“But it’s about….”

No it’s not.

“It’s about virtualization and…”

No, it’s not

“But…”

No!

It doesn’t exist. Right now ask anyone what Web 3.0 is and you will get 1,000 different answers. We are still firmly in Web 2.0 technologies and behaviors.

Web 3.0 will come along, no one knows what it will be or when it will arrive. In the meantime, don’t go to any job interviews that ask you to be proficient in something that doesn’t exist. Chances are their business won’t exist before too long.

• aside – Typically styled without a title. Similar to a Facebook note update.
• gallery – A gallery of images. Post will likely contain a gallery shortcode and will have image attachments.
• link – A link to another site. Themes may wish to use the first tag in the post content as the external link for that post. An alternative approach could be if the post consists only of a URL, then that will be the URL and the title (post_title) will be the name attached to the anchor for it.
• image – A single image. The first tag in the post could be considered the image. Alternatively, if the post consists only of a URL, that will be the image URL and the title of the post (post_title) will be the title attribute for the image.
• quote – A quotation. Probably will contain a blockquote holding the quote content. Alternatively, the quote may be just the content, with the source/author being the title.
• status – A short status update, similar to a Twitter status update.
• video – A single video. The first tag or object/embed in the post content could be considered the video. Alternatively, if the post consists only of a URL, that will be the video URL. May also contain the video as an attachment to the post, if video support is enabled on the blog (like via a plugin).
• audio – An audio file. Could be used for Podcasting.
• chat – A chat transcript, like so:

Since this is a new feature most themes will not have this function, but if you are changing themes in the future make sure to check the features of themes and see if they support ‘Post Formats’.

What if you don’t want to change themes?

You can add in the functionality to your existing theme (although be wary, sometimes small changes like this can break a theme. Try it out, but be prepared to pull it back out if your theme breaks).  Add this function to the Theme Functions (functions.php) file. You can add in one or all of the formats:

// ADD POST FORMATS
add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'chat', 'gallery', 'image', 'link', 'quote', 'status', 'video', 'audio' ) );

The tenth format is the default, that is the catch-all formatting for posts that you don’t assign a specific format. When you have this feature enabled, there will be more options under the Publish button on the Add New Post (Edit Post) screen.

There is one thing left to do, and that is change the loop to recognize the different post formats. This is done with a small amount of php. As always, before messing around in your code make sure you do CTRL + A and copy and paste the current code into a text program (like notepad or wordpad). That way if you mess up something you can just copy back in the old code.

php get_header(); ?>
<div id="main">
php if (have_posts()) : ?>
php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div id="post-<?<span class=">php the_ID(); ?>" ></div>
		php
			if ( has_post_format( 'aside' )) {
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'chat' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'gallery' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'image' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
 				echo the_post_thumbnail('medium');
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'link' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'quote' )) {
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'status' )) {
  				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'video' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}

			elseif ( has_post_format( 'audio' )) {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}

			else {
				echo '
<h3>';
  				echo the_title();
				echo '</h3>
';
				echo the_content();
			}
		?></div>
php endwhile; else: endif; ?>
php get_sidebar();  get_footer(); ?>

Now that I’ve overwhelmed you with some code, how about we answer the big question: WHY?

Well, post formats do what categories used to do. For example, each photo post now has its own format and post format identifier in the code. I look for more formats to be added as more releases are made available. It also looks nice, and more closely resembles the Tumblr format that is popular for very casual blogging.

Enjoy!

• easy to linking to your existing posts and pages
• an admin bar
• a streamlined writing interface (this interface hides seldom used panels by default, to get them back all you have to do is visit Screen Options in the top right)
• refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options
• Post Formats, this function supports themes to create portable tumblelogs (like Tumblr) with different styling for different types of posts
• new CMS capabilities like archive pages for custom content types
• new Network Admin, an overhaul of the import and export system
• the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries

We are going to go over these new functions one by one, but the first one is one of then best new additions, so let’s explore that first.
If you written on a site more than month, you will find yourself linking back to already-written content all the time. It can be arduous, finding the new content and linking to it. Well, no more! WordPress 3.1 has internal linking, making that back linking easier.

Here’s how to use it- 1) Select (highlight) the word or phrase that you want to link 2) Click the Link icon on the toolbar to bring up the link options 3) Click on the bottom where it says “Or link to existing content” 3) Type in your search terms, and the interface will bring up a list of post titles from your blog 4) Choose the post the want and voila! you have nice HTML anchor tag.

Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like;

Here are two caveats to this:  It’s not available in the HTML editor and you need to remember the right keywords to bring up the correct posts, and (speaking as person who forgets her own birthday) this could create some frustration.

Otherwise, this is a very cool feature. Use it. Love it. Know it.

Make sure to upgrade your WordPress version today!

(If you care this new function uses AJAX and jQuery instant functionality)

Once way to to feed content is through RSS (Real Simple Syndication). It’s that bright orange square that you see somewhere on the blog, and feeds into your reader of choice (I use Google Reader for all my feeds) or into Outlook every time the feed is updated. Unless, you can code XML there isn’t a whole of customization you can do for the RSS readers. Nonetheless, they are easy, usually standard to every theme you find, and uses a recognizable icon.

My recommendation is to use FeedBurner, a service that is offered by Google (isn’t everything offered by Google?!). There are many optimizaitons features you should take advantage of, and using them couldn’t be simpler.

Here are my tips and tricks (or, in this case, Do’s and Don’t's) for your FeedBurner feed (and in the end the one GREATEST sin, ever);

• Do burn all your feeds- Use Feedburner to keep track of all your feeds in once place
• Do Analyze- Feed stats can be analyzed, and stopping by once a month to see what users are doing, where they are coming from, and what your subscribers numbers are is good blogging.
• Do Optimize- Under Optimize, make sure that the Browser Friendly and Smart Feed services are activated.  Under Browser Friendly don’t worry about themes, or a content personal message, just make sure you are using Appearance Options > use ClearFeed (English) and under Feed Content > use List Items titles and Content.
• Don’t Clutter- don’t splice in links, photos or geotag your feed. People are reading your content, not what you marked on delicious or flickr.
• Do Publicize- Publicize is the most important, lots to to do here. First, make sure the Email Subscriptions is fully filled out. Take the code they give you and stick it in one of your widgets. This is for those few people who don’t use readers and want your content by email.
• Do activate Ping Shot.
• Don’t brag-  If you read my post on Sidebar crimes, you’ll know that showing off your feed numbers on your blog is kind of tacky, so you can skip the FeedCount.
• Do be social- Under Socialize, set it up so your posts automatically go to twitter.
• Do activate Awareness API service.
• A note: If you have more than one site and want to feed one into the other, you can use the BuzzBooster. Once you activate it, it will generate code snippet that you can stick in a widget or in the footer, this will import part of the feed into your other site. I don’t use this, I think it’s confusing- a link to my other sites can be found in my about pages.

The biggest DON’T of all

And now to my biggest feed pet peeve- people who only print excerpts in their feed. This is big way to stick it to your readers and not in a good way. It says “Hey, I have ads that depend on page views so I need to you actually click on the site.” It’s incredibly selfish, and is a mistake a lot of amateurs make.

The argument is made that people online are used to 140 character snippets with links to more information on twitter, the same with Facebook. That’s exactly how an excerpt feed works: just a tease to see if you’re interested, with a link in case you are.  This format is great for letting people  know about interesting articles, but, in the case of your blog, they have already found the interesting content and want to read it. Give your readers the the full content.

You may say, “Well, CNN does it.” You are not CNN, and CNN is not a blog. Does your website have enough authority to draw people in just based  small excerpts? No.

All the research I have done on this indicates that bloggers lose readers when they only publish excerpts.  There is a reason people subscribe to your content, they want to read your stuff. Publishing excerpts defeats the purpose of a reader, and 9 times out of 10 the reader will unsubscribe. The other time, he/ she won’t even bother clicking through. I hope I’ve convinced you.

No matter what you do with your feeds, remember that feeds feed your readership your great content. Keep them healthy, active, and useful.

The first question to ask is: What stats should I track? There are only three services that you should use; Alexa, Google and Page Rank. Let’s start with the easiest one first- Page Rank. What do you have to do to track your page rank? Nothing. You can check your page rank at any time by using various sites, such as http://www.checkpagerank.net/index.php. A higher rank means that page is more important, and more popular. It’s determined by a complex algorithm, none of which I understand. Just know what it is, and what rank your site is.

The next easiest one is Alexa Rank. First go to http://www.alexa.com/ and register for an account. Then under your account add your site. It will ask you verify your site by putting some code in the header. This is where a lot of people stop. They don’t want to mess anything up, and getting into the root files can be a little daunting. Trust me, this is easy. On the WordPress dashboard, under Appearance > Editor…open up the header.php and find a little piece of code that looks like this </head>, then right before it stick in that little line of code that Alexa gave you. Go back to Alexa and verify the site and voila! you’re set up. Alexa ranks EVERY site on the web, not just blogs. Getting above the #1,000,000 is hard- getting in the top #100,000 is even harder. However, Alexa rank is important for PR and marketing people, so make sure you track it.

But the granddaddy of all analytics is Google Analytics. Google Analytics has its own site where you can register your site, and again you need to put some code in (there is apparently a Google Analytics plug-in, but I don’t use it). Once you set up an analytic account and register a site, it will give you some code to stick in the header – use the same process as the Alexa code above. But, oh the things you can do with that little bit of code! Here are some little things that are of interest to bloggers:

If you want to see whether you’re getting most of your traffic from search engines, or if other websites link to your site, here’s how to find out. The left-hand column of your dashboard, click traffic sources. Click on referring sites, direct sources, and search engines to see where your traffic coming from. How cool it that? Ever wonder where most of your first time users come from? Twitter, Facebook, someone else’s blogroll? Well, this little site will tell you.

There’s more! Ever wonder at which point people are leaving your site? Just go to content> Top Exit pages. It shows at which point visitors are leaving your site. Good to know.

I’ll leave you with one of my most favorite Google Analytics Tips, and that is the site overlay. On the dashboard go to the site you are analyzing, and on the left hand column, go to content > In-Page Analytics. Your site will load up with a Google Analytic overlay, and as you hover over each element you will get a little bubble telling you the amount of clicks (in percentage) that that link gets. It’s a great tool to see where your visitors are clicking. It might also be used to get rid of any clutter or pages that people aren’t even viewing.

When it comes to numbers, you shouldn’t sweat the details. As a blogger your job is to put out the content you care about. However, you shouldn’t ignore numbers either. Tracking these three blog statistics will  help you determine what people love (and don’t love so much) about your blog.

This week we are going to talk sidebar crimes. We’re all guilty of them, some more than others. There are some blogs that I go to where I literally have to search for the content. Their site is so overloaded with sidebars, widgets, icons, and ads that their content is buried and, thus becomes almost irrelevant.

Sidebar crimes can hurt your blog, but they are easily fixed. Here are some tips and tricks to filling up sidebars.

Don’t play the numbers game- all those stat counters, page rank, and alexa rank icons? Useless. People are reading your content, not looking at your numbers. In fact, putting up these widgets is free advertising for those services. If you want to track your stats (and you should) then stick the code in the header, and track it through the service’s website (this is how it’s done for Google and Alexa). You don’t need to add any code for PageRank. These are the only three stats that you should care about, the rest are superfluous.

Don’t put up other blog’s buttons- I know that bloggers like to let you ‘grab’ their button and stick it on your website. It’s a nice way to support another blogger, and a super-easy way to to send readers somewhere else. Why do you want readers clicking on to other sites? You don’t, so get rid of the buttons, or if you must have them stick them on their own page. Better yet- if you have a blogroll (and I don’t think you need one) list them as links on a separate page, again, no reason for free advertising.

Widgets that proclaim you’ve won an award no one has ever heard of- You look a little desperate when you put those up there. If the only ‘prize’ for winning an award is that someone else’s graphic gets to take up space on your sidebar, then politely decline the ‘honor’. There are some valid awards out there, and it’s nice to be rewarded for your work. If you do win an award, display the graphic for a limited amount of time, then take it down and include a link to the award in your bio – if you must.

Give money to me/ my cause/ my friend’s cause all year long- It’s OK to ask you reader’s to take up a cause you believe in, it’s even OK to ask them to donate to the cause. That is one of the powers of being a blogger, but use this power sparingly. If you have a widget up there, take it down as soon as the event is done. My rule of thumb is never more than a month, 2-3 weeks if you can help it. Other than that, you’re being greedy (unless your whole blog is built around a cause, then this rule doesn’t apply).

Anything that plays music- just no.

(I am on the fence about conference badges. I don’t like them, nor include them. I do have an event page on my url, that way people can get a sense of where I will be. But I know bloggers that like them. If asked by a blogger, I say don’t include them, they’re obnoxious and no one really cares. But others have a different opinion, so I’ll just leave that here.)

So what should you have on your sidebar?

Social Icons- I shouldn’t have to search to find out where you tweet, facebook, or YouTube. Make the icons big and link them to your sites.

RSS/ Feedburner- We’ll talk about feeds in an upcoming article, but for now just know that this is the most important button on your blog (besides your content). I can’t tell you how many time I have actually had to search for this button. It’s important, as important as your logo. Make sure people can see it.

Tweets- Putting your last four or five tweets in your sidebar complements your content (usually) and gives new readers a sense of your personality beyond your posts.

A picture- I don’t have one on my sidebar, but I know people that do. But a word of warning, make sure it’s a nice picture; not the one your husband took of you as you came out of the bathroom on Sunday morning.

Search- so important. We will talk about search tools in the future, but every blog (and I mean EVERY blog) should have a search box right on the homepage.

Ads or ad space- if you take ads or are trying to sell ads keep placeholders where those ads will go. This will give marketing people a chance to  see how their ad is going to look.

(Again I am on the fence about Networked Blogs and Google Friend Connect, I think they serve a valid purpose, but both of the widgets are too big. I know a lot of people that use them, and it looks perfectly fine sitting on the sidebar.)

Sidebars play an important role in your blog, but they should be kept clean, useful and free from clutter and distractions. Take a look at your sidebar? Who’s getting free advertising? What’s there that distracts from your content? Find it and remove it, the result will be a more professional-looking blog.

Next week: Blog stats and analytics!

Too many times I work on a blog that has URLs that look like this: www.yourdomain.com/?pageid=21. Twenty-one? What kind of post is that, what is the subject matter, the keywords? One of the most important things for your blog traffic is making sure it is easily searchable through any number of search engines. However, search engine crawlers don’t understand that 21 is anything other than a number. Post 21 might be the best post you’ve ever written, but to Google it’s just a number- 21. Using custom links (so-called “pretty permalinks”) in WordPress will allow you to use URLs that are 100% recognizable by the search engine crawlers (and readers!). It also contains keywords for your posts that will make them easier to be found during in-site searches.

You have many options to choose from, but I am going to recommend you use a custom structure. First, I’ll tell what the structure should be and then why.

Changing your permalinks:

To change your permalinks go to Settings in your WordPress dashboard, then select Permalinks. Under “Common Settings” select the custom structure field and enter, index.php/%category%/%postname%/ and click Save Changes. This will create a permalink structure of www.yourdomain.com/index.php/awesome-category/greatest-post-ever/ which is the most search engine friendly URL structure for your blog.

Now why you should do that:

Most of the other options include dates, and this can make it impractical to republish posts. If you ever want to update a post and republish it, all you have to do is go into the WordPress dashboard, make any edits, and change the publication date in the publish widget on your post-writing dashboard. The url will stay the same, and the post will appear at the as new content.

It’s also better for search behavior. When a reader does a Google search, the url is below each listing. If the date in that url is a year or two old, readers may decide it’s outdated and skip it.

(If you have been blogging for a while and would like to change permalinks, try the Permalink Migration plugin to prevent your links from breaking and losing pagerank. I’ve not used this personally, so I can’t comment on how to use it or how effective it is.)

I hope I’ve convinced you to use pretty permalinks. Next week, we are going to start on sidebars. Here’s a short note: If you’re sidebar is so distracting that people have trouble finding your content, then something is wrong. More about that next week.

What is a favicon? A Favicon is a small square icon associated with a website or a web page. By a small square icon, I mean that a favicon is a really small icon, usually measuring 16×16 pixels. In IE, it’s displayed before a web page’s address in the address bar. In other browsers that have a tabs, the favicon is on the tab next the page’s title . If you add it to your Favorites, the name and icon will be shown in the favorites folder (this is why it is called a Favicon. It’s short for “Favorites Icon”).

A  favicon doesn’t help with SEO, but you should still have one.  A favicon presents your brand as professional and put together (its always small details that help). Also, favicons can be similar icons that you use for Twitter or Facebook. When we set up a branding package for a customer, a favicon is ALWAYS part of the suite.

There is another, more obscure, reason for using favicon.

If you don’t use custom favicon you will get 404 errors in your server log every time one bookmarks your site using IE or everytime someone opens your site using browsers like Firefox or Opera. This is because the browser first requests the server for the custom favicon. If the favicon is not present in the server the browser uses its default icon. And a faviocn.ico 404 Not Found error is created in the log. But there will be no error for your user. He will see your site as it is without any problem. Still if you monitor your error log regularly, remember a favicon of your own can clear lots of the errors. [source]

So now that I’ve convinced you to have a favicon, how do you make one?

Find and image you like and generate a favicon using http://www.favicon.cc/ (don’t bother registering, just click the import image and upload your image. I check the box that say “Shrink to square icon” you may choose the proportion option if you choose, but the icon may be harder to see). From here, I am going to quote directly from the WordPress Codex.

1. With an FTP Client/ cpanel, upload the new favicon.ico file into your current theme’s main folder.
2. Upload another copy of your favicon.ico file to the main directory of your site (ie. http://example.com/favicon.ico). This will display the favicon in your subscribers’ feedreaders.

If you don’t already have a favicon, you will need to edit your page header.

1. Go to your WordPress Administration Panel.
2. Click on Appearance
3. Click on Theme Editor.
4. Select the file called Header or header.php to edit the file.
5. Search for the line of code that begins with <link rel="shortcut icon" and ends with /favicon.ico" />. Overwrite it, if it exists, or add the following code below the <head> HTML tag.

   <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/favicon.ico" />

6. Save the changes.

You may have to clear your cache, but once you do- voila, a favicon. Some of you may have a theme that came with a favicon; in that case; I encourage you to change it. Just upload a favicon.ico file to themes files and it will overwrite the current favicon (the first two steps). No changing the code, or inserting code.

And that is everything you wanted to know (and more) on favicons.

Next time- permalinks!

Last week, I covered the WordPress plug-ins that I considered essential. This week I am going to cover the plug-ins I love, but don’t install on every site. Some of them are site specific, and some are just to make my life easier. But first, a update to wordpress came out this week. This update is v3.03 and here is why it was released:

“This release fixes issues in the remote publishing interface, which under certain circumstances allowed Author- and Contributor-level users to improperly edit, publish, or delete posts.” Remote publishing is disabled by default, but WordPress recommends making sure it is not enabled by checking settings on the “Settings ? Writing” screen.

The files affected by the update are;
wp-includes/version.php
xmlrpc.php
readme.html
wp-admin/includes/update-core.php

Make sure, you update your WordPress when you next log-in. That is a nice segue into my plug-in recommendations because one of the plug-ins I use is;

WordPress Automatic Upgrade- This is a nice plug-in that takes 5 step to update your WordPress. It backs up your sites, installs the new release, and then deletes any old files from the update. It’s a nice way to update in a fail-safe manner. If something goes wrong, nothing gets lost.

WP Touch- This is a recent find and I already love it. WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style, which is necessary these days.

SexyBookmarks- The best sharing plug-in. I install it on all my clients websites, it is the best way for your readers to share your content to all the sites you love.

Search Meter- It can be very enlightening to know what your readers are searching for- this plug-in keeps track of that information for you.

Exclude Pages from Navigation- There are a lot of reasons to have pages not on the top menu of the site, this plug-in adds a check box and presto- no page on the menu.

Disqus Comment System- There are actually two great comment systems out there, Disqus and Intense Debate. I highly recommend these over the standard WordPress comment system? Why? More options, easier for replies, better interface, and it keeps track of your comments across the web.

That’s it for now. If I stumble over any other gems, I’ll be sure to let you know. Next week- favicons.

After setting up your wordpress blog, one of the first things you should do is install some plug-ins. What you need varies on how you want to structure your blog. However, as someone who sets up WordPress blogs regularly, there are seven plug-ins that I install right away. Without further ado, here is a list of WordPress plug-ins that I contend are esstenial.

Bad Behavior- Askimet is absolutely essential for stopping spam, but it comes with the basic WordPress install. Bad Behavior is a step further. It can stop spammers from even getting to your site by analyzing the IP site and the delivery method. It’s a must-have.

Google XML Sitemaps- One way search engines find your blog is by indexing them. This plug-in does it for you, and takes all of the hard work out of XML site maps.

WP Security Scan- An easy way to make sure your blog is as protected as you want it to be against attack or hacking.

Broken Link Checker- There is nothing I hate worse on blogs than links that don’t work. It’s your job to make sure that they work: this plug-in checks your links on a regular basis and makes sure that they still work.

Contact Form 7- easy, easy, easy. Hard for more complicated forms (I use a different plug-in for that) but perfect for most blog needs.

Like- Easy way for people to say “Hey, I’ve been here and I liked this post” (it also shows up on their FaceBook profile feed). A must for bloggers.

WordPress Database Back-Up- Allows you set what and when you do a back-up. I set for at least once a week for my clients, a layer of protection in case something happens to your blog.

There you go, that’s my list. Next week, I talk plug-ins again, this time ones I like but use them for special needs/ circumstances.