rss feed

Category: WordPress

WordPress Fans:Make My Feed Better Plugins

author Topmaker | timestamp July 27, 2010 | categories 14 Comments

First; let me admit: The idea behind this post is not mine!Blog Feed

One of my readers typed in Google:”make your feed better” as a search term, which made me think and take a second look at my own blog feed:
How would I improve on it?
What would make my Blog Feed really Better?

Your blog feed is your broadcasting station on the web: You allow us to display your content on our blogs via your feed,and we rewrad you back by spreading the word about your blog and subscribing to it. In the age of speed reading, blog surfing and “give me info now“, it is a badge of honor to have more subscribers, more trafic to your blog is a good result too!

Your typical Blog Feed is a stripped down version of your blog: Blog Title, Blog Slog, Post(s) headings and an excerpt of each of your posts, Simple, and to the point reading material.

But:

  • What if your post image is a part of your post and you want to display it just right?
  • What if you want to include your blog pages in your feed?
  • How about if you want to share your content but not give it away to content thiefs?
  • And what if you want your feed to be not so borring 1, 2, 3 kinda list?
  • Copyright…Anyone?

Here are a few plugins that would let you do just that (and more),  I would have called them: Better Feed Plugins; but the name is taken already:

MediaRSS

Author Description

“MediaRSS is a way of embedding media into your feeds….. provides for many kinds of media: audio, video, etc. This plugin is equipped to locate img tags in your posts and generate XML code that can be used by feed readers..”

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RSS Includes Pages

Author Description

“Modifies RSS feeds so that they include pages and not just posts. Deactivating the plugin restores RSS feeds to their default state.Including pages in your feed is particularly useful if you’re using WordPress as a CMS where pages represent a good portion of your content..”

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RSS Add Image Header

Author Description

“This plugin will allow you to add one image or logo of your choice (defined in settings) to your RSS feed header. It is very simple to install/maintain and will add your website’s presence to your RSS feeds by giving it this personal touch..”

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RSS Just Better

Author Description

“It displays a list of feed items from a given feed URL. You can select the number of displayable items, whether you want publication date, time and/or excerpt (and how many chars of it). The user can choose to have a ordered (numbered) or unordered (bullet-point) list and to open a new windows or not, when clicking on the linked items..”

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FD Feedburner Plugin

Author Description

“Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed to Feedburner.com. It does this seamlessly without the need to modify templates, setup new hidden feeds, modify .htaccess files, or asking users to migrate to a new feed. All existing feeds simply become Feedburner feeds seamlessly and transparently for all users. Just tell the plugin what your Feedburner feed URL is and you’re done..”

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Anti Feed-Scraper Message

Author Description

“Helps prevent your RSS feed from being “scraped” (copied and reposted elsewhere), by adding a customizable message with a link to your original post. When the plugin is activated, a default message is shown. This message can then be configured in the options page..”

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WCM Page Feeder

Author Description

“WCM Page Feeder lets you easily create and customise an RSS feed for your pages. Customize your feed using the settings page or via URL parameters. This plugin is great for those who use WordPress as a CMS solution and want to pull content into their site other than using the WordPress environment. The latest release now feeds single pages.

Customise the following options:

  • Feed single pages
  • Define the maximum number of pages to show in your feed
  • Get child pages
  • Get parent pages
  • Order ascending/descending
  • Sort by column page_title etc..
  • Filter Authors
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Feed Layout

Author Description

“Feed Layout lets to modify the feed contents adding headers, footers, copyright notices. You can add a copyright notice to every post, a link in the bottom like a “continue reading”, link to specila contents your reader can access only subscribing the feed, ads form ads servers like Tradedoubler, Zanox and so on..”

 Home Page


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WordPress Fans:Simple Steps to Optimize Your Blog

author Topmaker | timestamp July 20, 2010 | categories 11 Comments

Blog Optimization: Call it Spring Cleaning, call it Tune-Up…or any other name; but you need to do it no matter how much you are afraid to, how much you dread breaking it (actual word used around the web instead of corrupting the codex or missing up the scripts), or how many times you thought about it and chickened out at the last minute!

Most of us run after SEO Optimization for our blogs first; not a bad idea if you ask me; but there is more to a WordPress blog than attracting more visitors and climbing up the rating ladder, there is a living blog which is open 24/7, dose not require a heap of time to keep running and can do much better if you take a proper care of it. Do not fear; help is here (I know; it does sound cheesy) All you need is a few plugins, a few key strokes and some patience, coffee will help too:

Back up Your Data Base

No one is perfect; and you do no want to work on making your blog better just to be greeted with Fatal Error; or that ugly White Page of WordPress Doom, use any of those plugins I mentioned in this post.

I usually make unzipped SQL copy and a Zipped copy, in case you want to work with phpMyAdministrator  where raw SQL files for certain tables are easier to handle. As an extra safety measure; go to your Dashboard and make an XML  copy of your blog just as you do when you transfer your blog to anther hosting company, we are not taking any chances here.

Check your blog Security

Yes we do ignore it, or we are simply too afraid to face the music: Hackers and Spammers are out there in droves; ignoring them will not make them go away!

Plugin to use:

  • WP Security Scan: Checks the write permissions of your WordPress blog and points out which file needs to be changed and where.
  • WP Malware: Scans your blog files for any .htaccess files you do not know they exist and lists the location for each. You would be surprised of how many you already have in your blog directory.

Take out the trash

Every bit of un-needed bytes in your Data Base is slowing you down and putting more pressure on your server; cleaning those extras is a good thing for your blog’s health. Plugins to use:

  • WP-Optimize
  • GD Press Tools
  • WP DB Manager
  • WP Clean Options

Check and Validate your Feed

Make sure you are broadcasting, your feed is your source of repeat traffic, use a Feed Validation service like Feed Validator and try to make your feed accessible to everyone. Making it look better is a plus.

Get your Keywords and Tags in order

SEO of course is the magic word, Tags and Keywords are the arrows that point to your blog in Search Engines Listings. You do not have to cram a lot of them in each post, just enough to reflect what are you posting about,  without any Ghost Tags or Fake Keywords you do not even have in them, yes, there are a few of us who use ghost tags to draw traffic.

Cut the Grass

In our case; it is the add-ons that you put on your side bar(s) and kept on adding, all of us do that all the time so do not feel guilty. Go to your friend’s house and check your blog on his/her PC: Does it look crowded, missy or taking forever to load? Use Site Loading Measurement to see what needs to be trimmed.

Check your Broken Links

There is nothing worse than reading a post and clicking on a link that leads nowhere! Broken Links plugin will list them for you and point to the exact location, web sites and blogs come and go and you will find a few of them overtime.

Check your Site for Errors

If you are handy with your CPanel, you can have a list of your site errors and what is causing them. If you have Google account, you can check your site errors through Web Masters Tools.

Plant some flowers

In other words: Go back to your old posts and add some graphics; making sure you have the right ALT tags and Titles. Search engines do list images, web users search for them, and you need more arrows to point to your blog.

Now that was not an easy task, and those steps are nothing to sneeze about, but you made it and you have a better and a more appealing blog, Do not forget to repeat your blog optimization on regular basis, but for now: Do what you do best: Keep on Blogging!



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WordPress Fans:Sardines in Your Blog?

author Topmaker | timestamp July 12, 2010 | categories 7 Comments

According to Wiki:

“The close packing of sardines in the can has led to their metaphorical use for any situation where people or objects are crowded together; for instance, in a bus or subway car.”

And what Sardines has to do with your blog?

You might have a few posts or pages like them and you do not even know it!

Let’s go into details:

Keyword stuffing

Some of us think that getting as many keywords as possible in one post is a good way to attract search engines attention; true to a point, but over crowding your keywords will only lead to a shaky content and sentences that do not make sense!

Get the Mighty Search engines  and lose us as readers…tough trade, any blogger will tell you that his/her readers are the most valuable asset in any blog, so your choice should be obvious.

Solution:

  • Use keywords wisely and only if your content for that post includes those words.
  • Use long trail keywords: Will benefit your SEO efforts because they do not have much competition at Search Engines Listings.

Link stuffing

Oh please; I can not read a single paragraph in some blogs without stumbling upon quite a few links, they might be Inline Ad links, Content Related Links or the worst of them: Pop-up Links. I can understand the need for Ads and revenue to support your blog, I might forgive you for using a handful; but overdoing them will make me bounce out in a heart beat.

Solution:

  • Put the content related links first: They enrich your content and give us more to read on a certain subject.
  • Look at your links before publishing: Are they excessive? Do they interfere with the point you are delivering? If so start trimming.

Image Stuffing

Thankfully;  they are not so bad, but most of you do not know that Search Engines do panelize you for having too many images and consider that: Unfriendly Approach to web users. More images means longer page loading time too.

Solution:

  • Keep your images count to minimum: If it is decoration…you can live without it.
  • Optimize the images you keep: That includes smaller size, ALT and Description tags.

Big Word Stuffing

Not Long words; but words we need a dictionary to understand: Feeble is usually weak; Insurmountable is simply hard and so on. Some bloggers use those words as links to something they are promoting and we simple people click on those links just to know what they mean!

Solution:

Talk to us in our language: Unless your blog is so technical that we would actually know what you are talking about because we know the lingo too.

And lastly,

Old Content

Not stuffing per say; but Sardines in TV Networks language means those old movies and episodes that they use to fill empty slots in airtime; DOSE NOT WORK in blogs except maybe  History blogs.

Solution:

  • Keep up with current affairs in your interest area
  • Keep your blog fresh, inviting and interesting

Nobody I know would like to revisit any Sardine Blog: A blog that looks and feels like a can of sardines: Packed to the helm with extra and fluff, crowded with images that means nothing or filled with Old News.

Get your fresh look glasses on and start blogging!



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WordPress Fans:Your Comments Anti-Spam Plugins

author Topmaker | timestamp June 20, 2010 | categories 10 Comments

Yeah, We all suffer from them; and though a self respecting blogger will not go the way of the Spam to push his/her blog or products, your blog pending comments is chuck full of them! You need Help…Now!

They are not E-mail Anti-Spam Plugins; Comment Spam is far more annoying and time consuming, just because we care about our readers and like to post their opinions and feedback on our posts, we care less about promoting a few nuisance individuals and their lousy attempt at blogging.

Here are a few of Comments Anti-Spam Plugins (CASP’s) that will make you click less on the Send To Trash and gives your blog a breathing space:

Akismet

Author Description

“Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen..”

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Sabre

Author Description

“Sabre is an acronym for Simple Anti Bot Registration Engine. It’s a set of counter measures against spam registration on your blog. Your visitors are granted permission to register freely on your blog and now you are plagued by fake users automatically created by spammers? Sabre is the solution to stop definitely these robotized visitors!”

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WP-SpamFree

Author Description

“An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin for WordPress that eliminates comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam. It works invisibly without CAPTCHA’s, or other inconvenience to site visitors. The plugin includes spam-free contact form feature as well. Finally, you can enjoy a spam-free WordPress blog!”

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Spammer Blocker

Author Description

“If you are tired of manually blocking IP addresses of spammers by yourself, you can use this plugin. As default, it blocks all visitors who posted a comment that was later marked as a spam. For example If your Akismet catches a bad guy who posted a spam comment, he will be blocked until you approve his post.”

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NoSpamNX

Author Description

“NoSpamNX automaticly adds additional formfields to your comment form, invisible to human users. If a spambot fills these fields blindly (which 99.9% of all spambots do), the comment will not be saved. You can decide if you want to block these spambots or mark them as spam. Furthermore, you can put common spam-phrases on a blacklist.”

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Antispam Bee

Author Description

“Easy and effective Antispam Plugin..Protects your blog from spam by replacing the comment field. It’s easy to use and extremely effective. Really!”

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JS AntiSpam

Author Description

“Simple antispam plugin without questions on Javascript-solution. Without JS-Solutions give it an textbox. The content in the textbox is configurable with own words. Also it is possibilty, configurable the options to delete spam from comment, trackback and pingback.”

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Invisible Defender

Author Description

“This plugin protects registration, login and comment forms from spambots by adding two extra fields hidden by CSS. This approach gave me 100% anti-spam protection on one of my sites. The idea behind this plugin is simple: SPAMBOTs either fill every form field they find (generic spambots) or fill WordPress-specific fields only (spambots which will recognise WP or are targeting WP only). Therefore it is sufficient to add two extra text fields to form (one empty and one with predefined value), and check theirs values after form is submitted….. With these two simple checks probably all spambots can be easily detected, so WP can return error “403 Forbidden” for them..”

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Bad Behavior

Author Description

“Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. This keeps your site’s load down, makes your site logs cleaner, and can help prevent denial of service conditions caused by spammers. Bad Behavior is designed to work alongside existing spam prevention services to increase their effectiveness and efficiency. Whenever possible, you should run it in combination with a more traditional spam prevention service..”

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Thank Me Later

Sends a “Thank You” email to your readers when they comment on your posts; if that email returns to you undelivered…It is a Spam comment!

Author Description

“Thank Me Later (TML) will automatically send an e-mail to your those who leave a comment at your blog. Use this plugin to say ‘Thanks’ to your visitors, and prompt them to further engage with your blog..”

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No More Frames

Author Description

“Many web sites try to load your content into their own frame, to help sell ads on their sites. This simple plugin ensure your site is protect from this using a simple piece of code in your document header. The plugin also dramatically reduces comment SPAM by making it significantly more frustrating for the page to be loaded into a secondary browser window..”

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Your best shot at using those plugins at your blog might be :

  • Bad Behavior plugin: to prevent spammer from even reaching your blog.
  • Your choice of any of the above Comment Anti-Spam plugins.
  • Thank me later plugin: To make sure you are not promoting any spammers.

You noticed that I did not include CAPTCHA based Anti-Spam Plugins, or went into details about Registration Anti-Spam;  but that is a nother post alltogether!



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