Well so now you kind of like, are in love, or are obsessed with RSS. Those little orange buttons are all over and you want to put one up in your web site or Blog or on your wall. That is cool, and it will demand a bit of technical knowledge, some writing, some research and some frustration. So here are the major steps to publishing your RSS feed and giving all that information to the world at large, which I will discuss in depth with examples in this series of articles. Right now we will outline these steps.

1. Sit back, STOP! & Think. (How is that for step one?)

• a. Do you have information that should or would go into an RSS file? Remember that the unwritten rules of RSS is that you must update the file with “new” and more “current” information if not hourly or daily, but at least on a fairly common basis. No one is going to want to keep your RSS in their reader if the information they see every day for the next month is exactly the same as the day before it.


• b. Additionally, though some people do this, it really is NOT good practice to put long essays into an RSS feed. What you want is the first line or description of an object, idea or news. Hook the person so he clicks on the topic in his reader, reads the summary, clicks again and finds himself on your web page.


• c. Do you have the time to do it? There are millions of Blogs out there that were started with the best of intentions. One entry, two entries, three entries. And then they die. Why? Because the author/owners simply had no clue about the dedication demanded and time needed to update their Blogs on a regular basis. They also had no idea just how difficult he competition was to get people to read those Blogs. The same is true with RSS. You start a feed to get readers, or to pass on information to the web. You need to understand this is going to take time and patience and work. This is not a one-time one-shot one-pie-in-the-sky deal.

2. Your depth of Technical knowledge

You will need to become familiar with the following terms and understand them and perhaps learn some very simple things in how to program them.

1. RSS


2. XML


3. HTML


4. CSS


5. Atom


6. RSS Readers


7. RSS Parsers


8. RSS Validation

3. Now begins the Actual WORK!

• a. Preparing the file – You will need a template RSS file (for the sake of these articles it will be called rss.xml though it can have any name you choose as long as it is in xml format.) Unless you are good enough to write one yourself this is critical.


• b. Understanding the Template and what information goes where


• c. Putting the information into the template – Each piece of information you have will go into specific [headers] and you must understand the RSS structure in the XML file to get that right.


• d. Validating the Template – A crucial aspect. Unlike HTML, RSS is very, very, let me say this again, very unforgiving. It does not like deviations from the norm or from the basic format laid down. Getting it right can be the most trying and frustrating part of the process.

4. Okay now you wrote the RSS file, your XML file is ready and validated. Now what? Guess you think you are done. Think again.

• a. You will have to place the rss.xml file on your web site or somewhere on the web where people can get to it.


• b. Now you can steal, get, copy, make – whatever you choose – your own little XML/RSS or RSS – Valid button.


• c. Hyperlink your file to the RSS


• d. Submit your file under the correct category to RSS directories.

5. How many people will pick up your RSS? I will discuss this as well in a later article, but surprisingly, the answer here is still very vague. There are some ways of tracing the numbers, but none are foolproof, and most are very convoluted.

6. Go and get a good night’s sleep cause tomorrow you are going to have to start the process of adding information to your RSS (or changing it) all over again!

(This is a continuation from my first article on RSS – “RSS Mania Addiction – An Introduction to RSS and the Terminology”)

Author: Ted Gross
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Beading Necklace

RSS content is delivered through RSS feeds. These are simple files structured in a specific way. [A type of xml]

RSS stands for either Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. RSS files (which are also called RSS feeds or channels) simply contain a list of items. Usually, each item contains a title, summary, and a link to a URL. RSS files look a lot like HTML code. It is up to the user to use this information in any way that he wants.

You should provide an RSS feed if you want to distribute your information to a vast and fast-growing community of users, who are more interested in knowing about your topic. In general, people who write articles or publish newsletters benefit the most. Most blog software allows you to offer RSS feed of the blog posts. You can also offer your press releases through an RSS feed.

In general, anything that you publish frequently can be offered as an RSS feed. For example in the share market, the prices of the shares are always fluctuating. People holding shares or those who are interested in that business would like to stay updated about the price of their shares. When RSS feeds are created for such fields it will be of very great use undoubtedly.

Soon, you will find online retailers and other catalog companies also offering RSS feeds of their product range.

There are 2 main components of a RSS feed.

* Channel: A channel is the total collection of items you wish to highlight in your site. There is exactly one channel per RSS file.

* Item: Item is a single thing you wish to highlight from your site. There is at least one, but no more than 15 items per channel. But it is better to limit to 6 items per channel.

* RDF: RDF is the mother specification of RSS.

Example – You may create a RSS feed about all articles on your web site. That is, articles covering different topics in one RSS feed.

Then the channel will contain information about the feed (“Read articles on various subjects”), the location (web site address or URL) and a short description of the content you have written about.

There will be multiple items in the RSS Feed. Each item will have information about one article (the title, author, category, short description and the URL where the article may be found).

The user may see the index in a suitable viewer called RSS aggregator or reader, display the contents on a web page, or use it in any other way he thinks fit.

An aggregator, as the name suggests, is a piece of software that collects content from many websites that publish new content regularly (CNN, New York Times, Wired, etc.) provide a list of headlines of the latest content. In addition to displaying these headlines on their own websites, it is very common for publishers to make them available for syndication, so that other websites or applications can also include their headlines. When a website has an RSS feed, it is said to be “syndicated”.

The RSS aggregators come in many different forms and flavors. The most popular are desktop applications and RSS aggregation Web services.

* In the case of desktop RSS aggregators, end-users have to download them to their computers and install them there.

* In RSS aggregation Web services, on the other hand, the users can create their own accounts and then use those websites to view RSS content directly from their Web browsers.

After installing an RSS aggregator or registering at a web-based RSS aggregator web Service, the user needs to proactively add the link to your RSS feed in to the Aggregator to view your content.

When any new content item is modified or updated in the RSS feed, the user is notified of that through his RSS aggregator. The content is also immediately available to him, without having to face any SPAM filters and other obstacles on the way.

RSS being essentially a pull-content delivery channel, that is, in order to receive content via RSS the end-users need to subscribe to the RSS feeds they desire. Content cannot be delivered to people who have not granted permission to be contacted by you. At the same time, the other side of the coin is also true! The user who had given permission once can revoke it instantly, taking away your capability of communicating to them.

This fact makes the marketers and publishers more alert and force them to send only relevant information to their subscribers. Therefore, the chance of the user stopping the subscription suddenly is very remote. He is assured of receiving only information that is of use and interest to him. This is why exactly RSS is very powerful.

Author: Dirk Wagner
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

As I wrote in one of my previous articles, the orange revolution has begun. RSS is here and it has taken the internet by storm. The number of webmasters becoming a part of this online revolution is growing on a fast pace. The reason is, RSS feeds have proved to increase traffic in a big way. And creating your own RSS feed would surely be a step towards tapping in a new source of traffic.

However, just publishing your own RSS feed and waiting for miracles to happen won’t work. In order to get those most wanted subscribers, RSS feeds need to be promoted and marketed in the right way. With a good dose of quality traffic directed towards your feed, long term subscriptions will definitely start pouring in.

The following 6 ways will not only help you get the word out about your RSS feed but also help you retain a fresh flow of targeted visitors to your website.

Strategy #1: Create an individual webpage for your RSS feed

The most important part of your promotion should be creating a webpage dedicated to your RSS feed. Since RSS is still new to most of the online users, you can give your readers an introduction and explain how beneficial it is to subscribe to your RSS feed.

You can also have a small FAQ section about RSS here answering any questions and doubts your readers might have. Most of the time, the key here is to give your potential subscribers more than one option to add your feed. Different subscription options like “My Yahoo!” “My MSN” and “Newsgator” allow your visitors to add and subscribe to your feed with their own convenience.

However, if you are not a techie and wouldn’t prefer to create a webpage, then you can use a service like http://www.rapidfeeds.com . Here you get a designed page for your feed with different subscription options. There’s also a link to a short tutorial for those who are new to RSS. Once you publish a feed with them, you can directly promote your feed’s URL. But it would be much better if you can create a webpage specifically for your RSS feed.

Strategy #2: Add the Auto-Discover code to your RSS feed webpage

Browsers like Mozzila Firefox have added a lot of new features in the past few years and made browsing a different experience. One of the good features offered by Firefox is subscribing to RSS feeds.

That’s right, it acts as an aggregator and lets readers add feeds directly into their browser. The browser automatically detects RSS feeds on the site and asks the user, while he’s surfing the site, if he or she wishes to subscribe to the feeds. In other words, it makes it very easy for users to centralize information of their choice.

However, for Firefox to detect your feed on the webpage, you need to have the “Auto – Discover” code on it. So that the browser can automatically detect the feed, alerting the user.

Simply include the following code in the section of your web pages:

This should set you up for some automatic subscriptions to your feed!

Strategy #3: Write and distribute articles

Writing and distributing articles is a well known and a very respected method of driving traffic to your website. It has been effectively used by thousands of webmasters over the years to bring in some quality visitors.

Therefore, it’s an excellent idea to promote your RSS feed through articles written by you. There are many benefits that you’ll experience once your start writing your own informative articles. First of all, you’ll be recognized as an expert in your field. Secondly, you will gain the trust of your readers even before they subscribe.

Your article doesn’t have to be very long in length. It can be anywhere between 500 -1000 words. A “resource box” in the end should follow your completed article. The resource box usually is a short bio of the author. Here is where you can promote your RSS feed and give a link to it, explaining about it in brief.

Once you are done with the article, you can go ahead and submit it to online article directories like EzineArticles and goarticles. You can also go ahead and contact individual ezine publishers for publishing your article, as they are always on a look out for fresh content.

It’s really not a big deal to write an article on the web. If you know your expertise, then I’m sure you can come up with an article worth reading.

Strategy #4: Submit your RSS feed to directories and search engines

Submitting your RSS feed to online directories will certainly draw in visitors who are actually interested in what you offer. In the past few months a lot new directories have come up. For example, Syndic8 and 2RSS are thriving with thousands of RSS feeds on different topics with many more being added daily. Your feed can very well find its place in these ever growing directories.

There are even feed specific search engines like Feedster, which index only RSS feeds. These search engines get visitors who are searching for RSS feeds on a specific. So getting listed in them could convert to more targeted traffic and give your feed a good subscription rate.

These niche directories and search engines always tend to bring out the best out of your promotions. They don’t cost you anything, so are definitely worth a try!

Strategy #5: Promotion through email

Promoting your RSS feed via email is one of the most under – used methods. However, email promotion for your RSS feed usually yields in a higher subscription ratio.

If you are already running a newsletter, then you should consider including a section introducing your readers to your RSS feed. Since, RSS is growing rapidly, you can expect a large number of your email subscribers turning to your RSS feed.

You can also strike joint venture deals with other ezine publishers and swap ads promoting each other’s RSS feeds. This can mutually work wonders for both the publishers. You can even try promoting your ezine on the “thank you” page of your email subscription or your joint venture partner’s page.

Lastly, don’t forget to promote your feed in your email signatures. As your day-to-day correspondence can get you new subscribers for your feed.

There are many creative ways you can use email to promote your feed. You just need to come up with your own, which compliment your business in a positive way.

Strategy #6: Update your content regularly

Keeping your RSS feeds fresh and updated is very important if you want repeat visitors and new subscribers. Just like content oriented websites are updated regularly, content-wise, your RSS feeds are no different. RSS is meant to deliver new and up to date information, as it directly goes to the aggregators.

Your readers really don’t have any reason to be subscribed to your feed, if it doesn’t deliver new updated content. RSS feeds aren’t just meant for new visitors but also your old subscribers. You have to keep it updated for people to keep coming back to your feed.

On a finishing note, RSS feeds are an absolute way of turning the cards in your favor when it comes to building traffic and a loyal subscriber base. You need to keep on experimenting with new promotional methods and test new marketing techniques.
That’s all it would take to put your promotion on steroids!

Author: Mustafa K
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

One of the most commonly asked questions regarding search engine optimization is: “What is the best way to learn SEO”? The answer I always give to this question is simple yet complex. My answer to this question is always: “It Depends”.

Now before you say that my answer is not a definitive response to the question – let me explain my answer to you.

Search engine optimization by its very nature is not a black and white concept. There is a lot of gray area in the field of search engine optimization SEO.

Thus, it is only natural for people who are trying to learn SEO to be totally confused about how and what to do in relation to learning SEO because there are so many options and opportunities available for people to learn search engine optimization.

Well, let’s look closer at my answer to the question what is the best way to learn SEO: “It Depends”.

My answer to the question is based purely on my viewpoint of education in general and learning new subject matter.

The fact that someone is trying to learn SEO is only the current situation for the individual. The real question that is being asked is what is the best way for the individual to learn and this depends on the individual.

For example, some people learn best using visual aids while others learn more through audio aids while still others learn better from reading books.

In the end, the best way to learn almost anything is to use a combination of these methods.

However, in our society today people have very little patience, so the visual method tends to be what many people prefer because frankly it is easier to apply and use; but in my experience, the “visual” method in the long run is the least effective method for individuals to utilize for retaining and applying new information.

With this being said, the best method for learning in my opinion is reading a well-written book related to the subject matter.

The book should include visual aspects in the material to enhance the learning experience and access to an instructor for reinforcement of the material that is read or it should be written in a manner that presents the material as if the author is actually sitting with the reader and explaining the information.

Therefore, my answer “it depends” regarding the question of what is the best way to learn SEO can be summarized this way.

“The best way to learn SEO is by reading an SEO book that is well written and covers the entire realm of SEO at the level of the actual reader so that a clear understanding can be conveyed. Hence, for beginners to the intermediate level, the material should be written for readers at that level in a manner that is best for them to learn SEO, which would be different than a book written for an advance SEO reader.”

The main problem with reading SEO related books is that most of the books and ebooks sadly are not well written and the information is usually written in a manner that is not designed for the reader to learn but only for the reader to apply what was read. You or no one else can learn this way. It is easy to write a book; but is very hard to write a well-written book that helps an individual learn new material.

If you want to learn SEO, you need to read a good SEO book and/or ebook that actually provides the search engine optimization material in a comprehensive manner and also provides the material in an easy to read, easy to understand, effective and easy to apply manner for real world situations.

Don’t fall victim to the hype. If you want to learn SEO, it will take time. A two-day SEO workshop, SEO videos and/or SEO online classes will not help you learn SEO. You can learn to apply specific information using these methods; but you will not learn SEO.

Search engine optimization is much more than a few techniques or tips. SEO is a field of expertise, which requires a strong understanding of all aspects related to SEO before you can truly learn SEO. Thus, it will take time. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

If you want to learn SEO, you will need to do it the old fashion way by reading and applying the material from a good SEO book and/or ebook.

Remember when you were in grade school, middle school, high school and/or college were you ever just given a CD, video, two-day workshop or other similar methods to learn a subject? No, I will guess that you learned primarily from books or material derived from a book presented by an instructor.

On this note, a well-written SEO book, by an author, that presents the material as if he or she is talking to you can be the substitute for an instructor; but you will still need to read the book and apply what you learn. This has been a time-tested method of learning for hundreds of years around the world. The method will not fail you; however, you can fail the method.

Learn SEO by reading a very good SEO book today.

You can determine the SEO book to purchase and read by carefully reviewing the promotional material for the SEO book, reading objective book reviews regarding the SEO book, comparing the prices of the various SEO books, making sure that you purchase a book that is written to actually teach SEO and finally purchase an SEO book that provides a money back guarantee in case the book does not meet your expectations.

However, remember that you should never take advantage of a money back guarantee. The author worked hard to write the book. If you actually benefited from reading the book or ebook, don’t ask for a refund just because you do not want to pay for the book. Always remember that what comes around goes around. Treat people fair and be honest in your dealings with others.

Read a well-written and comprehensive SEO book or ebook.

Author: Eric Dwayne Brown
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital TV, HDTV, Satellite TV

The least utilized option in Wordpress, the custom field, is also quite possibly the most powerful function of the entire platform. I have been writing up my own tutorials on this option for several days now and thought I would share with you a few of the other great posts on the subject.

The Top 5 Uses for Wordpress Custom Fields  by  Oak Innovations Blog

For the vast majority of bloggers, this incredibly usefull, and versatile piece of functionality goes unused. At the moment you may be thinking that the reason you don’t use it, is that you have no use for it. This may very well be true but, its also likely that no one has really explained what’s possible.

Learn how to use Wordpress Custom Fields | Kriesi.at – new media design

WordPress gives an author the ability to add extra data to each written post and page. This data is called meta-data and is stored in custom fields.

WordPress Custom Fields Contest

If you are a wordpress blogger, how many times have you used the often overlooked feature called Custom Fields. It is sitting below this post page as I type and though I look at it everyday, I never got around to using it. Technosailor is organizing the WordPress Custom Fields Contest to bring forth the usefulness of this feature and its possible applications.

Jazz Up Your Site: 28 Ways To Use WordPress Custom Fields | Performancing.com

Reasons To Use Custom Fields

You create a custom field, then choose on a post by post basis what information you will add. That information can be manipulated by custom WP/PHP code to present additional textual or visual content when a visitor views a post page. To summarize:

1. Add metadata for reporting or other purposes.
2. Add visually cohesive elements to your site.
3. Manipulate information and control its display programmatically.
4. Make global changes across all your posts with a single code change, instead of manually updating each post.

The lists below show some ways that WP custom fields can be used to provide more textual and visual info to your site visitors. If you decide to change something, say a border or background or even placement on the post page, without custom fields you would have to make changes manually to each and every post. If you have hundreds of posts, you’d have a daunting task. With custom fields, you have structure and homogeneity through custom handler code.

redswish – a web design blog » The power of Wordpress Custom Fields

I can’t believe I’ve been playing with Wordpress for so long and never explored the Custom Fields feature. A website I’ve been working recently has required me to push the boundaries of Wordpress, or more appropriately my understanding and knowledge of it. In doing so I’ve bravely slipped deeper into the Advanced Options and lived to tell the tale – the tale of the Custom Fields…

WordPress Custom Fields; laying text over your lead graphic

WordPress Custom Fields; laying text over your lead graphic

For WordPress users, there are certain scenarios when the typical reverse chronological presentation of content is just not enough. I have experimented with different methods of presenting content on 5thirtyone.com each time a redesign is uploaded – from the text-centric to the image heavy version in use right now. With hundreds of WordPress driven blogs being published on a daily basis, it’s difficult to stand out; even more so if you stick to the standard two-column blog layout.

The undersigned » Blog Archive » WordPress how-to: Custom Fields

WordPress how-to: Custom Fields

Most WordPress users have seen the custom fields section when they write a new post or create a page – but what is it exactly?

Post 12 of 100 of Brad’s Tiny World Scribefire Challenge.

One of the least used and most powerful features of wordpress is the page template. The page template to make a long story short integrates non standard coding into your blog seemlessly. It is probably used most often as an archive page in free themes, but most of those free templates forget to tell their users how to use the template and therefore it goes unused. They can be used for so many other things than just an archive page though.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger makes extensive use of page templates. If you look at the beautifully designed landing page you will find a lot of information all packed neatly into one space. If this were a standard freebie theme you wouldn’t be able to see much more than this. It is my esitmation that his home page is home.php rather than the standard index.php. (for more information see the the wordpress codex on) By making use of the home.php as a landing page in your theme you can then make a blog template that will display all of the posts in a nice chronological order. This is especially nice on multiple author blogs like ProBlogger. I know some of you are thinking isn’t this just an archive page? The answer is no. A good archive page should give you little more than a quick excerpt of the post. My preference for an archive page is nothing more a link to the posts.

Here are a few more places where I make use of page templates since I am having a hard time actually finding other good uses of them at the moment. This page makes use of the Pandora Internet Radio Widgets on a single page rather than a sidebar present throughout my blog. The contact form on the Free Online Music Articles site makes use of the Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form by Mike Cherim & Mike Jolley. Most of the other pages on this blog utilize my standard article directory information with the automatic pulls from the blog’s information. It saves needing to write these over and over again for different sites utilizing that or similar template. Plop the info into a template and it puts in all of the correct information. Another popular or should be popular page template is the sitemap. If you look at it there is a sextion for my pages, not all of which are listed on the landing page header. You get a list of my categories with how many posts are in each category. Then there is a listing of the ten latest posts in each category. If there were mutlpile authors to this blog you would find a listing of the ten latest posts from each author as well. Notice, this page template has absoluetely nothing to do with your google xml sitemap.

In the end if you are capable of doing simple theme editing you can create a wealth of useful pages not possible in your standard blog layout. If you aren’t so handy with the coding, try looking for themes that provide you with more template oportunities. Not only wiil they create a better reading experience many of the them will improve your SEO.

When you are first deciding on online marketing in order to promote your business online, the main online marketing methods that you will encounter are Organic search engine optimisation and Pay per click advertising such as Google Adwords.

Organic search engine optimisation and Pay pr click advertising are the two main methods of online marketing.  Both these forms of online marketing are aimed at getting highly targeted visitors to your website by making your website rank on search engine results for the keywords that you are targeting.

Ideally a business needs to utilise both, organic Search engine optimisation as well as Pay per click advertising on order to get the maximum exposure for their business online. However cost and budget considerations often result in a business having to make a choice between using organic search engine optimisation or Pay per click advertising for their business.

Before discussing which form of online marketing is better for your business, it is important to understand the difference between organic search engine optimisation and pay per click advertising. Organic search engine optimisation refers to the search results that appear in the main centre section of the search results. Ranking within organic search engine results cannot be bought and ranking is a result of organic non-biased steps taken over a period of time.  It is dependent on the overall popularity of your website on the internet in general among other on site factors. Organic listings are the results that appear in the main section of a search engine such as Google when we search for something. Pay per click advertising on the other hand refers to the paid listing or sponsored results that appear on the right of the search results page and not in main middle section of the page.

Pay per click result is paid for and results are almost immediate to achieve. However there are many drawbacks to pay per click advertising as compared with Organic search engine optimisation. The recent years have seen an exponential rise in competition and a steep rise in pay per click costs. Click fraud is another rising concern in pay per click advertising where an advertiser may be charged for clicks that are not by genuine customers.

1)      Many surveys and search engine marketing studies have pointed than users are more likely to click on organic search results that appear on the main section of the page rather than the paid listings that appear as ads on the right.

8 Blogging Tips to Grip Your Readers

Author: Alfonso Muñoz

Every blogger knows that we are nothing without our readers so it is very important to get new readers everyday but it is equal or more important to grip the ones who come to our blog once in a while. What can we do? Here are some tips that will help you to achieve it:

1. Shorter = better. This is almost a rule and I break it sometimes in spite of knowing that it is quite important to write short and concise posts. It happens to me that when I find and interesting but excessively long post usually I get bored of reading and I give up without reading the whole text. I talked about it with my friend Cheeky Chubby (you must have a blog, you missed a link ) he reminded me that sometimes I write too long posts and I know it my friend, but sometimes I write and write and write…
2. You must use lists, like I’m doing now. Readers like list, they love to have the information organized and easy to read.
3. Try to write on one idea per post. Don’t mix two or three different topics in the same post. If you have several things in your mind it is better to write a different post for each one and programme them to different hours instead of publish in a row.
4. Explain things as clear and simple as possible. You must realize that most of your readers aren’t experts with computers or high skilled in the use of Internet.
5. Use the Time Stamp feature. Yeah, this is one of the best tools that WordPress has. If you write 3 or 4 posts in a row you can publish them all along the day, every couple of hours for example. This way your readers will return to your blog more than once per day to see if something new is there.
6. Speak to your readers with closeness. You don’t know who are most of them but remember that they know who you are and they like to hear about you and your blog. So try to be close to them in your writing style, avoid to be distant. This is something like “be yourself”.
7. Try to write without grammar and spelling mistakes… well, perhaps I’m not the best one to talk about this . Yes, this is important. A text full of this kind of mistakes seems to be written by a little boy and it affects to your credibility as a serious blogger.
8. Be optimist. People like to read good and successful stories. It encourages them to follow your steps and follow you closer. Don’t tell them how bad your day is because all of us have enough with our own troubles. Give them an optimistic point of view, brighten them up

Put in practice this advices, I assure you that you’ll get positive results.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/8-blogging-tips-to-grip-your-readers-444686.html

About the Author:

Alfonso Muñoz is a blogger keen on SEO, Marketing and Blogging, who learns, experiments and shares all the knowledge gathered during his trip around Internet. You can find him in Binary Ant

There were several old combinations that worked well together but since WordPress 2.3 came out many of them stopped working properly or stopped working altogether. Fear not there are replacements out there. Unlike many of the regurgitated idiot lists currently out there, everything I list will work in WordPress 2.5 the only version of the blog software you should be running.

Ultimate Tag Warrior hasn’t been supported by the author since WordPress 2.3 came out. Many of its features and those of Bunny’s Technorati Tags, Jerome’s Keywords, and other tagging programs are easily replaced in better plugins. The All in One SEO Pack can even be replaced now.

The new power plugin combination consists of Headspace2 and Simple Tags. Between these two plugins you can hand every task that you used to require half a dozen plugins and tweaks.

Simple Tags takes over most of what was done by most of the old tagging plugins did. While it alone doesn’t do everything UTW did that can be handled by Headspace2. There are two more tagging plugins you may wish to consider as options. Gormful’s Technorati Tags will give you another formatting option. Tag This will allow users to add/suggest tags at will or with the parameters you set.

Headspace2 while a more complicated option than the much love All In One SEO Pack, is simply a more powerful tool and one you would do well to learn. Mani at the Daily SEO Blog has a very good tutorial on Headspace2. He also confirms my suspicion if you are using Google XML Sitemaps you can’t use both Headspace2 and AIOSP without causing plugin clash. This video will give you a nice look at Headspace2.

The two standard plugins most people list and I will confirm is the default Akismet for spam control and Google XML Sitemap plugin for indexing. Both of these are pretty standard among power WordPress Bloggers because they work. There are other options like GT Site Crawler that may be better for indexing your site if it contains more than just a blog.

The next problem one faces with their blog is linking. In my opinion if you are using a good spam plugin like Akismet and practice good comment policy like requiring name and email and a previously approved comment then turning off the nofollow will gain you more than you lose in time. I have used the DoFollow plugin for some time but have just recently started looking at the more customizable NoFollow Free. Either way you go the plugin works well in WP 2.5, but don’t use them both.

Once you decide which nofollow plugin to use. You need to think about how the nofollow and duplicate content affects your SEO. To clue you into this plugin I give you the words of Andy Beard the plugins creator.

“This plugin is intended to be used in advanced linking structures such as those described in Wordpress SEO Masterclass For Competitive Niches

Rather than blocking duplicate content pages, they can be used to your advantage…. (NFTD) has a method of channeling “Google Juice” away from pages that are receiving the majority of links, to pages that you wish to rank well, and also to your homepage to enhance monetization.”

For the record I recommend Wordpress SEO Masterclass For Competitive Niches wholeheartedly.

WordPress comes with the Tiny MCE editor, but the Tiny MCE Advanced plugin will greatly expand the functionality to almost the point of being as good as MS Word for features. The good thing is depending on the kind of blog you run most of these features are useful and easily added or removed.

The next three are really optional plugins, but I have included them because of how useful they are. First as a writer and avid reader I like two spaces between sentences. This is what you get with the Extra Sentence Space plugin from Coffee to Code. The Disable wpautop, removes WordPress’s automatic paragraph formatting. This is useful for those who wish to have more control of elements from their style sheet. Excerpt Editor does a great job auto-generating your excerpt and can easily be customized. This is important for your front page SEO and channeling Google Juice to the right places.

Along with post style controlled from your style sheet I believe that most of your image and video styling should not be plugin control, but rather be a function of either WordPress’s native image/video functions or controlled from your CSS. There are a few image video plugins that I do find handy though. The only Image related plugins I use at the moment is Flexible upload and SEO Friendly Images. Flexible upload handles some of issues that were present in 2.5’s first release. SEO Friendly Images takes care of some of the extra bits like image description and alt info automatically.

Last but not least important are your social plugins. The first one to mention is the LiveJournal Cross Poster (LJXP) I am hosting the hacked version of this that is friendly to both 2.3 and 2.5 installs. If you still have friends there or want to simply post excerpts with links back into some of the promo communities this plugin will be your best friend. You can also download the excerpts from LJ and post them to any number of other blogs easily enough. I aggregate all 4 of my blogs LJXPs on WordPress.com. You can also snatch the HTML code from the LJ post and post it to a fair number of other blogging communities like Blogger and MySpace.

(There is a MySpace crossposter but I have never made it work and no one I have ever met has been able to either. If anyone gets it to work please let me know)

The next group of social tools includes Twitter Tools which is very good about posting your blog post updates to twitter, but it sucks for posting your tweets on your blog. For tweet posting I prefer MyTwitter which will allow you to hard code your tweeting and place it anywhere you want on your blog. You can also use the hard coding methods described on your Twitter account. The one thing you do need to know about twitter tools and the 2.5 widget layout. You have to uninstall the plugin or change themes to remove the widget.

The plugin I feel you almost certainly need to have if you are a serious blogger is a social bookmarking plugin. I prefer Share This for two reasons. One it has a small footprint and can be hard coded for exact placement. Secondly it has tracking available for your blog. If you want a bigger selection of Social Sites on hand, especially if you are using non US English sites I suggest using Sociable. You will have a bigger footprint and its gaudy but it gets the job done.

The last plugin in the category I want to mention is Auto Social. This handy little plugin will automatically submit your posts to Del.icio.us for you using all your own tagging information. It makes a powerful end of day digest post when you combine it with the Del.icio.us Thingy.

There are some site specific plugin for Digg, Sphinn, Reddit, and Technorati. I however think it is far better to hand code these links for better layout control.

In the end there are other tools and new ones will come along, but with this list you can quickly turn an ordinary blog into a power blog

]]> http://bradtheblogboy.com/wordpress-2/plugins/must-have-wordpress-25-plugins/feed/ 45 http://bradtheblogboy.com/traffic-building/links/high-value-links/?source=rss http://bradtheblogboy.com/traffic-building/links/high-value-links/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:38:28 +0000 Blogboy http://bradtheblogboy.com/?p=70 Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes

I was researching this topic for you when I ran across this excellent article and decided just to give you the whole thing.  it has some stuyff that I am going to go put in practice on my other blogs right now so have a good day.

How to Get Inbound Links from Government and University Sites   by Dr. Deepak Dutta

The inbound link is the holy grail of web traffic. Getting inbound links from government and university sites is a testament to the quality of your site.

You accumulate inbound links not only to increase traffic, but also to establish your site for providing high value to visitors. However, getting inbound links by link exchange or buying text links is not going to get you anywhere. You need to abandon those archaic ideas and jump forward with an inbound link strategy that provides high value authoritative links.

To obtain high value authoritative links, your site must provide high values to its visitors. Original authoritative articles and tools to solve everyday problems are a few ways to provide a lasting value to web surfers. Before you embark on your link-building mission, create something valuable.

Links from the government sites have very high value. If your site enables citizenry to interact directly with the government, it is an excellent candidate for a link back from the government site.

Sites that provide community level services, for example location of Social Security Offices in the USA with interactive maps, will also have high potential for outbound links from government sites.

Other types of sites that do well are sites that provide information about service performance, for example, a nursing home comparison site; sites that cross inter-governmental boundaries; and sites that allow transactions with the government, for example, filing taxes.

If your site is a good fit for outbound links from government sites, start with usa.gov site. It is a central information hub for everything government. On the bottom of the page, you will see About Us and Contact Us links. Read their linking policy by clicking on the About Us before you contact them.

You don’t have to confine yourself to the US government sites only. Explore the possibilities of getting links from foreign government sites also. But keep in mind that your site should provide some values to citizenry of those countries and people wanting to do with them.

For example, most government embassy sites don’t display their embassy addresses in interactive maps. If your site pulls their addresses displayed in simple texts in a web page and place those addresses on Google maps for interactivity, you can contact them to put a link back to your site. Explain to them that your site adds additional value to their visitors by providing richer user experience.

College and university sites provide a good opportunity to develop some authoritative inbound links. The key here is to provide services geared towards students. You may also be able to get links if a faculty member is interested in your contents.

Don’t start spamming university forums, guest books, etc. People may attack your site and bring it down, report to your web host company or domain registrar. You will lose your credibility and reputation. Try to establish relationship by helping others. Let them know that you know your topics and are willing to share with them.

If your site provides some valuable services to students, approach the appropriate university authority for linking. For example, if you have a tool that compares student loans from different sources and suggests the good ones depending on a student’s financial situation, university loan office will be willing to link to your site as a resource.

If you have a blog with original and regularly updated contents that talk about impact of the technology on the society, you may approach a faculty in sociology to link to your site from his or her home page located in the university server.

Government and university sites provide good opportunities for developing inbound links if your website has a match with their requirements. The key to that is quality contents and useful web tools. Once you meet their requirements, it is worth pursuing these entities for spreading your website links to them.

About the Author

Deepak has provided free online marketing tools like free classifieds and free ads sites for more than a decade, followed by article marketing and social media link building tools.