Wordpress Tutorials

I’ve noticed a handful of useful WordPress websites which allow users to subscribe to specific RSS Feeds for particular categories. Prior to seeing this, I did not know that the WordPress installation had any more than the one basic feed URL. The normal feed URL with wordpress is: http://website.com/feed/. I wanted to make it easier for the readers to subscribe to very specific topics – rather than get notified of everything that is updated. So, after searching for a wordpress plugin, and having no luck with any of the possible choices – I just created it by myself. If you are having problems with the same issues, this quick guide might help you.

Location

• FIrst, figure out where on your website that you would like the “Subscribe to Topics” links to occur. The sidebar (either on the left-hand or right-hand side of your website is a typical location, although the links could be placed elsewhere).

• In this example, I will be putting the “Subscribe to Topics” links in the sidebar. Figure out exactly where you want it to show up. If you are totally unfamiliar with web design or editing files, this will be a learning experience for you.

Format for Category RSS Feeds with WordPress

• The actual format of your feed URLs will vary. Most people use Permalinks (to create SEO-friendly URLs) and if that is the case, your feed URLs will be in this format: http://website.com/feed
• If you want to create feeds for multiple categories, so people can subscribe to only what is of interest to them, you can do that as well. Format for feeds of specific categories is: http://website.com/categoryname/feed. For subcategory feeds, the RSS Format is: http://website.com/categoryname/subcategoryname/feed. It’s pretty simple, and there are a few different possible URLS structures for the feeds, but you get the basic idea.
• Personally, I prefer to use the format just mentioned. But, for those who know what they are doing, and would like to have the feed in an alternate format, these are possible options:

• http://website.com/feed/
• http://website.com/feed/rss/
• http://website.com/feed/rss2/
• http://website.com/feed/rdf/
• http://website.com/feed/atom/

For more details about all possible uses and formats, please refer to the WordPress information here.

Create Your Feeds List

• Now you must figure out which feeds you want to offer custom RSS Feeds for. Open up notepad and type out all the URLs and names of the feeds you would like to create. To find the correct URL, you will need to know the URLs to your category pages. Most websites with widgets allow you to create a widget that has a list of your categories. If you can do that, it will make it quite easy for you to get the URLs. Just scroll over the link to that category, copy the URL link and paste it into your notepad file.
• The reason we are doing this manually instead of using a piece of PHP code to pull the category feeds in is because I want to be able to hand-choose the feeds I want to create (I also don’t know enough about PHP and don’t have the time to figure it out).
• Here are some of the category feed URLs that I want to create for my example:

• Subscribe to All Topics http://wordpress-tutorials.info/feed
• Subscribe to All Comments http://wordpress-tutorials.info/comments/feed
• Making Money http://wordpress-tutorials.info/topics/make-money-online-honestly/feed
• Blogging http://wordpress-tutorials.info/topics/blogging-101/feed

• The place in the URL above that shows “topics” might need to be replaced with the word “categories,” but that depends on your permalink structure and how your URLs are setup.

Putting it Together with HTML

• In order to create a nice looking graphic RSS Image with the hyperlinks to each specific feed, you will need to put it in the proper HTML format. The format for the four links above, can be seen here. You can use this very format for your links.
• You don’t need to know what all the code means, but you need to be able to insert in your URLs in place of those – and the topic names in place of the ones there as well.

<div id=”sidebarfeeds”>
<ul>
<li><a href=”http://wordpress-tutorials.info/feed”>Subscribe to All Topics</a></li>
<li><a href=”http://wordpress-tutorials.info/comments/feed”>Subscribe to Comments</a></li>
<li><a href=”http://wordpress-tutorials.info/topics/blogging-101/feed”>Blogging</a></li>
<li><a href=”http://wordpress-tutorials.info/topics/make-money-online-honestly/feed”>Business Preparations</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

• Now that you have the code that you need, it is time to create the widget. Login to your WordPressadmin area, scroll over the DESIGN tab and click on WIDGETS. On the left-hand side, find a widget that says “TEXT” (next to it, you should see “arbitrary text or html.” Click to Add it to your sidebar. Then place it anywhere that you want these links to show up at.
• Find the new sidebar widget on the right-hand side, and click edit. A box will open up and allow you to insert code or text. You will want to insert the HTML code that you just created.
• As you can see, the code starts with the <div id=”sidebarfeeds”> and ends with a </div>
• The reason I used that special piece of code is because i wanted the list of links to appear in a reallynice and professional format. In order to do that, I needed to create a special piece of code to put into my stylesheet (style.css). For those who have no idea what I am talking about, my intention is not to overwhelm you! Basically, a stylesheet is a type of file that contains all of the details for specific design elements on your website; placement of objects, spacing and images, etc. I created a special style for this to look nice. (you can get the code for that below the screenshot here)

Final Step – Adding the Style to the Stylesheet

• So, the final step here is to add the special style to the stylesheet.
• Here is the code I used:

#sidebarfeeds { width:280px;
float:right;
margin-bottom:10px;
padding:0px 5px 0px 5px;
background:#fff;
}

#sidebarfeeds li {
list-style:none;
border-bottom:1px dotted #ccc;
display:block;
padding:2px 0px 2px 25px;
background:url(/wp-content/uploads/icons/021.png) no-repeat 0 0px; }

• That information was added to my style.css file. That file was located at: http://website.com/wp-content/themename/style.css
• You can add it to the end of your file or anywhere in between – just be sure to keep it in tact as it is here. Don’t forget any of the code.
• You will most likely need to alter the code slightly -because your sidebar might be smaller than mine is. The sidebar itself for my website is 300 pixels wide. So, the normal size for this is 20 pixels less – which is why you see in the style code it is 280px wide. It also has some padding around it.
• The second part of the code is for the list of links that will appear with the graphic RSS Feed image next to them. So, you will need to have an actual RSS feed image if you want one to appear. You will need to use an FTP program or file manager to upload an actual RSS image that you want to use. As you can see above, my file location for the uploaded graphic was at: /wp-content/uploads/icons/021.png. You can upload your image wherever you like, just be sure to put the correct URL path to it in the stylesheet code above (replace mine). If you don’t know the correct format, you can alternatively put the direct path to it, for example: http://website.com/wp-content/uploads/icons/name.png.
• Once your stylesheet has the new style inserted, just save it. Save your new widget and place it anywhere you want the feed to appear. That’s it!

If you have any trouble with the style of the new widget (the size or padding, etc.) my only suggestion is that you copy some of the code from your other widgets. Keep it the same width, same padding and margins as the widgets above and below it and you should be fine!

That’s it! I hope this helped you!

Got a WordPress blog that you’re eager to supercharge for optimal search engine performance? Read on! We’ll cover pinging, sitemaps, canonicalization, link juice, header tags, slugs, tags, timestamping, social media, permalinks, and a whole lot more!

WordPress SEO Tip #20 — Don’t Block the Search Engines!

First and foremost: make sure you’re not inadvertently telling the search engines to go away! Believe it or not, some WordPress installations block the search engine bots by default.

From your admin panel, go to Options > Privacy and make sure it’s set to “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone.”

Bonus Tip #1 – Are Comments Enabled?

Some WordPress users restrict comments to registered users, or disable them entirely. While this may be appropriate in some situations, in most cases comments are a very beneficial factor, and a defining mark, of a blog.

Comments engage your readers, help you get more “fresh content” SEO brownie points, and give search engines another reason to come back frequently.

Here’s how to fully enable comments:

1. Login to the WordPress administration center
2. Click “Options” on the menu bar
3. Is “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” checked? If so, consider unchecking it.
4. Click “Discussion” on the submenu bar
5. Make sure the following are checked: “Allow people to post comments on the article” and “Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.)”

WordPress SEO Tip #19 — Does Your Blog Have a Topic?

Some of us would prefer to have a blog where we talk about anything that comes to mind: cars, movies, photosynthesis, dust mites, you name it.

In and of itself, such a blogging style isn’t wrong; however, you can leave search engines clueless as to what your blog’s about and thus for what search queries your blog should appear. And some of your readers might get annoyed in the process as well.

WordPress SEO Tip #18 — Ensure URL Canonicalization

If your blog posts are accessible from more than one URL, you could end up with:

• Search engines confused as to which URL to display in the SERPs.
• PageRank split between multiple pages.
• Duplicate content penalties.

Starting with version 2.3, WordPress takes care of this and makes sure your content is accessible from only one place. So if you use an older version, either upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, or install the Permalink Redirect plugin.

WordPress SEO Tip #17 — Check for Valid XHTML

Most code errors are minor, but the more serious ones can cause content misinterpretation by search engines, lower rankings, and rendering errors.

WordPress itself produces valid code, but errors can crop up from two other common sources:

• Poorly written plugins or themes
• User-created coding errors (in the blog posts themselves, or through theme customizations)

First check your site for errors. If an error is found, look at the surrounding content to determine the source of the error.

If a plugin is the culprit, fix it if you’re good at that sort of thing (the beauty of open source!), or send a quick email to the plugin developer and let him or her know.

WordPress SEO Tip #16 – Don’t Leech Link Juice!

One characteristic of WordPress blogs is the sidebar, which is typically present on every single page. Do you really need to be passing link juice from every single one of your pages to every single one of those links? If the answer is no, consider adding rel=”nofollow” to the less important ones.

WordPress SEO Tip #15 — Use Images in Your Posts

Not only do they increase visitor attention and retention, they give you an opportunity to use keyword-rich “alt” attributes, “title” attributes, and filenames. Plus it’ll give your blog visibility in image search engines.

WordPress SEO Tip #14 — Does Your Theme Use Header Tags Correctly?

• The blog title, or your main keyword should be in an <h1> tag.
• If your subtitle is keyword-rich, you can put it in an <h2>; otherwise I recommend putting it in a non-header tag like <div>.
• The post titles should go in <h2> tags.
• Sidebar section titles should be <h3> tag or non-header.

Unfortunately, some themes (including the WordPress Default Theme) put the sidebar section titles in <h2> tags. Although this makes sense from a strict structural point of view, it also gives irrelevant sidebar headers (“Categories,” “Archives,” “Meta,” etc.) equal weight with your SEO-important post titles.

To sum it up: Use a theme that utilizes header-tags properly, or try fixing the theme you have.

WordPress SEO Tip #13 — Use Pinging

A ping is a “this site has new content” notification that invites bots to visit your blog.

WordPress pings one website called Ping-o-matic by default, which in turn pings others. You can also add additional services by going to Options > Writing in the admin panel. (For example, the pinging URL for Google Blog Search is http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2)

Another Bonus Tip: Once a post is published, WordPress issues pings whenever the post is edited. Try to cut down on after-publishing edits to avoid being considered a ping spammer.

WordPress SEO Tip #12 — Install the Google XML Sitemaps Generator Plugin

XML Sitemaps are search-engine-friendly directories of your blog’s posts and other pages intended to help search engines spider your site. Though pioneered by Google, they’re supported by Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com as well.

The Google XML Sitemaps Generator for WordPress makes creation of these sitemaps easy and automatic. It also lets the engines know when you post new content.

WordPress SEO Tip #11 — Avoid Sponsored Themes

There was a debate in the WordPress community not too long ago on the topic of sponsered themes. These themes include paid links (usually in the footer) than can suck PageRank and possibly result in a Google paid links penalty.

Stick with WordPress theme directories that don’t include sponsored themes, like theWordPress Theme Viewer.

Bonus Tip #2 — Write Right Post Titles

SEO isn’t everything: once you’re high in the SERPs, you need action words to prompt clickthroughs.

Put keywords in your title if at all possible, but not if it’ll compromise the click-trigger action title.

WordPress SEO Tip #10 — Use Traditional SEO Techniques

A WordPress blog is a website too, so the traditional SEO techniques still apply:

• Use important keywords in the title and throughout the post, but don’t overdo it.
• Bold your keywords when it makes sense.
• Develop links to your blog.

WordPress SEO Tip #9 — Use the Power of the Slug

Ever wondered what the “Post Slug” on the “Write” page was? It’s the text that goes in the URL when you have “Pretty Permalinks” enabled (see tip #2).

By default the slug is a “sanitized” version of the post title. However, if your title is overly long or keyword-sparse, you can change the slug through the Post Slug box.

Yet Another Bonus Tip: The SEO Slugs plugin can take out common words like “you,” “is,” etc. out of the slug for you automatically.

WordPress SEO Tip #8 — Use Timestamping to Stagger Fresh Content

Search engines and visitors love fresh blog content on a steady, regular basis. But for a lot of us, creativity comes irregularly: 10 post ideas one week, none the next.

Enter timestamping. When writing a post, click the plus sign next to “Post Timestamp.” Set a date and time, and the post will publish by itself whenever you specify.

Search engines will keep coming back, and visitors won’t be inundated with a ton of new posts all at once.

Hint: If you’ve timestamped a post, don’t click the Publish button, since that’ll publish your post immediately regardless of your timestamp. Instead, select “Published” under “Post Status” and click the Save button.

WordPress SEO Tip #7 — Use Tags for Free Keyword Boosts

WordPress 2.3 and above include a tags feature that lets you assign keywords to your blog posts. Once you start using them, then since each tag gets its own webpage, you’ll be generating a ton of your own themed, keyword-oriented internal backlink pages.

WordPress SEO Tip #6 — Integrate Social Media

Adding social media links/buttons like the ones above makes it easy for visitors to promote your quality content (hint, hint). Social media is a great way to build links naturally as well as drive targeted site traffic.

• Share This is a very popular “social media all-in-one” plugin.
• If you’re a FeedBurner user, you can use FeedFlare to add action links, including social media ones, to the bottom of your posts.

Lots of social media sites provide code you can use to generate buttons like those above. Grab your own code from:

• Digg
• Sphinn
• StumbleUpon
• Mixx
• Scoop

WordPress SEO Tip #5 — Implement Deep-Linking

Here are several great ways to implement deep-linking on your WordPress blog:

• Within your posts, link to other posts on your blog and use important keywords in the anchor text.
• Install the Similar Posts plugin, which inserts a list of related posts you’ve written to the bottom of each of your blog posts. This process will create aged deep links and increase visitor retention.
• Display your most popular posts in your sidebar using the Popularity Contestplugin. Gives your most popular posts tons of internal links, and helps your visitors find your best content.

WordPress SEO Tip #4 — Make Scrapers Work to Your Advantage

Most of us would probably be upset if someone used scraping (automated content stealing) to publish our laboriously-written posts as his or her own.

But with a little work, you can make the scrapers work for you, not against you.

Here’s how to do it, courtesy of EarnersBlog.com:

If you use WordPress it’s very easy to take full advantage of these sites linking to you, all you need to do is create links back to your content within your feed.

What you’ll need for this:

• Cave Monkey’s Full Text Feed Plugin
• Solo Technologies Add Related Posts to your Feed Plugin

These plugins simply show your entire post in your feed & also add some related posts in your feed only (which will also increase the amount of people in your feed reading more than 1 post).
Now, everytime anyone scrapes your blog via your RSS feed & republishes it they’ll be deep linking to 5 or more of your existing posts. Bingo.

WordPress SEO Tip #3 — Install the All-in-One SEO Plugin

Like the name implies, this plugin covers a lot of the bases.

• Puts the blog name after the post title, giving your keyword-rich titles more prominence.
• Allows you to override title and meta tags on your homepage as well as your individual posts.
• Lets you add “noindex” to your category and/or tag pages to avoid duplicate content.
• And more.

A must-have for serious WordPress SEO.

WordPress SEO Tip #2 — Use “Pretty Permalinks”

Sure, you may already use Pretty Permalinks, but are you using the best possible permalink structure?

For those of who don’t use Pretty Permalinks, it’s a must-do for WordPress SEO. Permalinks, in essence, are the URLs of your WordPress blog posts. “Pretty Permalinks” put slugs (which should contain keywords — see tip #9) in your URLs instead of the default numbers.

To enable or change them, first login, then go to Options > Permalinks.

The two options you do not want are “Default” and “Numeric.” Here are my suggestions for picking a “pretty” permalink structure:

• Date and Name Based: The problem with this is that your posts are several extra directories deep, which can decrease relevence in some search engines. However, such a permalink structure can nevertheless be desireable if your blog is news-oriented or date-sensitive.
• Post Name Only: If your blog covers one topic that has no subtopics (which, though possible, is unlikely), select “Custom” and type /%postname%/
• Category Based: If your blog covers multiple topics, implement category-based URLs. (You have to look into the Codex to find information on category-based URLs, so many WordPress users probably don’t realize that this option exists!) To implement it, select “Custom” and type /%category%/%postname%/

WordPress SEO Tip #1 — WordPress Secret: Use Category-Based Permalinks

Here’s the big finale. Problem is, this tip is so important (and lengthy) that it really merits its own post.

Here’s a teaser: it entails implementing the powerful siloing technique on your WordPress blog through a combination of plugins, settings, and strategies.