Dec 13

WordPress Installation/Integration Guide Written for A Client and The Plugins I Use

Most of what you’ll need to know when installing WordPress can be found in the documentation that accompanies its download. Once the installation is complete you’ll have to configure the look and feel to match your current site. This isn’t going to be exactly the same but we can get it very close. There are many free templates out there that you can download and install. Once you install you can then further customize it as you need to. That’s one of the great things about WordPress, it’s completely open source and highly customizable. Once we have all our ducks in a row with the install and customization there are things called extensions or plugins that increase the functionality of your WordPress blog. These are essential as WordPress out of the box doesn’t come with all the bells & whistles you’ll need. The following is a list of those extensions and where they can be found. These are the extensions that I use on my blog so if I use them you know they have to be good

Feedburner Feedsmith
Your WordPress blog comes with two feeds, one for your content and one for you comments. People very rarely subscribe to the comments so we can ignore this one. What the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin does is automatically converts your wordpress feed into the Feedburner feed to maximize control and syndication of your content through feedburner.

Google Analytics Plugin
There are tons of different types of analytic software out there but most use Google Anayltics. This plugin will allow you to integrate the Google javascript snippet throughout the pages of your site automatically.

Automatic Google Sitemap Generator
This handy tool automatically rewrites your sitemap as many times a day as you need it to. You can also specify priority of content and how often that content should be checked for updates. It will automatically write and add the sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz zipped file to your root directory.

Head META Description pluging
Head Meta Description provides an automatic meta description tag for your blog, inserting a dynamic description depending on the query-type (i.e. page you’re on). Very useful tool as WordPress doesn’t do this automatically.

Optimal Title Plugin
This allows you to move your blogs name to the back of the title instead of having it written first.

Redirection Plugin
Instead of having to deal with .htaccess markup, you can simply install this plugin and you can manage all your redirects from within WordPress

Robots META Plugin
This plugin will allow you the edit your robots.txt file from within WordPress. Also has some additional functionality with allow/deny options.

ShareThis Plugin
This one isn’t necessary but it helps from an SEM standpoint. This pluging allows you or your readers to easily post your content to bookmarking or social news sites. You can add or subtract sites at will. Also allows your readers to email your posts.

Dec 13

6 Web Tools That You Can’t Live Without

Tools8 Comments »

If you’re a nerdbox like me, you love online tools. Anything that makes a day easier is worth bookmarking. Overtime I’ve collected some great tools and web apps that I’d like to share with you today. Hopefully you’ll find these as helpful as I have.

.htaccess File Generator
This is a neat little .htaccess file generator that pretty much covers everything you might need to include in your .htaccess file. As you fill in the details about your site’s domain, redirects needed, allow/deny particulars etc, this web app will write your .htaccess file for you at the bottom of the page. Once you’re done, simply copy and paste your new .htaccess data into a .txt file, save and upload to your root.

Duplicate Content Detection
Copyscape is a great duplicate content detector. Google has provided Copyscape with a high-capacity Web APIs key for use with Google Alerts. From the homepage you can enter your URL and Copyscape will scan the web searching for any instances of duplicate content. I haven’t used this recently but I think there’s a limit on how many searches you can perform per day. If you sign-up for their premium service, each search costs 5 cents. They also provide CopySentry which will automatically monitor the web searching for real-time instances of content duplication. This service is priced at $4.95/month.

Search for your term over multiple sites via one interface
Intelways allows you to search for your term through at least 100 different sites which include search engines, video, photo, social media, and popular commerce sites. If you’re looking for something niche or something that requires every informational resource, this is your spot.

Find out what your top ranking keywords are
SEOdigger is an interesting tool where you can enter your domain (or competitor’s) and find out which of your keywords rank high enough to be listed within Google’s top 20. It also compares keyword popularity with Wordtracker and Overture. Additionally, report data is CSV exportable. Site does require registration for complete use.

http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/search-engine/robots-txt.asp
Robot.txt file generator and validation
Not that creating a robot.txt file requires a degree in aeronautical engineering but this app can be fun to use and helpful if you need to block some bots. There’s also a robots.txt validation checker on this site just in case you need a second opinion on your robots.txt markup.

Test everything…the mother load
There’s a very bright young man out there named Jonas John from Germany. This guy is a wiz and builds web apps, software, browser extensions and an array of other useful things. This one portal in particular allows you to utilize CSS and HTML checkers, SEO tools, social services, web proxies, network tools, text tools, image tools, and other miscellaneous tools all from one location. Good things to come from this guy. Make sure you check out his other projects on his homepage.

Dec 12

Add Mixx to the Share This WordPress Plugin

Mixx, Social Media, Social NewsComments Off

I created a post like this before for Sphinn and thought I’d do the same for Mixx. If you’re interested in adding Mixx to the Share This plugin from Alex King (see Share This icon above), I’ve made it very simple for you. Right click and save this favicon:

Then in the admin section in WordPress, go to Plugins and click the Edit button for the Share This plugin. Add this line of code:

, 'mixx' => array( 'name' => 'Mixx' , 'url' => 'http://www.mixx.com/submit?page_url={url}&title={title}' )

And that’s it! Mixx is definitely catching on and we’ve noticed that referral traffic is increasing. Tamar has commented on how early adoption is important and Brian about how banned Digg users are moving to Mixx. People are talking and migrating, a new and powerful social news site is being born.

Dec 06

83 Social News Sites – Categorized By Niche

Links, Marketing, Social Media, Social News47 Comments »

Updated with your recommendations on June 17th, 2009! Updates are listed in the approved comments.

Need SEO, SEM, or Social Media help? Hire Squareoak!

Your social news site suggestions will be considered for inclusion after the quality/trust of the social news site is ascertained. This list will be updated regularly.

Happy Holidays! : )

Auto
AutoSpies – Auto News, Reviews, Car Photos, Auto Show Photos, Spy Shots

Blogs & Websites
Spicypage
Afrigator – African blog aggregator categorized per country

Business
DailyHub – Social Content for Business Geeks
KillerStartups.com – The Next Big Thing on the Internet is here. You pick it.
Small Business Brief

Christian
blogs4God – Popular Posts by Christians who blog

College
Campus Reader – America’s College Newspaper

Computers & Technology
Tweako

Culture
BARKS – Art, Music, Film

Deals
Agent B
Dealigg.com

Developers
DZone – fresh links for developers

Domaining
DNHour.com

Educational Resources
Qoolsqool

Entertainment
ShowHype

Environmental
Hugg 2.0
Plant Change
Fivelimes

Fashion
Stylehive
Chictini.com

Fishing
Angling Masters