Ryan Marganti over at SoulSizzle.com runs through what WordPress hooks are, and how you might use them including some simple examples. He reviews WordPress filters, edits to your functions.php file, the get_terms hook, and where you might find out more references about hooks. This is a nice introduction for WordPress theme or plugin developer newbie. Check out his other posts while you’re over there.
Free SEO tools to fine tune your Website
Now that I’ve launched the Digital Designer blog, I’ve been looking for guidance on what my intrepid visitors are up to when they get here. In addition, I wanted to make sure I was keyword optimizing my pages to attract the right type of visitors from Google and other search engines. There I was, with a lot of questions and in need of serious feedback on my SEO – hoping my visitors are getting good use out of my content. Off I went, venturing out on the Interwebs to find some free tools to help me answer my questions and improve my search engine rankings.
If you’re in a similar situation, hopefully you were smart enough to use a SEO optimized theme for your CMS or blog. If you didn’t, you should switch to one. WordPress theme developers might want to check out the Ashford Framework or the Hybrid Theme Framework. The other option is to research plug-ins or modules that address search engine optimization gaps in your current Website’s functionality.
This post is not a SEO guide (I’ll save that for another post,) it’s more a nudge in the right direction. What I cover here will help you start conversation about why you’re not being found online, or optimize your current strategy to get your message out to more people.
A short review of SEO basics
Here is a really short and sweet snapshot of SEO basics and another Google SEO Basics for Beginners post you can explore for the uninitiated. Also if the dynamics of internet search are new concepts to you I recommend you read Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Multimedia Information and Systems)
SEO is critical as the Web grows exponentially
SEO is critical to any Website, and is really a never-ending balance of context and usefulness for your users. Your site needs to embody what search engine users are searching for or you’re toast, because search engines need to serve their users great content (that addresses their needs) or the search engines lose market share.
With the overall growth of the Internet booming and the Web being accessed from more diverse devices – it’s easy for your site to get lost in the shuffle. Some are even saying the Internet is running at full capacity as you read this. To paraphrase Fredrick Marckini in the foreword of Rebecca Lieb‘s book “The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
Search engines index text, text, and more text. (I might have stole that line from somebody, but it’s a good one and is the key to getting good search engine ranking.) All the other bells and whistles are nice, but what happens to your page when you turn off the images, flash, and video? Does your message hold up? Now that I’ve your attention, and before you panic, here’s what not to do try to improve your SEO. Don’t forget to check your code after you implement changes, and avoid doubling up on the same type of meta tags.
Alright, since the stage is set and we know some of the issues involved. Let’s see how our site is doing…
Build your SEO toolset
Ok, first there is the obvious stuff like Google Webmaster tools and Google Analytics. Google Webmaster tools helps guide you though improving your site in ways that help optimize your search engine ranking in Google. With features such as a keyword analysis tools, and interfaces that assist in setting up a sitemap and robots.txt file it’s a no-brainer to use it. I also recently found that Yahoo has their own version of this called Yahoo! Site Explorer (Update: Yahoo and Bing have merged their Webmaster tools.) Google Analytics is a little more advanced, and helps slice and dice your traffic stats, track online campaigns, view and analyze details about your users through the lens of Google’s servers.
I’ve compiled a list of more tools that are useful on their own, but in combination are a powerful suite of SEO software.
You will find these Websites incredibly useful for fine tuning your SEO to produce great results:
(Descriptions compiled from content on each respective site.)
Free Online SEO Tools
1. Reaction Engine
This is a free tool to help analyze the SEO performance of your domain for a given keyphrase. Reports include a variety of useful information and structured recommendations to improve overall effectiveness. Generate a few reports that aim to encourage the use of standards compliant, user-friendly and accessible code while at the same time helping website-owners to attract more visitors to their websites. Since launch in 2005, it’s provided tens of thousands of free SEO reports.
2. SEOCentro Meta tag Analyzer
SEOCentro is a site that offers a myriad of tools and articles for the internet community. I link to the metatag analyzer but they also offer a keyword analyzer, among other useful tools. This tool stands out because it’s free and helps you test against a specific keyword phrase and gets really granular about how a search engine bots would view your content.
3. SEOWorkers SEO Analyzer tool
This tool is similiar to SEO Centro (almost like a second opinion) You can analyze most common meta tags, analyze keyword density from the page content, page load time from the page, size from the page, analyze title meta tag relevancy to page content, plus a host of other cool things like peeking into the actual header response to the initial server request.
4. HubSpot’s Website Grader
HubSpot has tools that integrate with your sales and marketing activities, you get end to end marketing analytics that help you make smart marketing decisions. Optimizing each website page for key search terms may seem daunting. HubSpot gives you easy-to-follow recommendations to improve each page, even helping you prioritize where to start so you can manage optimization with ease.
5. SEO Site Checkup
Just submit your URL you want analyzed, and SEO Site Checkup will provide easy to understand recommendations so that your site will load faster, rank higher for your search terms, and get more visitors.
6. W3Optimizer
There are 100s of sites competing every day. W3Optimizer provides in just a single click a crystal clear report on changes that must be done to your webpage (on-page analysis.) Your reputation on the internet & what your competitor pages are about (Off page analysis, Google Top 10 Competitor analysis, Google Keyword Competition analysis, Google Top 10 Competitors Keywords) and many more.
Firefox Plugins
These Firefox developer plugins are key for anyone that publishes Web pages on a regular basis. They are great for many reasons beyond working with SEO, and it would be foolish not to mention them here.
1. Web developer Tool Bar
The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Among the information you can filter from a page is meta tags and other page header data.
2. Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Firebug allows you to view a page’s source in a split screen view and highlight different characteristics of the page to troubleshoot problem areas.
3. YSlow
YSlow analyzes web pages and why they’re slow based on Yahoo!’s rules for high performance web sites.
4. SEO plugins
I’m not big on SEO plugins, but here’s a decent list of SEO Firefox plugin options to review.
Your work is never done
Remember, SEO is a dance that is never really over. You must continually tweak your relevancy because Web pages change, your users taste change, and multiply that by a factor whatever number of your competitor sites are out there. Some businesses are known to tweak their meta tags and keywords for seasonal changes, holidays, and to target visitors from their respective metro area – your strategy will be your own. But, changes should be given a chance to take hold to judge their effectiveness. Like any other aspect of your Website, SEO is an organic process that will evolve over time.
More Resources – Books on SEO and Web Strategy
2. When Search Meets Web Usability
Read more on ChrisDigital’s Digital Designer Blog:
1. My WordCamp NYC 2012 Recap : 800 WordPress fans assemble
2. The Importance of Social Media and Your Online Persona
3. Responsive Design: WordPress NYC Meetup Recap
Embracing HTML5, CSS3 is a power play worth billions
Each day HTML5 and CSS3 show up on my radar more and more, like some kind of incessant reality show that dominates the topic of conversation at the office water cooler. But in this case, HTML5 and CSS3 dominate Internet chatter and the trends I follow on Twitter, where HTML5/CSS3-related issues have really been picking up steam. As I alluded to here in my previous post about HTML5, and as evidenced by this article on the coming build of Internet Explorer 9, HTML5 and CSS3, compliance is likely to shift the balance of power in Web development software. Adobe (which is currently the dominant player in Rich Internet Application development) is likely to see their current market presence they’ve enjoyed curtailed by competitors such as Apple, Microsoft and Google who suddenly have a jones for the open standard HTML5/CSS3 offers.
The future in question
The real question is, “Can all parties REALLY agree on the new HTML5 standard across the board, enough so that it will have a legitimate impact on today’s Web browsing and Web application experiences?” Adobe has even been accused of being an impediment to W3C green lighting the HTML5 standard. On the flip side of that coin, people have begun to analyze why they’re using Flash and other RIA technologies in the first place. Naturally, developers want to use the right tool for the right job and we can already see the effects of developers seeking rich media alternatives in the open market. One major example is the rise of using CSS and JavaScript frameworks such as JQuery for client-side scripting instead of Flash in some of today’s most innovative Websites. Gartner analyst, Ray Valdes, wrote a piece about HTML5 and the future of Adobe Flash, in which he lays out the current state of affairs. Of course, none of us truly knows what the future holds, but I doubt that the key players are sitting on their hands either. Several different players are trying to influence how the future takes shape; hopefully, open source methods will win out over licensed software.
Hurry up and wait
Long gone are the days when a simple text site adorned with goofy icons captured site visitors’ attention. Billions of dollars are at stake these days in the fight for user traffic. Site builders, on behalf of their clients, engage in that particular battle every day while trying to keep up with the competition AND remain relevant. Hence, they are improving their sites with sticky, interactive features. That being said, we live in a “What have you done for me lately?” world, and the dollars will go where they are most effective. Software vendors have been maneuvering forever to provide tools that site builders will want to use. Chess plays are being executed to gain top market positions and we all know how ugly that can get; let’s not forget how Microsoft put both Sun and JAVA into a corner several years ago, restricting them from bleeding into the Windows’ desktop experience. Companies like Microsoft maintain a split-personality agenda, creating proprietary products like Silverlight that they’re striving to seed in the developer market. It’s easy to see why the sharp elbows are out when you take a good look at the numbers. Worldwide application development software was a $7.3 billion dollar business as of mid-2008 alone.
The plot
This creates the context of a Dr. Evil-like plot in which each player fights for the loyalty of the very designers and developers who assist in creating the demand for software and merchandise for their peers and the masses. Adobe has long been treated as an unwelcome “guest” in the technology market and this disdain bubbled up in the early ’90’s as well when Apple and Microsoft teamed up to create the TrueType standard for fonts, leaving Adobe’s PostScript in the dust. Desktop publishing and electronic printing really took off and the impact felt by this current situation is likely to be just as large in scale. Tim Burden over at NewsFix executes a great write up with “Apple and Google go to war, Adobe takes collateral damage.” What really keeps Adobe’s competitors up at night is Adobe’s infiltration into the enterprise software market. I have a friend who works for an American soft drink giant that uses a home-brewed application consisting of a mixture of PHP and Adobe Flex to generate sales reports for the management that includes interactive bar charts and graphs, so I know that this threat is real.
The payoff
I’m paying attention to role descriptions and knowledge requirements for job openings that trickle my way, always gauging how these changes may affect my immediate world and job market. As a web developer, it’s hard to fight the feeling that you’re standing in the quicksand of an ever-changing technological landscape. Although, I know that some of us are making this “war” work to our benefit. I got word this week that a friend of a friend got a job offer of a quarter of a million dollars a year to be a senior Flex developer. Yeah, you read that right. As a person who mainly deals with U.I. and front-end design, I feel that the impact of HTML5/CSS3 on RIA workflows will be tremendous.
If compliance and HTML5 adoption within browsers pick up steam, I predict that the folks in charge of executing the design and function of Websites are soon to see their tools change in dramatic ways. Without a doubt, it will be slightly easier to implement data objects, UI behaviors, and to create slicker presentations on future Websites with “open source” tools. Having lived through the browser wars of the 1990’s, I can say definitively that smart people will still be around to pick up the pieces after big corporations beat the “propriety code” out of each other. I hope to be one of them.
More Resources
1. Jeffery Zeldman’s take on the IE9 preview
2. Sneaking into Future: 25 Ultra Modern Websites Using HTML5
3. Adobe shakes off all the noise about HTML5, by announcing new tool “Web Tech.”
Read more on ChrisDigital’s Digital Designer Blog:
1. Exploring web fonts, moving beyond Arial and Verdana
2. HTML5 is no longer like a mythical white Unicorn
16 Twitter rules for high performance results
I was like most people when I first heard about Twitter; I didn’t get it and I was dismissive. I said things like, “Oh, this is like AIM, only you’re broadcasting to EVERYONE on the planet.” “What’s with this character restriction… 140 characters?” “This is crap.” Then I realized that it was tied to standard mobile texting character limits. “OK cool, but I really don’t get this Web interface, and why are they asking for my mobile number?”
Life happens, and Twitter moved on without me, time passing by as Twitter’s user base just kept growing. I started to come around slowly. First I put it on my Blackberry. Then I played with Tweetdeck and got immersed in its Matrixlike view of the public consciousness.I got busy filtering for keywords, and I realized I was looking at news and information almost in real time. It was slightly addicting watching this stream of thoughts go by, processing breaking information that I normally would read about online or see on the evening news several hours later. The power of Twitter began to sink in.
“I can use this to research a topic and get timely information, and even tap into public opinion to form a consensus.”
Around this time, I was reading a lot of articles about how social media was a critical promotional and networking tool for anyone that wasn’t a dinosaur. I even read about Dell computer’s recent 6.5 million Twitter strategy that was considered a great success. This is, of course, after they publicly mentioned they’ve made 3 million off Twitter since ’07 earlier in the year. I took notice.
I decided I was wrong-headed about the subject initially, and jumped on Twitter seriously in late October of 2009 adding it to my toolset of online media channels. I was in the planning stages for this blog and it just made sense.
It’s now 4 months later and by observing the rules and guidelines I mention below, by the end of 2010 I should have 3,000 Twitter followers. Sure, that’s conservative by some standards but that’s plenty for me. Racking up a big follower list isn’t so important to me as is finding new people to interact with and learn from.
I’ve compiled this list from lessons learned so far. Some of this is old news to Twitter veterans, but I get asked all of the time for advice about Twitter. So, I threw this together to help the conversation.
Here is my quick list on how to use Twitter effectively:
1. Hunt for your crowd
We like people that have common interests and if you’re a fan of somebody, a hobbyist or a company, you’re looking for a certain audience. One of the ways I find people to follow and hopefully follow me back is by finding what I call “touch points” or connections. Looking for geeks? Explore the followers of SlashDot. Looking for Flash developers, check out the followers of FlashMoto, etc.. Just like a lion that waits by a watering hole, hunt for friends where there are basic common needs of a community.
Here’s a great post by John Jantsch entitled “7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing” that expands upon this topic. He explores filtering your searches to find the crowd you’re looking for on Twitter.
2. Mind your manners, and avoid TMI
Some people use Twitter as if it’s a personal AIM account, but they should be mindful that if their tweets are public (and possibly even if they’re private), we’re all in the room with you. Ranting about your football team’s loss, your job or your personal life might make you look like a narcissistic child to people who don’t know you — except, of course, if you’re a celebrity and you make money doing it. I personally don’t tweet anything I wouldn’t say to someone’s face or in front of a client.
Of course, by now we’ve seen the effects of “too much information” being shared on a Twitter feed. Some examples are: Kim Kardashian outing an Air Marshal while she sat next to him on a plane and the college football player that ended his career by sharing that he had a mysterious source of income and inordinate amounts of cash handy.
3. Don’t be a content “bait and switcher”
Tweeting “link lists” of things is a popular thing. This post is a perfect example of a list. However, some Twitter users have taken to LAME behavior, and put up “shell blog sites” (no real original content) and regularly stick them in between you (as the follower) and the list content (what you want to read) as an interstitial (e.g. “here’s a list” link on my Twitter feed —>you arrive at the site saying “here’s a list” link with ads and all kinds of garbage —> the REAL site with the list content) People that do this, suck. Hard. Integrity means something; don’t lose it for a minor bump in site traffic. Yes, you know who you are. What you’re tweeting isn’t original so eventually you’re just going to lose followers.
4. Respond to interaction, and follow back
If someone is directing a query @you, or retweets you, or references your feed, you should respond. Sometimes you miss something. Of course that happens, but even if your response is not timely, people will appreciate some acknowledgment. When someone follows you it’s nice to follow them back. It’s not necessary but it’s a sign of good manners. I tend to examine my follower list and try to check out if they’re a real person before I do that.
5. #FollowFriday or #FF
This is a great way to find new feeds you might like. Twitter users share feeds they like, or think should get more love by first starting with the hash mark #FollowFriday or #FF then listing users. This is done every Friday as a community.
6. Trending topics
Participate in timely trending topics. Sometimes this results in traffic back to your feed by people who may be curious about you. The Oscars are coming up this weekend. No doubt that will be a trending topic and maybe you’ll find some movie-going friends or followers.
7. Lists and Listorious.com
Lists are a relatively new feature on Twitter and help showcase the things that you’re personally into. Being known as a curator of a good list is a nice way to get street cred, like being a reviewer on Amazon or Ebay. Here’s one of my favorite lists on Listorious: jQuery curated by Paul Wallace.
8. Be relevant
Between Digg.com, Delicious, and Google Alerts you can find something highly relevant to your interests and “meaty” for the followers of your feed to talk about. Mundane stuff only works if you’re really brilliant at it like Conan O’Brian. I’m sure you’ve heard how his feed exploded with followers once he signed up.
9. Avoid spammers
They’re everywhere and especially in your direct message inbox. Do not click ANY link that looks like an advertisement without testing it under high security settings or Googling the service first. There are things you can do to combat the spam, like using a validation service. They can stop spammers from following you but they can only cut down on the DM’s; you’ll have to manually “drop” or ban the spammer via your followers list. As with emails, never click a suspicious link from an unknown source. I’m currently evaluating TrueTwit to cut down on the spam direct messages.
10. Automation, apps and flooding your feed
There’s a whole culture of third-party applications based on Twitter.
One of the issues that pops up for me in regard to “apps” is that some of the people whom I follow use automated services that can flood feeds with posts in rapid succession. This tends to dominate the “conversation.” Usually you can tweak your settings to not “vomit” all over your followers. People will realize it’s not a real person that just tweeted 10 entries in a row in 3.6 seconds. Besides, you’re just adding to Twitter’s maintenance problems by chewing up their bandwidth with this kind of nonsense. Services like SocialOmmph and HootSuite allow you to time your Twitter posts in a schedule. I have a few people that flood my feed and I hate it, but they provide interesting tweets so I tolerate it. On the flip side, use automation to keep your feed alive when you get busy or want to appear engaged when you have to step away.
11. Use short user names and link shorteners
You have 140 characters,and that space becomes valuable when you’re trying to make a point or re-tweet someone. An example of a popular link shortener is Bit.ly. Bit.ly is cool because they provide an archive of your shortened links for you to examine at your leisure with a reasonable level of analytics you might find useful. It’s also native in some third party apps. Feedburner , Google’s RSS service that posts to your feed for you, uses Goo.gl shorter and Hootsuite has its own called Ow.ly.
12. Don’t solicit people with your widgets or services
It’s possible via automation to send spam about whatever you’re up to in a “welcome” direct message when someone first follows you. There’s a serious problem with this — they didn’t ask for your spam. Your customers want to be reached on their terms, not yours. Twitter is highly intimate and contextual, so you’re basically being rude, barging into their virtual personal space and waving marketing materials in their face and interrupting their day.
13. Geo-tracking
Look Rudolph, no one cares that you’re at the laundromat. Use this for stuff we want to hear about – sharing about parties, events, or favorite eating spots that we can go to ourselves. Then we will appreciate participating in your reindeer games. Also be careful about announcing your where-abouts to the whole world especially if it can compromise your safety or your property.
14. Watch your back
Twitter is great for corporate espionage, as in keeping tabs on the competition and what they publicly announce. It’s also a great way to keep tabs on your own reputation online.
Just as recruiters advise to regularly Google yourself and address negative information, so too should you do this on Twitter. Check your @replies and references regularly to make sure you nip problems in the bud early, or encourage praise.
15. Be yourself
Even if you think you have nothing to say, you’re wrong. You have likes and dislikes, and you’re an authority on something even if it’s 80’s TV stars, Hello Kitty collectibles, or vintage video games. You can certainly weave yourself an online persona that has a place in some niche sub-culture. Just be yourself and people will find you.
16. Brand your profile page
Everything from your Twitter profile page background to your Twitter icon is scrutinized. If you care at all about first impressions, put in the same effort into setting up your Twitter account as you did into your resume. It’s also been said that using a nice photo of yourself as your icon is preferable; it helps to make you seem more “real” to your Twitter followers.
Granted, many Twitter users access feeds from mobile devices, but trust me if they’re considering doing business with you, it’s highly likely they’re googling you and reviewing any public information about you. I personally do really quick assessments based on available information, and a Twitter page tells me a lot about you…
My advice is that if you need help with your “presentation,” kick it up a notch and ask for referrals for a designer and a photographer (shameless plug for the wife). If you’re doing a portrait, go with quality. It counts.
Bringing it all together
Your compliance with these guidelines speaks volumes about you, and sets off a chain reaction of assumptions that will be made by people who don’t know you personally. Granted not everyone uses Twitter the same way. But, people who are consider associating themselves with you for any reason are accessing all kinds of data about you to make a decision if it’s a good idea or not.
You don’t want what you’re doing in your social media channels to undermine the message you’re sharing with people in person.
You can even manipulate this to your advantage, of course, by using your appearance in your social media channels to support your story. For example, you may want your profile to APPEAR as if it were a personal account (e.g. as part of a viral ad campaign), a small start-up, a BIG corporation, or a collective of people that share a feed ON PURPOSE. But, it should be your choice what that communicates to your audience, not general ineptness.
Tell me what you think of the list. One Love.-C.
Add your own tips in the comments. I’m here to learn and I’d love to hear them.
More Resources
1. Here’s a fun tool that gives your Twitter profile a grade.
2. 50 Cool Twitter Profile pages courtesy of Indeziner.com.
3. 100 Fantastic Twitter profiles for your Inspiration from Splashology.com.
4. 5 Mistakes to Never Make on Twitter courtesy of American Express’ Open Forum.
5. Here’s a post by Margaret Mason from 2008 on polite Twitter etiquette.
6. You rebels will enjoy this post about breaking Twitter etiquette rules by Robert Scroble in 2007.
Read more on ChrisDigital’s Digital Designer Blog:
1. The Importance of Social Media and Your Online Persona
2. My WordCamp NYC 2012 Recap : 800 WordPress fans assemble
3. All the single ladies
4. Blogging kids, something to think about
SEO in WordPress themes, duplicate meta description tags
I’m using a theme for my blog called “Journalist”. I wanted something no-nonsense, with a minimalist 2 column layout that I could remix to my taste. Once I read Matt Mullenweg (founder of Automattic) uses it, I was sold. I realized when making this choice, I was using an older theme (optimized for 2.7) and I was aware it didn’t have some of the bells and whistles of some of the more expansive WordPress theme frameworks. This made me mindful to continually review what I was doing, looking out for conflicts with the latest WordPress install, and researching features I needed to add myself. I’m glad I stayed on top of this, because a SEO problem was occurring in my header.php file I didn’t catch originally when I was tweaking the theme.
Turns out my meta description tags were running in place
The problem is an easy one to overlook the first time around. Thanks to Pillar Consulting’s Keywordfriendly SEO tool I caught it. After reviewing the report it generated, I discovered I had multiple meta description tags in the head of my blog pages that were competing against each other. The first one being the standard tagline for the blog, and the second is the content compiled from the fields in All-in-one SEO plugin I installed. As Jeffrey Nichols points out, Google IGNORES the second one, defaulting to the first one it sees. Which confirmed my previous worries that something was off, after examination of my Google Alerts results for the blog. So, I was completely missing out the fruits of my diligent SEO work.
A really smart fix
So after a quick Google search I ran across Nathan Rice’s great post on taking complete control of your meta description tags titled Ultimate Guide to WordPress SEO – META Descriptions. This is a must read for any theme developer and I was able to apply his code as a quick fix to my problem.
I modified his code to alternate between the blog tagline and plugin generated meta description tags as needed, depending on whether you were on my homepage or not. Originally, his solution alternates between the tagline and your post excerpt (which is very cool). So the end result is now that the search engines have a better idea of what I’m writing about, and on my terms.
If you’re not using a SEO-optimized WordPress theme, you might want to look into what’s going on in your header.php file(s) as well. SEO is fickle business.
More SEO Resources
1. Check out the Pillar Consulting Website, their blog and their Keywordfriendly tool.
2. Learn more about All-in-one SEO plugin.
3. Dig in with some more SEO tips and tools with Jeffery Nichols SEO Toolbox.
4. Learn more about Nathan Rice and what he does with WordPress.
5. Here’s a great series of tips for tuning your WordPress install for better SEO results.