SEO Blogger by WordTracker

SEO Blogger sits to the side of your editing screen so you can get search term ideas (and volumes) as you type. I think it’s a great keyword research tool. Every time you click add from the list of generated terms, your selection will be added to your Chosen Keyword list at the bottom of the addon screen. And here is the nifty part: It keeps a tally of how many times you have used that term on your post as well as its percentage of the total words on your page. This allows you to avoid term saturation while attempting to include a wide smattering of terms that people might be using in their searches.

SEO Blogger

SEO Keyword Tools

People often invest countless dollars in trying to find the ideal keyword tool and here is one that is absolutely free. Keep in mind that the searches come from WordTracker and I have read that this approximates to about 1% of total searches as a rough estimate. Nonetheless, it provides a really good comparison between possible terms (volume is relative), gives you keyword ideas and keeps track of what you have included as you write. The only option I would like to see included in the tool is the ability to download selected terms but perhaps that is coming in future releases.

If you would like to give it a try, you can add it to your Firefox browser via this link:

Free SEO Blogger

A WordPress backup should be done on a regular basis and certainly every time you need to update WordPress to the latest version. (Make sure you do the backup before upgrading the WordPress version.) Once you get into the rhythm of doing your backups you will find it very straightforward.

How to Backup your WordPress Blog

There are 2 steps involved in backing up your WordPress blog or website:

• Backing up the database
• Backing up the files

1. Backup Your WordPress Database

The database is a critical component on your blog or site because it holds all of your posts, pages, comments and other content.  You don’t want to risk having this wiped in the event of some kind of corruption.

First of all, create a backup folder on your computer and include the current date in the folder’s name. The reason that I do this is because I like to keep the last 3 backups, just in case and it is much more helpful if I can see the date in the folder name. It is also a very wise decision to keep these backups in different locations on different mediums (hard drives or CDs or different computers etc.).

1. Login to your site’s cPanel or Control Panel.

2. Click on phpMyAdmin in the Database section.

3. Select your database to back up from the list in the top left corner under the phpMyAdmin heading.

Most likely you will have just 1 database listed in which case you will probably see  information_schema and your database name (look for your login name at the beginning of the database name)

4. From the next screen, click on Export.

5. Make sure all the tables are selected (“Select All“) and that the SQL radio button has been checked. (Each of these will most likely have been done by default.)  Click the “Add DROP TABLE” checkbox in the Structure section and then make sure the “Save as File” checkbox has a tick in it.

6. Click Go  to start backing up. You will be prompted for where to save the database file.  Just select the backup folder created earlier.

2. Backup Your WordPress Files

The easiest way to backup your files is to use a free FTP program, such as FileZilla, to copy your files from the server to your own computer.

If you are experienced with FTP and know which folders need to be saved to your backup folder on your own computer then proceed to do so. Otherwise, if you are unsure, just copy the entire public_html folder to your backup folder. This can take some time.

If you are wondering about the difference between some of the folders that are on the server, the wp-content folder (and everything inside it) contains all of your theme files and any plugins that you may have installed. The wp-config.php file contains all of your settings information.

Automatic or Manual Backups?

There are some plugins that can automate your backups for you. However, you would need to research the differences between them and check that they accommodate the latest version of WordPress. I find it just as easy to follow the manual process listed above.

The WordPress Visual Editor

The WordPress Visual Editor is a pruned-down version of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. It allows you to enter and edit all of your content for posts and for pages. You actually have the choice between the code view (HTML tab) and the page view (Visual tab). So you can toggle between the two which is very handy if you have code that you want to enter yourself such as Google Adsense code.

 The Kitchen Sink

When you first start a new post, you will most likely see just 1 row of icons instead of the 2 as shown in the screen dump below. All you have to do is find the Kitchen Sink icon on the end of the top row of icons. When you hold your mouse over it you will see [Show/Hide Kitchen Sink...]. You can click this toggle-icon once to show the extra row of icons and click again if you want to hide the 2nd row.  I find it especially useful to have both rows of icons showing all the time because of the extra features offered in the 2nd row such as the h1, h2 etc. headings in the drop down Paragraph list. Each of the other icons in this 2nd row are also very handy. You don’t get a lot of icon options with this WordPress editor so you want to make the most of what is on offer.

You can quickly find out what each icon does by holding your mouse over it to see the tool tip appear. The rows of icons do follow convention so you will already be familiar with what many of them can do from your experience with Microsoft Office products.

Pasting Text into Your Blog Post

Writing your posts in another offline editor and then copying them across can be tricky, especially if you use the wrong offline tool. This is because either the formatting can disappear after pasting or additional code might be inserted. I found, when I first started writing posts, that I was wasting way too much time copying and pasting AND THEN fixing up the way the post looked. These days, I often write directly into the WordPress Visual editor. However, this might not always be possible. You might not be online at the time that you are writing your content or you simply might prefer to write it offline and copy across. In that case, you can use the [Paste as Plain Text] icon

This will open up a window for you where you can paste in your content. Once you click [Insert], all the extra formatting characters will be removed for you in a cleanup process. You can, in addition, nominate to keep the line breaks as shown in the screen dump below.

Spacing Your Text

Getting spaces to work between your paragraphs can be a major cause of a lot of frustration and time-consuming trial and error. At first, when you look at what you have written in the WordPress editor,  it will appear that you have a space between your paragraphs. However,  when you preview the post, the space has often disappeared and your text looks scrunched up. If this has been happening to you, there is a simple solution. All you have to do is insert 2 spaces (press enter twice) at the end of the last sentence in your paragraph.

Inserting Images

The icon for this option is probably the easiest to find. It sits right above the top row of icons and has the label [Upload/Insert] and the tool tip [Add Media]. once you click on this you have the option of uploading a new image or selecting one from your gallery of already-uploaded images.

Once your image has been inserted, you can edit it by clicking on it and selecting the [Edit Image] icon that appears on top of the graphic.

Forcing Text Under an Image

If your graphic is smaller than the width of your post, you might find yourself battling with text that insists on wrapping itself around your graphic. No matter how many times you press enter to force it down under your image, as soon as you preview your page/post, the text has sprung back up around the graphic.

One solution is to activate the HTML tab and then enter the following line of code right under the line that inserts your image:

 <div style=”clear: both;”></div>

Easy Hyperlinks

The WordPress editor makes light work out of inserting any of your links. Simply highlight the text you wish to hyperlink and then click on the [Insert/Edit Link] icon from the top row.

You can then enter the URL for the link along with the text for the title (this will appear when the mouse hovers over the hyperlink).

Special Characters

You can also insert special characters via the icon with this very [Insert Custom Character] label.

This can come in handy if you want to insert a copyright symbol for example.    ©

Publishing your Post

Showing Just an Excerpt of Your Post

If you set up your blog to show the latest posts on your home page, then you can nominate how many you want to show (via Settings – Reading) and you can also specify that a snippet or excerpt of each post appears followed by “Read More …” or a similar message.

In the top row of icons, you will find an [Insert More Tag] icon. Place your cursor under the 1st or 2nd paragraph and click on this icon. When your posts appear on the home page, the lines of content will now be displayed down to that “invisible” tag followed by the message inviting your visitor to click to read on.

When to Click Publish

Wait until you are completely happy with your post before you click [Publish].
Why?

1. Once you set up a good site map generator, Google will be “notified” every time a new page has been published. You don’t want to spam Google.
2. You can use the [Preview] button to your heart’s content and this allows you to see exactly how the post will look once it is live, complete with your blog theme.
3. If you still have Ping Services listed in your settings, then every time you click [Publish], these services will also be notified; again inducing spam.

Also, you will want to finish adding tags and doing the usual SEO (Search Engine Optimization) before hitting the publish button.

Categorizing your Posts

If you want to use categories, you can do so via the option in the left hand side menu of the dashboard. If you have forgotten to set up categories before starting your post, it is very easy to save your post and leave it in draft mode while you return to the required section of your admin dashboard.

WordPress Visual Editor Plugins

There are also plugins that can provide more advanced features and remove some of the irritations that come from battling with a very basic WYSIWYG:

• Ultimate TinyMCE  - provides lots of additional formatting icons and many more features.
• CKE Editor for WordPress – this replaces the default visual editor.
• TinyMCE Advanced

Let’s know, via the comment section, any other tricks and shortcuts that you have discovered when working with the WordPress Editor. I look forward to hearing from you.

By default, the date that a post has been published is usually displayed right under the title of the post as well as in the comments.

At first this might seem to be a really good idea but let’s examine why you might want to re-think this as an option. What happens when search engines display your listing in the search results?

That’s right, the publication date of your post is displayed before the description of your page content. The merits or otherwise of this fact are just a few of the issues to consider before deciding whether or not to display the date on your posts.

Reasons Why You Might Want to Include the Publication Date

• If there is no date, then there is no guide to visitors as to how up-to-date the information is.
• Some posts may be dependent on chronological order.
• Some posts may need to be given a date context to make sense, such as news items.

Reasons Why You Might Want to Remove the Publication Date

• If the date is included under the post title, then the Search Engines will usually pick it up and then display it in the Search Engine results as shown in the image above.
  As you can see, the date appears before the description and can very well serve to act as a filter that browsers use in deciding which sites to click through to.
• If the date appears first in the results, before the description, then the end of your description may be truncated because the length allowance has been used up.
• The date can give the wrong impression about what might be timeless information. In other words, if your post that was written 2 years ago is still relevant today, then you don’t want to dissuade people from reading it by inviting them to make a pre-judgment based on the year appearing at its beginning. The content could still be just as relevant today.
• Many bloggers observe an increased click through rate to their site from the Search Engine Results page after removing the date.
• By removing the date, you can avoid giving the impression that older posts lack credibility. In other words, older posts are less likely to be discarded before the content is examined.
• Readers are more likely to comment on posts that they perceive or believe are more recent.

Should Posts include the Date or Not?

Jim Connelly from www.internetmarketingjam.com conducted a very interesting experiment in which he tested the efficacy of not including the date over a 30 day period. He found that there was a definite increase in the number of posts that were read and concluded that there was a strong correlation between the number of posts that were read and those that did not display a date

In making up your mind, you need to ask yourself does the post contain timeless information or is it time-sensitive such as release of a news item? There are some blogs, of course, for which it might make sense to include the date if the information is indeed time-sensitive.

Of course, you still have the option of including the date manually in selected posts if you feel it makes more sense.

Alternatively, you could opt to display the updated date rather than the published date so that the reader is reassured that the information is current.

I have a preference for removing it from the beginning of my posts but allowing it to appear in the comments. This way, I avoid the date appearing in SERPs but still allow my readers to scroll down to the end of the post if they wish to place it in a date context. I think this is a courtesy move and one that I appreciate myself when reading other blogs.

How to Remove the Date from Posts

There are a number of ways of doing this.

• If you are comfortable with coding. you can edit index.php and remove the call to a function that displays the date:
  <?php the_time() ?>
  Your function call may have some variables (words) inside the brackets.
• You can also follow suggestions in your theme’s support forum or support pages to find out how to edit the code.
  I found the support forum very helpful for my theme from StudioPress. It simply involved commenting out 1 line of code.
• Alternatively, you can install a WordPress plugin to remove the date from posts for you: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/date-exclusion-seo-plugin/

I hope this post helps you decide which way you would like to go with respect to whether or not to display the publication date on your blog posts.

I have coded sites from scratch, I have used text editors, HTML editors and I have purchased WYSIWYG editors. But I find that it is much faster to get started with a website building environment like WordPress and I absolutely love all of the plugins that are available (most of them for free) to add the functionality that I am looking for.

For example, in the past, I have often spent weeks coding and tweaking scripts to get a site search working the way I want it. With WordPress, it is already there the moment that I set up my static site or blog. If I want to add modifications to how the search operates, there is a plethora of plugins available to upload to my site with the click of a button.

With respect to ease, I think most software tools can be confusing for beginners regardless of how powerful the software may be. So it is my intention to provide a step-by-step guide that you can refer to when using WordPress, a guide that you can return to for all the future sites you create using WordPress.

8 Easy Steps to Setup Your Website

Step 1 – Select Your Domain Name and Hosting Service

If you haven’t already selected your domain name and hosting solution, you can follow the advice given in these posts:

How to Get a Domain Name

How to Host a Website

As outlined in these 2 posts, I have been using Go Daddy for all of my domain names and Lunarpages for my hosting and have been very satisfied with the service in each case.

Step 2 – Choose Your WordPress Theme

The theme defines the look and feel that you want for your site. Instead of experimenting with different colour combinations and font types for your site, you can preview a ready-made theme and then select the one you like.

There are:

• Free Themes.
  • A collection already included with WordPress.
  • Endless selections across the Web to choose from.
• Paid Themes (Premium Templates).

  The themes I looked at were priced around the $39 to $80 mark for a single theme, more for a package of themes in some cases but they vary considerably.

You can find lots of free themes at wordpress.org or you can simply search for “free wordpress themes” using your favourite search engine.

I must say that when I went looking for a free theme, I was overwhelmed by all of the choices. I ended up wasting weeks looking for just the right theme. When I eventually chose one, I found there were aspects that weren’t quite what I wanted so I wasted some more weeks tweaking with the code itself to customise it and to get it to validate as correct HTML. The result was okay but I still felt it lacked that professional, polished finish. Of course, this is just that particular free theme and I have since found others that impressed me. There are thousands to choose from and you will easily find a nice theme to start with.

I decided, after all of those wasted weeks to go with a paid theme. Then of course I spent additional weeks researching the paid (premium) themes looking for what I wanted at an affordable price. But I think that this research has paid off as I have been very happy with my selection. The theme I settled on was a StudioPress Theme for WordPress. I wasn’t interested in a developer’s pack so instead I selected a single theme that I can use, and of course modify, on any of my sites.

What Do I Like About My StudioPress Theme?

• It looked professional right away.
• There is a forum for support.
• There are tutorials provided.
• It is easy to customise.
• I am notified of updates as they become available, for no additional cost.

Step 3 – Install WordPress

Most hosts offer a click-option (Fantastico) that will install WordPress for you.

1. Using the instructions sent to you by your hosting company, login to your account and go to cPanel.
2. Look for the Fantastico icon and click on it.

• Click on Installation (or New Installation).
• Leave “Install in Directory” blank. (You could use this if you were just looking to have part of your website set up as a blog.)
• Change Admin to a username of your own choice. This will be more secure than leaving it as Admin.
• Enter a new password.
• Enter your Admin nickname that will be used on posts and comments. This will be visible to visitors to your site.
• Finally, click the Install WordPress button.
  You will then be provided with a summary of what has been created and asked to click on Finish Installation.
• The next screen reminds you of your admin and password details which you need to keep. It also provides the path for entering the admin area in order to set up the theme and content on your website. It is always in the format www.yoursite.com/wp-admin. You simply replace yoursite.com with your domain name and extension.

Step 4 – View Your Site in a Browser

Now the real fun starts as you style your site to suit your preferences.

But of course you will want to take a sneak preview of your site as it appears right now. Just enter your domain name in the browser and it will appear with the default theme already set up for you.

http://www.yoursite.com

(Just replace yoursite.com with the domain name that you have registered.)

You will see your site in the standard theme that is currently provided by default when you first install WordPress.

Step 5 – Set Up Your Own Theme

Login to your admin panel via:  www.yoursite.com/wp-admin

You will then be taken to your WordPress Dashboard.