blog

We already showed you how to display your latest tweet on your blog, in your sidebar for example. Another good way to introduce readers to your Twitter updates is to create a dedicated page for displaying your tweets, using the powerful “Page template” WordPress option.

To perform this hack, you need to know how to create and use page templates. If you’re not familiar with this, this article will tell you all you need to know.

Here’s the code to create a Twitter page template. Paste it in a new file, name the file something like twitter-page.php, for example, and then add it to your blog.

  1. <?php
  3. /*
  4. Template Name: Twitter page
  5. */
  7. get_header();
  9. include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.‘/rss.php’);
  10. wp_rss(‘http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/15985955.rss’, 20);
  12. get_sidebar();
  13. get_footer();
  14. ?> 
<?php

/*
Template Name: Twitter page
*/

get_header(); 

include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');
wp_rss('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/15985955.rss', 20); 

get_sidebar();
get_footer();
?>

This code uses the wp_rss() function from WordPress core, which is an RSS reader. In the first argument I pass my Twitter RSS feed, and in the second argument I determine the number of entries to display.

Using Twitter avatars in comments without plug-ins

I was pretty interested in the Twittar plug-in when it was first released and decided to look at the source to see how it works. Being a die-hard WordPress hack fanatic, I decided to create a hack using the Twittar code.

Follow these simple instructions to use Twitter avatars in your blog comments without a plug-in:

  1. The first thing is to get the functions file here.
  2. Once you have it, unzip the archive and open the twittar.php file. Select all of its contents and paste it in the functions.php file in your theme.
  3. Now, open your comments.php file and find the comments loop. Then, just paste the following line where you’d like the Twitter avatars to be displayed:
    1. <?php twittar(‘45′, ‘default.png’, ‘#e9e9e9′, ‘twitavatars’, 1, ‘G’); ?> 
    <?php twittar('45', 'default.png', '#e9e9e9', 'twitavatars', 1, 'G'); ?>

Source: How to: Use Twitter avatars in comments

2. WordPress Plug-Ins For Twitter

Twitter Updater
Are you using Twitter to notify readers about your new blog posts, or even old ones that you’ve updated? If so, then Twitter Updated is definitely something to consider. The plug-in automatically sends an update status request to Twitter when you create or modify a post. Text is customizable, and the plug-in provides many options.

Twit this
The Twit This plug-in makes it easy for readers to tweet about your blog posts by creating a “Share on Twitter” link on your blog. When someone clicks on it, your blog post’s URL is automatically sent to Twitter, and the visitor can enters a description before sending the tweet to his or her friends.

Twit it up
Twit it up is a simple AJAX-powered WordPress plug-in that basically does the same thing as Twit this: allows readers to tweet one of your posts directly from your blog by clicking a simple link.

Twit-Twoo
Twit-Twoo is a very useful for bloggers because it allows you to tweet friends directly from your WordPress dashboard. Particularly great if you spend a lot of time on your WordPress dashboard!

Twitter Tools
Twitter Tools, created by Alex King, is one of the most popular Twitter plug-ins for WordPress. It completely integrates Twitter in your WordPress blog, allowing you to archive your tweets, create a blog post from each of your tweets and post tweets from your admin dashboard or sidebar. It also allows you to create a daily digest of tweets; very nice if you tweet a lot!

Twittar
Twittar was released here on Smashing Magazine back in January. Remember it? This plug-in integrates Twitter avatars in the comment template of your WordPress blog. Definitely a plug-in to consider if you and your readership often use Twitter! And don’t worry if any of your readers don’t use Twitter (yet), Twittar automatically displays gravatars if no Twitter avatar is available.

Tweetbacks
Since its release only one month ago, the Tweetbacks plug-in has created a mini-revolution in the blogging world. While your WordPress blog can automatically notify you when bloggers discuss your posts on their own blogs, via Trackbacks, it can’t notify you when people discuss your posts on Twitter. That’s why Tweetbacks is so great: it automatically imports tweets about your posts and lets you display them either as comments or separately.

July 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Web | Leave a comment

How to Make Your Site to an Optimized One?

Think Outside the Design
The value of web standards really amounts to recommended use of markup to semantically describe content. Once mastered, the web developer is able to make intelligent and conscious decisions on the “right” compromises to be made for a given project. We are constantly working towards standardization and have had dialogs about the best practices for markup in various situations, it’s the World Wide Web Consortium’s role to define the purpose of markup; the platform for web site optimization. Web site optimization has little to do with search engine optimization or any of the W3C’s validation tools. Instead web site optimization deals with steps taken to improve user experience by:

  • reducing page weight
  • re-factoring of markup, CSS and/or Client Side Scripting
  • making content accessible
  • making content semantic
  • reusing imagery
  • optimizing the weight of imagery
  • caching and deferred loading
  • reducing latency to reduce download or render time

In short, the goal is to use the minimum code to achieve the desired result. Unfortunately, clients may not always afford us the proper time or resources required to give the most polished result possible.

Think it Through
Web standards in and of itself does not necessarily contribute to reduced file sizes, however what it does do is endorse healthy use of semantic markup that does give way to reduced page weight through table-less markup and a focus on cascading styles sheets for presentational material. By using document object model scripting, procedural code no longer needs to live inline in the html document itself. Take advantage of your page’s semantic structure to use the DOM to the fullest.

Code becomes art when we take our code to the next level by re-factoring it to maximize it accessibility, by reducing our dependency on the markup for presentation and procedural user interface components. What remains to be done when all of the content in a document is rendered as the design calls for, content properly described with your tags, images optimized for reuse and weight? Now, we consider scale, what happens when this site we’ve worked so hard to optimize becomes highly trafficked (think: Digg Effect) — or if the site already is, let’s make sure to optimize the server’s role in the user experience.

Caching is one of the chief techniques to be leveraged to improve user experience both on the client-side and the server-side. Making objects like cascading style sheets and JavaScript files external can also benefit from the technique of combining files to reduce latency. It’s much less “work” to download a larger file once than it is to download (or check for freshness of) several files. Unfortunately, many of the most visited sites could benefit greatly from even a dash of web site optimization. Issues like multiple CSS file or JavaScript files demonstrate little regard for the benefit they could provide their visitors as well as their own bottom line.

Move on to compression; consider pre-compressing your CSS and combined JavaScript files to reduce server load for high traffic sites. Go a step further and create a proxy that makes sure to return the “not modified” codes to user-agents checking for freshness of objects in your site after first download.

Without getting into code for each portion, let’s consider the typical components of a “well-designed” HTML document:

  1. masthead
  2. navigation
  3. breadcrumbs
  4. body
  5. sidebar
  6. footer

Within each there are a myriad of possible methods to semantically describe the content of the components. Let’s have a look at a few basic cases:

  • Unordered Lists for navigation, breadcrumbs and copy in list items.
  • Non-tabular layout for forms and use of labels and access keys for accessibility
  • Use of <p>, <em>, <strong>, <dl>, <h*>, <table> tags for content

Diving into a single common challenge can show how understanding of web standards cascades into an optimized user experience, let’s look at a technique that combines several techniques by several authors, each of which contributing to many fundamental factors of web site optimization; specifically: image reuse, semantics, presentational separation, caching, latency reduction, image optimization, and accessibility/platform independence. Anyway, on to the challenge — image based main navigation with hover effects. Without being distracted with pseudo-code let’s have a look at how using what we know about web standards leads naturally to web site optimization and a very desirable result for the user:

  1. Start with an unordered list, in the case of drop down menus, let’s make that a nested unordered list
  2. The unordered list is styled as required using CSS such that any copy is moved out of view by hiding overflow and indenting the copy out of view of user agents that support CSS, but still leaving it accessible to screen readers etc
  3. Now imagery is added for each of the tabs for the various states (hover, visited, active etc) as necessary

Normally this is where things would end. At this point we have the desired result, but it’s not an optimal experience for the user. Again to the credit of numerous designers and developers turned authors out there additional techniques can be applied to optimize the menu quite a bit:

  1. Combine all of the images for each button in the navigation into a single file
  2. Combine all of the image states the navigation into a single file and use CSS to shift the desired portion of the image into view when required
  3. Put any JavaScript required for desired effects; e.g. transparency, sliding effects support for browsers that don’t support standards as we would like etc an external file

In the previous three steps, we’ve:

  1. Reduced the latency required to load the main navigation imagery and the overall render time for a given page
  2. “Pre-Loaded” and cached the other anchor states for the navigation without using any client side scripting
  3. Cached the JavaScript for the navigation by making it external (the same is obviously true for the CSS), improving the render time for subsequent page views

Now apply a few more techniques to the site as a whole:

  1. Take advantage of the compression support of popular browsers and compress JavaScript and CSS so that it can be sent instead of the larger uncompressed versions
  2. Combine our CSS files and JavaScript files respectively, similar to the combining technique for the navigation imagery to reduce latency
    Cache these compressed versions of the combined files on the server so that
  3. Cache these compressed versions of the combined files on the server so that every page view requested doesn’t require the web server to have to prepare the same files over-and-over on-the-fly. Instead the server can send static files immediately (which it can do with tremendous ease).

With the various techniques we all apply to our projects just adding a few more steps of optimization greatly improves the user experience.

Make it Your Own
Standards simply help us agree on what markup is intended to do and how it’s elements work together for describing content, web site optimization picks up where web standards leaves off. The W3C encourages us to use markup to describe the content and separate the presentation and functionality from markup as much as possible. Once we get used to the idea our time is best spent optimizing our code to work in the real world. I’ve intentionally left out the “how” because that’s an ongoing debate whose conclusions are at best situational. There are quite a few frameworks out there that help developers apply many of these principles to their projects right out-of-the-box, but it’s not too difficult to build your own framework for your own style of work.

So what’s the final word? Well, similar to the stance that Ethan Marcotte put forward I suggest that web standards be the baseline that we use to optimize sites to perform for the targeted user agents. One day it may be easier to leverage standards to achieve a predictable user-experience across all user-agents, but for now it’s best to have more skills and mastery than are required to render a job well done.

July 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Web | Leave a comment

25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

  1. Keep it simple. The simpler it is for visitors to complete a purchase the more purchases (and fewer shopping cart abandonments) you’ll see. Make it simple to find the product and go through the checkout process.
  2. Provide complete contact information including a telephone number. Buyers want to know you’re real and they want to know how to reach you in case of a problem.
  3. Provide encouragement throughout the checkout process. The best way to do this is to let buyers know what stage of checkout they’ve reached, and to provide them with highlighted signage to let them know what to do next.
  4. Use product pictures in shopping carts. This reminds visitors what’s in their carts. It also reinforces, in the visitor’s mind, the reason(s) for the purchase.
  5. Link back to the product page. After an item has been placed in the shopping cart, the visitor should be able to click on the item and be directed back to the product page in a new window for example. This makes buying comparisons easier and ensures the visitor has the right item for his/her needs without leaving the shopping cart.
  6. Don’t keep shipping costs a secret. Nothing kills a conversion faster than a $19.95 shipping and handling charge on a $10 item. Provide shipping cost information on the first page of the checkout.
  7. Is it backordered? The visitor finally reaches the end of the checkout only to discover that the item isn’t in stock. Do you think they’ll come back when the item comes in? They won’t.
  8. Provide complete product information including sizes, colors, styles and other product descriptors. This will cut down on product returns because buyers will know what they’re actually purchasing. Avoid hyping products for the same reason.
  9. Keep terms of service (TOS) simple and unambiguous. What’s your guarantee? What’s your return policy? Eliminate the boilerplate and give them the facts.
  10. Provide a menu of payment gateways. Not all buyers want to pay by credit card. Some don’t even have a credit card. Buyers should be given the option to pay by debit card, personal check (snail mail), PayPal and other similar services, bank transfer and, if the want to stop by to pick it up, you’ll even take cash.
  11. Never blame the buyer. When a potential buyer clicks on the wrong link, or forgets to enter all data fields, put up a message explaining the problem and how to fix it. The customer is always right and it’s always your fault. Period.
  12. Offer gift cards. Some buyers just don’t know what to buy as a gift. A gift card solves the problem.
  13. Use real testimonials. If you’re doing it right, you’ve gotten good feedback from some buyers. Ask permission to use their testimonials. Don’t use fake testimonials signed by Diane E., California. It’s an obvious fake testimonial.
  14. Provide a customer service line. Outsource it if it isn’t part of the budget but buyers want to know there’s help in setting it up, whatever “it” is.
  15. Avoid distracting links. If your home page is crammed with PPC ads and links to other sites, it’s distracting and you’ll see a lot more bounces (visitors who never get past the home page).
  16. Offer incentives. Free shipping encourages buyers. So do upgrades, i.e. “Spend at least $50 and receive 10% off your entire purchase.” Some buyers will do the math and figure out they’re getting something for half price.
  17. Welcome repeat visitors by name. Your customer data base is filled with solid gold information including names, purchase amounts, items purchased and so on. First, welcome a return buyer by name. Then, offer suggestions for purchase based on individual buying histories. (See Amazon.com for examples of using data base information to boost conversion ratios.)
  18. Provide a currency converter. Not all buyers will be using your country’s currency. Make it easy to convert from euros to drachmas to dollars.
  19. Offer a free newsletter. Your regular buyers will appreciate it when they’re notified ahead of time of upcoming specials, new product launches and other site related information.
  20. Add a forum. This is a great way for buyers to share information, make recommendations and complain. It’s also a great way for you to handle complaints quickly, with the resolution posted right there on the complaint thread.
  21. Provide informational content on your site. This establishes your credentials and credibility as an authority, whether you’re selling kayaks or bake ware.
  22. Learn from your competitors. Visit the sites of more-established competitors to see what they’re doing to convert. How is the homepage designed? Navigation? Checkout? You can’t copyright an idea so you might as well “borrow” from the best.
  23. Improve site stickiness. In other words, give buyers a reason to return. Some suggestions? The Sale of the Day, Tip of the Day, Your Horoscope, This Day in History, etc. This keeps your site green and visitors returning.
  24. Let buyers post product reviews. Nothing sells better than a positive review from another buyer. Of course, the converse is true, too. Nothing will kill a sale faster than a bad review. And if a product receives lots of bad reviews, drop it from your product line.
  25. Target your site’s skin to your demographic. If you’re selling collectible knives, your site should have a certain “look” and that look doesn’t include pastels and prissy type. Big, bold and manly — that’s the way to go. On the other hand, if you’re selling needlepoint patterns, a nice pastel background with little flowers works perfectly.

Search engine optimization is designed to attract search engine spiders. It’s also intended to ensure that your site is accurately and completely optimized. But, once traffic arrives on site, conversion optimization takes over.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it honest. Not only will you see a boost in conversion ratio, you’ll also see a nice pop in return buyers. And they’re the best buyers any web site owner could ask for.

July 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Web | Leave a comment

How To Ride Your Links to Success

As a site owner, it’s important to devote what link building time you have to creating connections that count — really count — as far as search engine spiders are concerned. In fact, there’s a range of site link types — links diversity. Some are more valuable than others. Spend your time and resources building the highest quality links and you’ll quickly see the value of these efforts.

Hosted Content
Hosted content, also sometimes called pre-sell pages, makes your site look very good. The problem is, there are usually costs involved. Here’s how it works.

You, the content expert, write an article. It should be longer than 600 words but no longer than 1200 words. It should be well-written, completely researched, edited, re-edited and finally proofed so that it’s letter perfect. Okay, now you have host-worthy content.

Hosted content is content that’s placed on another site for a fee. In other words, you rent a page on another site to display your work. Now, what do you get for your money?

First, position your article on a site that’s (1) related to the topicality of your site and (2) has a tons of one-way links to content that’s “deep” in the site (in other words sub-pages that rank well in SERPs based on their title tags, for example). These two factors are the best way to measure and quantify the strength your page has in the target site, and ultimately, the link love it creates passes to your site. As you already know hosted content creates editorial inbound links, also known as pure gold.

Second, because it’s your article and you’re paying for the space, you can embed text links directly to specific pages of your site. This does a couple of things. First, you spread your web net further. Links to your site now appear on other sites — some several incarnations removed from your own site. This, ultimately, increases your site traffic as people read your interesting commentary and click on those embedded links to see what else is on your mind. That’s good. More hits. More page views. Higher conversion ratios.

Third, if you spread your words across the web, you start to develop some name recognition within your niche. Unless you’re Dan Kennedy or Skip McGrath, it’s tough building name recognition. However, by crafting numerous, informative articles you’ll start to be recognized. And wait until you Google your name and find 15 SERPs because your articles appear on dozens and dozens of sites.

The downside is the cost. Site owners charge you for the use of their space. If you’re well capitalized, no problem. Spend the money to spread your words. If money is a problem, choose your host sites carefully. Use Google Analytics or ClickTracks data to determine not only number of unique visitors you create from these pages of hosted content, but quality of traffic as well. Look for sites that match the two criteria above. Very important.

Article Submission
Okay, money is a problem. You don’t have a lot. You can still get your name and your opinions out there through various article submission sites.

Once again, site owners need green content and many rely on article submission sites to pick up fresh content for free. Here’s the deal. You write an article and go through the same steps of researching, editing and proofing until the piece is pristine and makes you sound like a savant. Perfect.

Now you place that piece on sites like www.goarticles.com or www.ezinearticles.com for free use by other sites. The plus side is, if the content is solid, you’ll get picked up by literally hundreds (even thousands) of sites. And in return for the free use of your written brilliance, the sites that display your content are obliged to include a link back to your web site. So, you put out 10 articles on topics related to your business, each one gets picked up and used by 20 other sites and you’ve got 200 non-reciprocal inbound links. Well done.

But isn’t this the same model as hosted content except it’s free? No. There are two key points to consider. First, with articles you syndicate it’s much more difficult to embed editorial links to your targeted web site. Instead, you take advantage of the target link and anchor text in your bio box that appears at the end of the article.

What does this mean? Ultimately syndicated articles are not unique content like hosted content is, and ultimately it’s more challenging to place links to your own site editorially without appearing to be hyping your goods or services. So there’s a tradeoff when you go the article syndication route. The key, just as with hosted content, is to have killer, useful information in order to entice webmasters to repurpose the article for their communities and give you credit, a bio and a back link.

But, it doesn’t cost you anything but your time, assuming you can string words together into cogent sentences, or at least your brother-in-law can.

If you’re good at syndicated content or article submission, you control the anchor text — the actual links readers click on. You can also embed editorial links in syndicated content. Now, these aren’t links directly back to your site but they will take the readers to a target page that you want them to read, so if you’re building links for other sites in your portfolio, this approach has a proven track record.

Reciprocal Links
Sites still exchange links. The concept isn’t moribund but it certainly doesn’t have the impact a non-reciprocal link has. Reciprocal linking is simply an exchange of links. You link to my site; I’ll link to yours. And since spiders follow links, it’s not a bad arrangement.

A couple of warnings, however. Any site with which you exchange links should be related to the topic of your site. If you’re selling baby clothes on your site and you’ve got a link to transmission fix-it site, you’ll get nicked by the search engine. Remember, the whole purpose of a search engine is to provide useful, relevant content to users so any links you exchange should be considered from the point of view of the site visitor. Is that link going to further the search of the site visitor or is it a dead end?

If a site appears to have a significant number of back links, and better yet, ranks well in the SERPs, it’s a likely candidate for a link exchange even if it’s a PR 2. Look for quality sites, or at least quality characteristics.

One-Way Link Building
This comes a several forms. First, there’s the ever-popular ‘link begging’ where you contact a site owner (you can find that information in Whois, if it’s not on the contact page) and basically plead your case to have that site owner accept your link. This is a tough sell because, naturally, the site owner wants to know what’s in it for him or her. Custom written, tailored emails tend to do better than form letter emails, obviously, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with a phone call provided you make it abundantly clear what you have to offer.

There are paid links programs. For example, www.textlinkads.com lists web sites willing to sell links to your site. You can bid on the cost of the link, agree to the length of time the link will appear and where it will appear. There are other programs that will hook up sites — usually with decent PRs — with site owners looking for good deals on paid links. Again, don’t forget to buy links with relevance to your site.

You can pay to advertise on another site with banner ads, though this has been shown to deliver lukewarm results unless you know your market very well. Do a competitive analysis and see what’s working for the competition. The click-thru rate on banners is less than 3% but they aren’t usually too expensive.

Finally, you can post your thoughts and opinions on forums and blogs related to your site. Each post will create a back link, but one that spiders will recognize as a blog back link — not a bad thing, just not a gangbusters way to build site credibility, especially considering that most links have a nofollow added and forums capable of giving any link love tend to moderate (and eliminate link spam) quite heavily. Don’t be fooled though, links even with a nofollow attached still have some magic — even on Google.

From hosted content to blog posts, anybody can get a little recognition on the web. And if you’ve actually got marketing capital, you can pay for hosted content and watch your site grow quickly.

Very quickly.

July 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Web | Leave a comment

50 Tips to Get Your Site Google Ranked in 30 Days or Less

1. Network offline. Helpful networking tools include LinkedIn, MeetUp and MyBlogLog. These sites provide real world contacts to simplify and streamline the process of networking. They’re also useful in building beneficial online relationships – not to be overlooked. Also reach out using conferences that are available in your area and abroad.

The keys to building a successful, well-tended blog run the gamut from good content to good contacts, and from credibility to controversy. There are lots of ways to expand your blog community and develop quality rankings at the same time

Once you’ve got all of this down your next steps are to begin monetizing your site.

So, blog.

2. Be consistent into month two. Keep the tone, style and topicality of your blog consistent for the first two months until spiders get it. Then, you can branch out to peripheral topics to expand reader interest.

3. Bait your blog. Post unconventional and controversial articles to create lengthy threads that, in turn, create site stickiness.

4. Get linked alongside related blogs on other sites. You can contact the blog administrator to swap links, you can become a regular guest blogger if your writing is good enough or your knowledge extensive. Niche sites are great for building blog links networks.

5. Cross link your posts. Link amongst your related blog posts using the keywords you’re optimizing your blog for as the anchor text.

6. Respond to comments in your blog. This accomplishes three important objectives: (1) it shows that there’s a human behind the blog; (2) it gives you a chance to show your expertise; and (3) you can lead the thread in a new direction or keep the discussion going. Oh, it’s also the polite thing to do, as well.

7. Deep links or links to sub-pages are vital. There’s a tendency to link from a remote site to your home page. Not necessarily the best strategy. Consider linking to pages deeper in the site – pages related directly to your blog post. This way, visitors are in your site and less likely to bounce.

8. Submit industry or topical news to general news sites. Not just industry related sites. If a small oil and gas company brings in a gusher, it’s of broader interest than to just industry insiders. Also adds credibility and another link.

9. Update or create a Wikipedia page and link to your site. Another means of establishing yourself as an authority. Just make sure the Wiki piece is accurate, well written and typo-free.

10. Direct (future) page rank efforts to well-optimized content on your home site. Don’t direct visitors and bots to the garbage bin of out-dated content stored in the site’s archives. Point them to the new news.

11. Syndicate content outside of your blog. Every site owner needs content. Fortunately, there’s plenty of it free for the taking. Sites like Helium, Ezine and Go Articles are content supermarkets. Post your piece and pick up non-reciprocal, in-bound links for your effort. Content syndication increases link popularity.

12. Use QA sessions in your blog. You’re the expert. Also, invite guest bloggers to handle questions beyond your skill set. Helpful, simple advice keeps visitors coming back and makes you a guru.

13. Add imagery and video content to your posts. A picture is worth a thousand web words. Charts and graphs simplify complex information and don’t take up a lot of room. If you aren’t an artist, create a relationship with a freelancer. Never use clip art.

14. Answer questions on Google groups and Yahoo Answers. People write in with all sorts of questions, some sure to fall within your area of expertise. By signing on as an authority in a field (your arena) you build credibility. Plus, it’s fun helping others from the comfort of your own work station.

15. Find free stuff to give away. Free still works on the web. There’s lots of open source software (OSS), mortgage calculators, real-time stock feeds and other digital goodies that visitors can download free. Free is nice.

16. Write about popular brands or celebrities where possible. It doesn’t matter if you’re blogging short sales in the market or clothing for the over-sized human, celebrity and name brands get picked up by spiders.

17. Create surveys. Surveys are more in depth than a poll. One survey you might want to try is one in which buyers rate the services and products you sell. Great marketing information. Consider placing a satisfaction survey somewhere on your site.

18. Poll your readers. Everybody’s got an opinion. Provide a platform to let posters and readers vote on a topic related to your site. It doesn’t do any good if you run a retail outlet and poll visitors on who they’d like to see in the White House. Stay on topic.

19. Focus on contextual relevancy before quantity of links. Connectivity within a market or topic segment has more value than SEO anchor text, at least in the short term.

20. Cite the sources of your content. This adds credibility to your posts. It also provides a trail for a reader interested in learning more about the topic at hand.

21. Write content for various experience levels. For many spaces DIYs are the largest sector. Some readers are just starting out. Others have been at it for years and probably know more than you do, so post blogs to appeal to a broad range of skill sets — from green rookie to wizened old vet.

22. Publish new content on weekdays. Even search engines need a break. Actually, more people are online Monday through Friday so your latest blog post is still the latest when posted on Monday rather than Sunday. A little thing, for sure, but little things mean a lot online.

23. Participate in your link community. Forum and blog links are ephemeral, lasting a day or two as web fodder, so there’s always the need for more green. Interact by posting to not only drive traffic with the link, but to also pick up another link from a credible site. All good.

24. Only purchase ad links on relevant niche sites. This, by default, limits competitive links and delivers more qualified (knowledgeable and ready-to-purchase) visitors to your site.

25. Focus on ranking for three key words or phrases to start. The keywords you select should appear in your HTML title tags and within the site’s content when appropriate. However, watch keyword density levels. Anything above 5% starts to sound like gibberish. 2% to 3% keyword density provides more creative latitude for the content developer, and still lets bots know what the site is about.

26. Develop some friendly contacts on social media sites and participate in the community. Ask contacts to promote your blog content. Also ask for contributors. People love to express their opinions.

27. Buy or build a hot blog design and submit it to design galleries. Hire a site/blog designer, or bring your vision to fruition. This enables your blog to appear five or six demographic iterations from your home site, expanding the site’s reach outside the immediate site community. This creates new marketing channels fast.

28. Build credibility. Publishing authorities on your site’s topicality usually does the trick. Once blog credibility is established, identify trends, solve new problems and gradually expand the topic range of your blog.

29. Ignore Alexa. A lot of new site owners rely on Alexa for site metrics but remember, Alexa is a popularity metric since only Alexa toolbar users contribute data — and that’s a less-than-universal test population.

30. If your blog isn’t pulling, have the code reproduced so it’s as semantic, accessible and code-to-content optimized as possible. Also, hire a code expert to position content above ads or any other content in the site markup.

31. Don’t place ads on your blog, yet. If you feel you must (you’re seeing nice PPC revenues), determine that your site’s HTML is optimized to position those ads at the bottom of each blog page.

32. Ensure the blog is optimized for Technorarri. Claim your blog, set an avatar and pings, use tags where appropriate and be sure to ping various blog tracking sites.

33. Encourage viral link building. Take a stand. Introduce the coming paradigm shift in web commerce, provoke controversy. It sells. Just ask Ann Coulter.

34. Send a personal note to posters. Not all bloggers have the time to do this but if you can send a personal email thank-you note to a poster, you’ve increased the chances of that poster becoming a member of your site community.

35. Make friends with other bloggers in your commercial, business or NFP space. Ask to become a guest blogger, or seek endorsements from the “names” within your site sphere.

36. Call posters by name. If Bob M. from Athens, Georgia, posts to your blog, recognize his contribution with a “Thanks, Bob” at the end of your response.

37. Don’t use duplicate content. The only duplicate content that appears in your blog posts are quotes, and they should be identified with quotation marks.

38. Get guest bloggers. Add links from their blogs and establish your site’s link community. There are people within your web neighborhood with opinions and good information. Contact them to invite submissions to your blog and your site in general.

39. Vary topics, content length, relevancy and posting times. However, be consistent, as well. Keep blogging. It can take time for a blog to catch the notice of a search engine spider.

40. Content quality counts. Research topics about which target readers want to learn. Write something new, useful and relevant. And don’t forget to regularly update older posts. Things change fast on the web so last year’s “next big thing” is this year’s hackneyed cliché.

41. Create blog categories that contain keywords, i.e., Ecommerce, SEO, Affiliates, etc. for use with a “site hosting” or “site design” blog.

42. Submit your URL to blog directories. There are “best of the web,” and paid directories, like Yahoo, and free directories like the Open Directory Project. Every directory listing is another link to your site and another way visitors can find you. Just google them to find more.

43. Don’t stuff blog post titles with keywords. It’s a form of keyword stuffing and spiders hate keyword stuffing. The ratio in headlines should be ~40% keywords, ~60% non-keywords.

44. Remember SEO basics. Use provocative, keyword-rich title tags, meta keywords and descriptions, and only link to high-quality sites. Never over do it. Keep your posts relevant, natural, accurate and, above all, current.

45. Study the competition. They’re studying you. Check out SpyFu to do a little undercover work on search analytics employed by competitor sites and their visitors. You can’t touch the content but you can’t copyright an idea, either, so pick up some new paths of thought from others in your site’s arena.

46. Provide a “Tell Your Friends” link on your blog. Birds of a feather do, indeed, flock together. So, if one of your regulars shares an interest in philately, chances are s/he has other friends with an interest in stamp collecting.

47. Use a conversational tone. Dry, starchy academic writing is strictly for the textbooks. Write words that people “hear” instead of read.

48. Make a difference, or at least have a clear purpose. Differentiate your content on every post. Cover lots of editorial ground.

49. Don’t worry aboutpage rank. PR is highly over-rated as a yardstick of online success. Connectivity within a web community and expansion through content syndication and guest blogging are more critical to building site credibility than page rank. PR will take care of itself over time if you do it right.

50. Build your own or move to Wordpress. Wordpress is a blog platform that’s open source (free), robust, extensible and easy to use. Add Feedburner, which equips site owners to broadcast RSS feeds and develop user metrics. Next, synch up Google Analytics and a sitemap plug-in to simplify populating the blog and developing useful, actionable metrics. Also, make sure your blog is pinging Technoratti and other social media sites like digg.

July 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Web | Leave a comment

Who do i contact about my tax refund?

ASK:

i had my taxes amended in May and am expecting a pretty big return. amended returns are suppose to take 8-12 weeks, and it’s going on week 11. how would i find out where my return is, it seems kinda difficult to just “call up the IRS” but it’s getting frustrating

Answer:

Contact the customer service at the IRS. They are very helpful as it is their job to help the public. Live Telephone Assistance 1-800-829-1040.

Click this link to get exact info on your return, enter your social security number, filing status, and the expected amount of your refund, and it should give you the status or your return.
https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/irfof/lang/en/i…

Easy enough!

Source(s):

www.irs.gov
I use to work for the IRS!
July 3rd, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Ask & Answer | Leave a comment

What is the connection between liberty and privacy?

Liberty is the essential heart of freedom. Liberty means being able to choose one’s own actions, without intrusion by government. Every law that restricts your movement, your actions or your words is one that restricts your liberty.

Privacy is the notion that the government will not intrude upon actions that you intend to be private. For instance, intercepting someones mail violates their privacy, as it is expected that only the recipient of the mail will read it.

Every infringement upon privacy can therefore potentially result in a infringement of liberty. For example, a wiretap could lead to an arrest.

People have a right to privacy, that is, they have a right to expect that the government will do as little as necessary to intrude upon their rights. This right is expressly provided for in the bill of rights. These rules govern due process. This is why the police must obtain a warrant to do a search.

Source(s):

July 3rd, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Ask & Answer | Leave a comment

How should I prepare for New Year’s in Time Square?

review your decision. do you really wanna go? why not watch it on tv, okay fine be part of the action:

wear layers so you are comfortable.
good standing shoes
a foldly chair to sit in
a friend or magazine to keep you occupied
an interior pocket so you arent pickpocketed.

maybe a camera….

prepare your self mentally for being surrounded by others, possibly loud ones.

dont drink liquids. Replenish later that night. If you are about to die of thrist, go ahead and drink. Im just saying: dont buy the collectable 32oz coke bottle. They have port-a-potties there (you wouldnt really want to use them anyway) and once you leave your spot (which you have to get there at least 10 hours ahead of time for: theres no getting back to it, maybe if a friend saves your spot)

But it will be fun when you and over a thousand others count down from ten and yell Happy New Year to each other.

Im sure you’ll have fun and lots of stories to tell all your friends.
Happy New Year!

July 3rd, 2009 | Category: Ask & Answer | Leave a comment

What aspects in a Pisces Sun chart might contribute to extreme controlling behaviour?

Answer I:

I think some strong Virgo influence for the need to be detail oriented, Saturn for inflexibility about scheduling, and Mars or Pluto for being controlling. I am a Sun in Pisces with Moon in Virgo, and I’m extremely detail oriented. I don’t think I’m controlling, and I have no real issues about schedules unless someone is trying to make sure she/he has all the free weekends.

Someone with Sun in Pisces square or opposition Saturn might be upset over scheduling and changes, because hard Saturn aspects cause petty hindrances and minor delays. Wouldn’t scheduling have to do with Mercury though?

Wanting to control could result from any strong Sun aspect to Mars or Pluto.

Answer II:

sounds like me, i’m a fishy with a leo rising. social upbringing and conidtioning may be more to do with an individuals behaviour rather than astrological, but there are always positve and negative traits of each sign.
A sign such as the great P tends to absorb traits of the other signs to a significant level hence the wishy washy definition of the sign, but in fact is rather like a chamelon. I am one, and do know a few, and we vary considerably. The self pitying ones tend to turn to drink and drugs and self harming the successful ones a little more reserved, daydreamers, creative but also weary.

I myself do feel that I take from the leo in my rising, whilst i give off the air of a lion, inside is a squirming little fishy, but overall my character is determined, dominant, quite opinionated and perfectionist. I dont consider myself to be out of sorts with my fellow water dwellers, but just a bit of a tough old trout rather than a vulnerable goldfish.

July 3rd, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Ask & Answer | Leave a comment

Do you think it’s possible to think outside of the Carceral Society?

Answer I:

First don’t go there. (So you’re now outside thinking freely.)
Yes I can think outside freely.
And now that I think this way, why would I want to go to jail?
Is this dog still chasing its tail?

Answer II:

Wow I give you all my respect this is the most uniqur question I’ve seen on yahoo answers

I think the free thinkers do rise up over a period of times the revolutionaries, the leaders of hope, the movement starters are all just another cycle of the society we live in and it is necessary to keep our society at a stable condition or order like a way to balance it out one side can’t get too power or the scale will bend and broke……

So to answer your question only to a certain limit meaning that if some act or think differently it plays as a normal role to our society but if most or all act or think differently it can change the entire factor of our society……

If this doesn’t make sense to you its ok I barely understand it myself

July 3rd, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Ask & Answer | Leave a comment
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