Tag Archive feedburner

Byq292u

Auto-publish posts to Social Media (Digg, Facebook, Reddit etc)

We’re currently trialling OnlyWire to get posts automatically published on social media sites.
How it works:
1. Sign-up for an OnlyWire account.
2. Configure your website details
3. Configure your social media channels
4. Install and configure the “submitter” on your machine.

We’re using the RSS feed option, so OnlyWire reads the feedburner RSS feed, and creates posts from that.
As a result there’s (almost) no overhead on the website. It just sees an RSS client.

So every post is echoed on Digg, or wherever, and becomes a backlink to your site. RESULT!

We’re currently using the free trial version (restricted to 300 posts).

Sound good? Give it a go…

OnlyWire

Byq292u

ESSENTIAL Plugins for WordPress

WordPress is immensely powerful straight out of the box, but it’s possible to add pretty much ANY functionality you want, and it’s usually for free.

This is a list of the TOP Plugins we use at q292u.com.
They are in no particular order.

AKISMET.
ESSENTIAL anti-spam system. Free to non-commercial users.
Filters out unwanted (spam) comments automatically, and provides stats on what it’s doing. ESSENTIAL.

FEEDBURNER FEEDSMITH.
Redirects all RSS feeds to your Feedburner feeds. So you can control all RSS activity. From there you can do e-mail Subscriptions and much more.
Including automatic TWITTER integration! Get a feedburner account. ESSENTIAL.

ALL-IN-ONE-SEO.
Handles ALL aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Options to rewrite article titles, handles Keywords, meta tags, everything. There’s also a “PRO version. You won’t need it. ESSENTIAL.

ADROTATE.
Handles advertising on your site. Very comprehensive. Individual ads are created and then made into groups. You can then position the groups as widgets, in posts and on pages. Ads have start and end dates, and tracking can be switched on or off. Better than maxbannerads. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

WPTOUCH.
Creates a mobile version of your site on the fly. All you need to do is access the site via a mobile device. The interface looks like Apple iOs.
Very smart. ESSENTIAL There’s a PRO version as well.

WP AUTO TAGGER.
Automatically adds relevant tags to your posts as you create them, based on post content. It’ll find tags you hadn’t thought of. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

WORDBAY.
Add relevant eBay listings to your posts and pages. This plugin is NOT free, but it’s worth the money. Simply set it up, and use shortcodes to position ads. Now includes a widget as well. RECOMMENDED.

FEEDWORDPRESS.
Automatically creates posts on your blog, based on predefined RSS feeds. Excellent. RECOMMENDED.

QUICKCACHE.
Excellent caching plugin, creates static version of all your posts and pages as they are created. Far better than SUPERCACHE.
ESSENTIAL if you use a lot of plugins, or have a lot of visitors.

EXCLUDE FROM NAVIGATION.
Some themes automatically add all pages to navigation menus. This is how to stop it. Adds a checkbox in the editor. ESSENTIAL.

GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS.
Automatically generates and submits sitemaps to Google. You can also submit these to Yahoo and Bing, yourself. Helps with SEO. ESSENTIAL.

WORDPRESS-DB-BACKUP.
Automatically create scheduled database backups and e-mail to yourself.
Simple and effective. ESSENTIAL.

SMART 404.
Attempts to redirect 404 errors to relevant pages based on search query, and URL requested. Reduces bounce-rates. ESSENTIAL

Mail From.
Simply changes the return e-mail address for automatically-generated e-mail messages to something like “NOREPLY@domain.com”. ESSENTIAL.

Google Analytics.
This adds Google Analytics tracking code to all your pages and posts, so you can keep tabs on everything. You need an analytics account. ESSENTIAL.

SIMPLE SOCIAL BOOKMARKS.
Adds social bookmark icons to your posts. Allows your readers to recommend your posts on DIGG, REDDIT, SLASHDOT, etc. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

CONTEXTUAL RELATED POSTS.
Adds links to other relevant posts on your site. Engages visitors, and keeps them on your site longer. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

GOOGLE +1 BUTTON.
The new kid on the block. Allows visitors to mark relevant posts, adds kudos and visibility on Google.

FACEBOOK LIKE BUTTON.
Allows visitors to “LIKE” your site on Facebook. Facebook is a massive audience, not to be ignored. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.


Byq292u

Twitter Marketing

One of my sites has a MASSIVE number of followers on Twitter.
I’ve decided to try and leverage these followers by sending them the occasional affiliate advert. All I need to do is create a post about it, containing the appropriate link, and it will get tweeted via feedburner.
That’s not instantaneous though, so I’ve re-installed Twitter Tools* so that I can post immediately to Twitter when I create the post. The post will then get re-tweeted slightly differently when feedburner picks it up.
Anyone subscribing to RSS or e-mail via feedburner will also receive the adverts.. Result.

I’ve also added a Twitter box on the homepage, which displays the website’s last few Tweets.. and users can Tweet from there as well..

The first advert going out is for Unlimited Web Hosting, who host ALL of my sites. I REALLY rate them highly, so I have no qualms about recommending them.

* Not as easy as it sounds – I had to register as a Twitter developer, create a Twitter Application for the website, and go through the authentication process to make it work..


Byq292u

WordPress / Feedburner RSS Issue resolved

For a LONG time, no images have been appearing in the RSS feed for www.quirkycars.net. Now, it’s not as simple as it looks, as the standard WordPress RSS is redirected via a plugin called Feedsmith, to Feedburner.
So, either the images were being removed by feedburner, or they were not there in the output from the site.
So I disabled the plugin, and examined the output directly. No images. (http://www.quirkycars.net/feed). Damn.
Checked the Settings->Read options, correctly set to “Full Text”. No option to block images.
After looking around on the web, I FOUND the problem: Change the RSS address to http://www.quirkycars.net/?feed=rss2 : The images ARE present in that one.
So, then: change the Feedburner RSS feed address to [websiteaddress]/?feed=rss2, and we are sorted. Don’t forget to re-enable Feedsmith..
Sounds simple, but this has taken a LOT of detective work..


Byq292u

WordPress / Feedburner RSS Issue resolved

For a LONG time, no images have been appearing in the RSS feed for www.quirkycars.net. Now, it’s not as simple as it looks, as the standard WordPress RSS is redirected via a plugin called Feedsmith, to Feedburner.
So, either the images were being removed by feedburner, or they were not there in the output from the site.
So I disabled the plugin, and examined the output directly. No images. (http://www.quirkycars.net/feed). Damn.
Checked the Settings->Read options, correctly set to “Full Text”. No option to block images.
After looking around on the web, I FOUND the problem: Change the RSS address to http://www.quirkycars.net/?feed=rss2 : The images ARE present in that one.
So, then: change the Feedburner RSS feed address to [websiteaddress]/?feed=rss2, and we are sorted. Don’t forget to re-enable Feedsmith..
Sounds simple, but this has taken a LOT of detective work..


Byq292u

New Feedburner feeds

Created several new sub-feeds for www.quirkycars.net These are:
classic-mini
3-wheeler
muscle-cars

These are used to power my signatures on relevant forums. I’ve changed the link addresses to point direct to the relevant categories and tags. (This is how I found the wp-ebay-ads fault.)