Posts Tagged ‘Tricks’

SEO An Hour A Day: Small Tasks That Make A Big Difference

Saturday, November 14th, 2009

A lot of work goes into improving a website’s rank on search engines, and most of the tasks that are performed to realize that goal take a lot of time and a lot of energy. Along with those big time consuming tasks, though, there are a few small, quick things that can be done that can go a long way toward getting your site to the top. These tasks are ongoing, and can be accomplished within an hour a day.

All of these tasks actually deal with ‘off the page’ factors, and focus primarily on inbound links and generating traffic. Since that’s the goal of all SEO campaigns, these tasks are a natural fit into any plan to reach it.

One of these ‘hour a day’ tasks is contacting other websites requesting inbound links. In return, there could be some form of payment negotiated or you could return the favor, linking their site from yours. While link swapping can be useful, it should be known that they can have a negative effect if overused. This is thanks to spammers abusing this method of traffic generation in the early days of the Internet. Trading links with a site known by search engines can also have a negative impact on your SEO efforts, but such sites are usually very easy to recognize. As long as you pay attention to who you’re dealing with, this potential pitfall can be easily avoided.

It is also worth mentioning that sites related to your field of business or study linking to your site. As Google and other search engines interpret this as a ‘vote of confidence’ by the site creating the link, the search engines will rank you site that much higher that much faster. Sites that have little relation to yours creating an inbound link is not quite as helpful, though such links cannot hurt your site.

Having your website listed in several directories is also a good idea, as directory links can increase traffic and raise you search engine rank fairly quickly. With directories available on the Web for every subject imaginable today, there is no shortage of potential inbound links you can generate with a little effort an hour a day.

Getting blogs to link to your website is also a task that can be performed briefly each day. This task, like the others mentioned above, can bring rich reward – even more so if the blog regularly covers subjects related to your website.

The performance of these tasks can fit into any schedule, and the benefits such tasks can yield are very much worth the hour you should spend in doing them. Not only are such tasks an efficient use of time (and therefore money), but the continuing positive results can give you the motivation to continue working on your personal site, or make holding your job easier if you are working on a client’s site.

About the author: Rune Risom, passionate SEO entrepeneur from free seo suite SEOsupporter.com. Also the founder of Hubdir.com, a PHP link directory script.

Popularity: 1% [?]

View Twitter (tweets) updates from Microsoft Excel

Friday, May 1st, 2009

If you find yourself yearning to view Twitter updates in a worksheet, then this is for you. Seriously, Excel can be a useful tool for viewing Tweets, allowing you to format them to your liking. You can add multiple Twitter feeds to your worksheet and have an inconspicuous viewer to read them.

1. Open Excel and create a new workbook.

2. Open your browser and go to the Twitter Profile page that you wish to follow the updates for (for example http://twitter.com/Varun_Dave).

3. On the Twitter page, go to the column on the right-side of the page. Beneath the Following section, you will see an RSS icon twitter_rss_icon1 and a link for the RSS feed of this page. Right-click the link and copy the link address.

twitter

4. Go to your newly created Excel workbook. Select the cell that you wish the Tweets to begin displaying.

5. Go to the Ribbon and select the Data tab.

6. Click Data -> XML -> XML Source.

xml1

7. A Open File window will open. Paste the copied url into the  textbox and click the Import button.

import

8. A window will open fetching and opening data from the rss file you specified. Wait till the data is loaded.

9.  A message window will appear stating that the specified XML source does not refer to a schema, click the OK button.It will ass for where to save the data.Click OK with the default options.

10. An Import Data window will appear, verify that the desired starting cell is used. Click the OK button. A large amount of columns will appear in your workbook. The main ones you will be interested in are description3 and guid. These will display the Tweet and its URL. Hide the rest of the columns.

rssdata

11.Go to the Format – Cell. In the Allignment section, click the Wrap Text checkbox so that the entire tweet will be visible. Resize the column to the desired width.

12. Select all cells in both columns. Use the Table Styles section to style the selection.

reqdata

13. Save the worksheet.

14. When you want to check for new tweets, go to the Data tab on the Ribbon and select the Refresh All button. Any new tweets will be shown in the worksheet.

refresh

Popularity: 33% [?]

Simple way to Embed Adsense Ad anywhere in the post

Friday, April 24th, 2009

First, you have to add the following code to your function.php file. Don’t forget to change the adsense PUB(client) id in the Code.

function showads() {
return ‘<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
google_ad_client = “pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”;
google_ad_slot = “4668915978″;
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//–>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js”>
</script>
‘;
}

add_shortcode(‘adsense’, ’showads’);

Once you saved the functions.php file, you’re now able to embed your adsense code on your posts and display it exactly where you want. To do so, simply paste the following code on the editor, in html mode:

[adsense]

Popularity: 14% [?]

Huge List of Wordpress Codes / Hacks, Tricks

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Here are the snippets of code I’ve managed to collect. If you have any WordPress code you’d like me to add, please leave a comment below!

Display Recent Posts

Here is the code you need to display the most recent 5 posts:

<?php query_posts('showposts=5'); ?>
<ul>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile;?>
</ul>

Display Recently Updated Posts/Pages

<?php
$today = current_time('mysql', 1);
$howMany = 5; //Number of posts you want to display
if ( $recentposts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_modified_gmt < '$today' ORDER BY post_modified_gmt DESC LIMIT $howMany")):
?>
<h2><?php _e("Recent Updates"); ?></h2>
<ul>
<?php
foreach ($recentposts as $post) {
if ($post->post_title == '') $post->post_title = sprintf(__('Post #%s'), $post->ID);
echo "<li><a href='".get_permalink($post->ID)."'>";
the_title();
echo '</a></li>';
}
?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

Display Recent Comments

<?php
global $wpdb;
$sql = "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title, post_password, comment_ID,
comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_date_gmt, comment_approved,
comment_type,comment_author_url,
SUBSTRING(comment_content,1,30) AS com_excerpt
FROM $wpdb->comments
LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID =
$wpdb->posts.ID)
WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND
post_password = ''
ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC
LIMIT 10";
$comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);
$output = $pre_HTML;
$output .= "\n<ul>";
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
$output .= "\n<li>".strip_tags($comment->comment_author)
.":" . "<a href=\"" . get_permalink($comment->ID) .
"#comment-" . $comment->comment_ID . "\" title=\"on " .
$comment->post_title . "\">" . strip_tags($comment->com_excerpt)
."</a></li>";
}
$output .= "\n</ul>";
$output .= $post_HTML;
echo $output;?>

Display Top Comments

<?php $result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count,ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , 10");
foreach ($result as $topten) {
$postid = $topten->ID;
$title = $topten->post_title;
$commentcount = $topten->comment_count;
if ($commentcount != 0) { ?>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($postid); ?>" title="<?php echo $title ?>"><?php echo $title ?></a></li>
<?php } } ?>

Display Categories

<h2>Categories</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name'); ?>
</ul>

Display Categories in Drop-Down Box

<form action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/" method="get">
<?php
$select = wp_dropdown_categories('show_option_none=Select category&show_count=1&orderby=name&echo=0');
$select = preg_replace("#<select([^>]*)>#”, “<select$1 onchange=’return this.form.submit()’>”, $select); echo $select; ?>
<noscript><input type=”submit” value=”View” /></noscript>
</form>

Display Archives

<h2>Archives</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
</ul>

Display Archives in a Drop-Down Box

<select name=\"archive-dropdown\" onChange='document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;’>
<option value=\”\”><?php echo attribute_escape(__(’Select Month’)); ?></option>
<?php wp_get_archives(’type=monthly&format=option&show_post_count=1?); ?> </select>

Display a Pages Menu in your Sidebar

<h2>Pages</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li='); ?>
</ul>

Display Gravatars (WordPress 2.5+ Only)

<?php if(function_exists(’get_avatar’)){ echo get_avatar($comment, ‘50?);} ?>

Display Blogroll Links

<ul>
<?php get_links_list(); ?>
</ul>

Display Admin Section

<ul>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
<li><a href="http://www.wordpress.org/">WordPress</a></li>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
<li><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer">XHTML</a></li>
</ul>

Display a Pages SubMenu in your Sidebar

This will display any subpages in your blog’s sidebar:
<?php$children = wp_list_pages('title_li=&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0');if ($children) { ?><ul> <?php echo $children; ?>
</ul>
<?php } ?>

Display WordPress Tags

<?php the_tags(); ?>

Display WordPress Tags Cloud

<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=36&'); ?>

Template Name

This allows you to use the WordPress page template to customize how a page is displayed:
<?php /* Template Name: Portfolio */ ?>

Dynamic Title Tags

<title><?phpif (is_home()) { echo bloginfo('name');
} elseif (is_404()) {
echo '404 Not Found';
} elseif (is_category()) {
echo 'Category:'; wp_title('');
} elseif (is_search()) {
echo 'Search Results';
} elseif ( is_day() || is_month() || is_year() ) {
echo 'Archives:'; wp_title('');
} else {
echo wp_title('');
}
?></title>

Display PHP on a Single Page

Allows you to display plugins and such on a single page (replace home with the page you want it to only appear on):

<?php if ( is_home() ) { include ('file.php'); } ?>

Display an External RSS Feed

<?php include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');
wp_rss('http://wpforums.com/external.php?type=RSS2', 5); ?>

Display Most Recent Twitter Entry

<?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 = "";
// 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);
?>

I’m expecting this list to grow over time as I come across more useful WordPress code and update the post.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Top latest Google Talk Tips and tricks

Monday, April 6th, 2009

First of all, Download the Latest version of gtalk from here :

http://www.google.com/talk/

Tricks and Tweaks you can apply in your gtalk chat client

How to Chat with yourself

In your Browser address bar just type:
gtalk:chat?jid=yourid@gmail.com

Change yourid with your own email, now you can send, recieve messages, & you can see what you are typing.

Desktop Icons for GTalk Contacts

Right click on the Desktop select New>Shortcut & type this:

gtalk:chat?jid=id@gmail.com

Please replace id with the id of your contact.

If you like to call your friends just replace chat with call.

Change the Appearance of Chat Box for a clear view

Login to Gtalk.

Goto Settings -> Appearance and from the Chat Theme dropdown box, select “Bubble Picture“.

This setting will give a clear view of gtalk chat with alternate bubbles colors.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

  • Ctrl + F4 – It closes the current window.

  • Alt + F4 – It closes the current window.

  • Alt + Esc – It Minimize all the windows.

  • Windows + Esc – Open Google Talk (if it’s minimized, or in the tray)

  • F9 – Open Gmail to send an email to the current contact.

  • F11 – It initiates a telephonic call with your friend.

  • F12 – It cancels a telephonic call.

  • Esc – It closes the current window.

  • Change the font size – While holding the control key, move the scroll wheel on your mouse either up or down. Insert line breaks – If you want to have a message that spans multiple paragraphs, just hold shift and hit enter.

  • Switch windows – Pressing tab will cycle through open windows. It will select minimized conversations, to expand them just hit enter. If you just want to cycle through IM’s and don’t care about the buddy list, control-tab will do that and will automatically expand a minimized conversation if you settle on one.

  • Invitation Tips – You don’t need to say Yes or No when someone wants to add you as a friend; you can simply ignore it, the request will go away. (On the other hand, someone with whom you chat often will automatically turn to be your friend, unless you disable this in the options).

  • Bold Text – To write something bold, you can use an asterisk before and after the word, like *this* .

Run multiple instances of gtalk for multiple login of google ids

A shortcut is already placed on the desktop when gtalk is installed.

Right click on the shortcut and goto properties -> shortcut tab

There will be a target address like

C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe

just add this word at the end of this line (give a space before) and save it

C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe /nomutex

Apply and Ok

Now when you want a new instance of gtalk for a new id simultaneously, then just again double on the desktop icon and a new instance of gtalk will open.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Hidden Robots in Mozilla Firefox 3

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Firefox has a cool little easter egg, just type in about:robots in the address bar & you will find robots greeting you with a special message. The title of the page reads Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!, wondering what it means. According to wikipedia Gort! Klaatu barada nikto! originates from the Cold War-era science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). In the film, the phrase, Klaatu barada nikto, was used by Helen Benson to stop the robot Gort from destroying the Earth. Klaatu is the name of the humanoid alien protagonist in the film. Here is a quick view of the page..

Firefox Hidden Robots

If you didn’t know what are easter eggs than point to this page on Wikipedia.

Popularity: 6% [?]