I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

(Hmmm….who among you would have expected to find Kipling quotes on a blog about WordPress? If this is your first visit, this type of thing is just another one of the value added services around here. LOL)

To an impressionable child with an insatiable curiosity, this was heady stuff!

Mrs. Williams said no essay, no question, really, was ever complete without addressing all six. That stuck with me.

So, when I think in terms of this blog’s readers, I realize that I would better serve you by giving you the whole story. So, we’ll try it out and we’ll see how it goes, ok? And, as always, your voice is heard through the comments. Don’t be bashful.

Who, What and Where

The ability to make a post “sticky” was introduced with WP 2.7 and is a way to keep a particular blog post showing as the first one on your blog (a.k.a. the most recent one.) Remember, blog posts are typically shown in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent one shows first, the one before that shows next, and so on.

Why and When

Well, what if you had a reason to want a particular post to always show first? How would you do that? Previously, you’d always have to be monkeying around with the date or use a plugin. As of WP 2.7, this ability to make a post “sticky” is built in.

You might want a particular post to show first because it is an announcement of some sort, or it’s an explanatory post you want everyone coming to your blog to see first.

How

How you make a post “sticky” is really very easy.

There’s a setting in the Publish section, a check box labeled, “Stick this post to the front page” and you check it, update the post and there you are!

Easy peasy!

And how do you “un-stick” it when you no longer want it to be the first post?

Just uncheck the box, update your post, and it falls back into the flow of posts according to its post date.

Can you make more than one post sticky?

Oh yes…and they’ll order themselves according to their post dates. So, if you make two posts sticky, the one with the most recent date will show first, then the other one, and then the rest of the blog posts will show.

Note: This works on blog pages where the “normal” blog stream shows. It doesn’t affect custom home pages, magazine-style pages, etc.

Related posts:

1. What Are Categories and Tags and How Are They Used?
2. Should It Be a Post or a Page?
3. Blogs Aren't Just For Writers

O-M-G!! I’m in love with them both.

Then a few days ago, I noticed a new plugin called WPTouch that displays my site “iPhone-style” when I visit it using my iPhone. So, I decided to try it out. (See it over there in the picture? That’s THIS site as viewed on my iPhone.)

Nothing’s changed about how you view this site with a computer, but now, for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and other touch-enabled smartphone users, my site is a WHOLE LOT easier to navigate than with the theme you see here with your computer.

Here’s the skinny from the plugin page at WordPress.org:

With a single click, WPtouch transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android or BlackBerry touch mobile device.

The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance, and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to your iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini mobile, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm visitors without modifying a single bit of code (or affecting) your regular desktop theme.

The theme also includes the ability for your visitors to easily switch between the WPtouch view and your site’s regular theme.

Install WPTouch (here’s how) and make navigating your site easier for touch-enabled smartphone users without changing your theme!

I’m off to install this on the rest of my sites. If you have a touch-enabled smartphone, or you want to make life easier for your readers who do, try it out and let me know how you like it in the comments below!

P.S. If you got the new iPad yesterday, this will work for it, too!

Related posts:

1. The Easy Way to Put YouTube Videos On Your WordPress Site or Blog
2. Self-Hosting Your WordPress Blog
3. Worry About Your Site Being Hacked? Use WordPress File Monitor to Alert You to Changes at Your Site

• YouTube

• Vimeo
• DailyMotion
• blip.tv
• Flickr (both videos and images)
• Viddler
• Hulu
• Qik
• Revision3
• Scribd
• Photobucket
• PollDaddy
• Google Video
• WordPress.tv (only VideoPress-type videos for the time being)

So, how exactly do you do it?

First, get the URL of the video. I’ll use YouTube as the example. The image to the right shows you where to find the URL for a YouTube video. (You’ll find that block on the right side of the page.)

All you need to do to embed something into a post or page is to post the URL to it into your content area. Make sure that the URL is on its own line and not hyperlinked (clickable when viewing the post).

For example:

Check out this cool video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTDNLUzjkpg

That was a cool video.

WordPress will automatically turn that into a YouTube embed when the post is viewed. (And for those of you who avoid the HTML editor like the plague, this works using the Visual editor, too.)

Pretty slick, huh? And easy, too!

Related posts:

1. How to Upgrade Your Plugins (and How to Know When They Need It)
2. The Easy Way to Put YouTube Videos On Your WordPress Site or Blog
3. How to Install Plugins You’ve Downloaded as .ZIP Files

Login to your Dashboard and click on ‘Add New‘ in the plugins menu at the left. Click on ‘Upload‘ as indicated. You’ll want to upload the .zip file you saved to your computer, and then WordPress will take care of the rest. So, browse to the plugin zip file you downloaded and then click the Install Now button.

WordPress will tell you that it successfully installed the plug-in and ask you what action you want to take next: Activate Plug-in | Return to Plug-ins Page. You want to Activate Plug-in. WordPress will activate the plug-in for you and return you to the plug-ins page. You should now see the plug-in in your list.

See? Spectacularly simple!

Related posts:

1. How to Install New Plug-ins in WP 2.7
2. How to Upgrade Your Plugins (and How to Know When They Need It)
3. 13 Plugins Make My WordPress World Go ‘Round

Here’s the good news: It’s really very easy to do!

The one thing to remember is to work with the HTML editor in WordPress, not the Visual editor. (I’ve got the Visual editor turned off on my sites because I don’t use it at all, so I won’t be able to show you which is which in the following video. But the tabs to choose which one you’re working with are at the top right of the post/page edit box…way out to the right of where you upload images.)

(If you’re reading this through RSS, click through to the site to see the video.)

P.S. Here’s the plugin I mention in the video: XHTML Video Embed. (Here’s how to install new plugins in WP 2.7.)

Update 1/7/2010: With the release of WordPress 2.9, embedding video is ridiculously easy.

Related posts:

1. Make Your WordPress Site/Blog More User-Friendly for SmartPhone Users
2. Self-Hosting Your WordPress Blog
3. Worry About Your Site Being Hacked? Use WordPress File Monitor to Alert You to Changes at Your Site

Keeping your plugins upgrade to their latest versions is just as important as keeping WordPress, itself, upgraded. Check out this 3-minute video to see just how dead simple this is! (If you’re reading this through the feed, please click through to the site to see the video.)

Related posts:

1. 13 Plugins Make My WordPress World Go ‘Round
2. Upgrade WordPress Yourself? Yes, You Can!
3. How to Install Plugins You’ve Downloaded as .ZIP Files

With the recent release of WordPress 2.7, upgrading WordPress has become a two-click process anyone can do – even you! No geekiness required.

See the 5-minute video below for step-by-step instructions:

Related posts:

1. How to Upgrade Your Plugins (and How to Know When They Need It)
2. The Easy Way to Put YouTube Videos On Your WordPress Site or Blog
3. WordPress 2.7 – I'm Lovin' It!

Installing Plug-ins You’ve Downloaded to Your Hard Drive

The WordPress plug-in directory is not the only place you can find great WordPress plug-ins, so when you run across one you’re interested in trying out, go ahead and download it to your hard drive (I suggest creating a folder just for Plugins and saving it there so you can easily find it later.)

Login to your Dashboard and click on ‘Add New’ in the plugins menu at the left. You’ll want to upload the .zip file you saved to your computer, and then WordPress will take care of the rest. So, browse to the plugin zip file you downloaded and then click the Install Now button.

WordPress will tell you that it successfully installed the plug-in and ask you what action you want to take next: Activate Plug-in | Return to Plug-ins Page. You want to Activate Plug-in. WordPress will activate the plug-in for you and return you to the plug-ins page. You should now see the plug-in in your list.

Installing a Plug-in From the WordPress Plug-in Directory

Installing plug-ins found in the WordPress plug-in directory is even simpler! Login to your Dashboard and click on ‘Add New’ in the plugins menu at the left.

Click on ‘Featured’, ‘Popular’, ‘Newest’ or ‘Recently Updated’ from across the top of the page, click a tag in the ‘Popular tags’ tag cloud at the bottom of the page, or enter a search and click the ‘Search’ button. All of these actions will result in a list of available plug-ins being displayed to you.

Choose the one you want and click the ‘Install’ link at the right side of it’s listing, to the right of its description. A pop-up window will appear with information about the plug-in you’ve chosen. Click the ‘Install Now’ button and WordPress takes care of the rest!

See? Spectacularly simple!

Related posts:

1. How to Install Plugins You’ve Downloaded as .ZIP Files
2. WordPress 2.8 is Available! (and my list of plug-ins that don't like it)
3. Give Extra Link Love by Using the CommentLuv Plug-in

photo credit: Matter = Energy

This is the ninth and final post in our DIY SEO for WordPress series.

Whew! You made it! You rock!

By now you have some serious DIY SEO for WordPress tools in your toolbox to help you get the attention of the search engines. By no means are you now an SEO expert – sheesh, neither am I – but you’ve got the basics now and let me tell you what – that’ll take you far.

Here’s the Catch

Fat lot of good all these new skills will do you if you don’t use them!

Oy. There’s always a catch.

I’m not going to get all preachy on you, but seriously…now that you know what to do to improve your exposure and rankings in the search engines, doesn’t it make sense to actually do it? You can’t claim you don’t know how anymore, right?

Christa at GiggleOn.com is now ranked #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5 in Google for her tag line. Smart girl – she’s working on her branding, obviously.

Tom at DelightfulWork.com has 3 of his keyword phrases with top listings in search results, and one of them, while it’s #13 in Google, is #2 in Windows Live search and #5 in Yahoo. Go on with your bad self, Tom!

Get the Handy Checklist

I know all this might seem a bit overwhelming when you think about applying all these tips and tricks to your posts, but I’ve made a handy little checklist to help you. It’s free for subscribers, so subscribe to my RSS feed or get updates by email so you can download it.

I’ve laid everything out in an easy to follow format and it’s all on one page, so you can print it out and hang it up for easy reference, or you can print one out for each page/post you write. All the posts in this series are listed, so if you forget what the heck keyword density actually is, for example, you don’t have to hunt all over creation to get back to the explanation. It’s right there…and clickable (the checklist is a PDF file, so if you view it on your computer, the links in it are clickable.)

The Wrap-Up

Getting found doesn’t have to be rocket science. But you do have to have a plan. Here it is, in a nutshell:

1. Know who you are, what you have to offer, and to whom. Specifically. Write it down.
2. Do your keyword research based on your answers to #1. Take the time – it’s important.
3. Apply the DIY SEO steps to your site and posts using your keywords and phrases from #2.
4. Enjoy your success!

Related posts:

1. DIY SEO: Step By Step Instructions on SEO You Can Do Yourself Today
2. DIY SEO: Step 5 – Make Navigating Your Site Easy
3. DIY SEO: Step 0 – Keyword Selection

photo credit: Matter = Energy

This is the eighth post in our DIY SEO for WordPress series.

Commenting is one of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your site. Assuming you’ve got great content waiting for your visitors when they get there, it’s also a great way to initiate conversations and build community in your target market. You can use commenting to get the attention of and build relationships with other bloggers which might turn into JV partnerships down the road. And of course, allowing comments on your own blog gives your visitors, customers and referrals a way to connect with you and give you feedback about your content, products and services.

Commenting to Get Traffic

Now that your site is all optimized and loaded with great content, one of the fastest ways you can get traffic to it is to comment at other blogs. When you comment, you’re typically asked for your name, your email address and your website URL. Guess what?! That website URL is a link back to your site! People who read your comments on other blogs (particularly if they’re good comments that add to the value of the post, not just the ‘hey – nice post’ kind of comments) will click through on that link you left behind and BAM! They’ve just become a visitor to your site!

(See why we talked about the importance of site navigation, last time? When you get a visitor to your site, you want to make it easy for them to stick around and see what else you’ve got!)

Commenting Elsewhere Creates Backlinks

Links on other sites that point to your site are called backlinks, and they are part of the algorithm Google and the other search engines use to determine your site’s popularity or ‘authority’. The more backlinks you have, and the better sites they come from, the more page rank you earn, and the higher up in the search result listings your site appears. (Backlinks are an off-page factor, meaning they’re not something you can create or adjust at your site. They’re off your site – on other sites.)

How cool is it then, that this is one off-page factor you can actually influence?! Way cool, my friend, because it also gives you something productive to do to promote your new site and get traffic to it.

When you’re out there commenting, pay attention to DoFollow blogs. Not every DoFollow blog will be a good fit for your commenting strategy, but some will, and they give you “Google juice” when you comment there. (This site is a DoFollow site, too. So be sure to participate here! Read my explanation of DoFollow here.)

We Interrupt This Broadcast for a Rant about Blogger Blogs

As you may know, Blogger (blogspot.com) is owned by Google. A few months back, Google had a brain fart of magnanimous proportions: They started requiring you to log into your Blogger account to be able to leave a comment at a Blogger (blogspot.com) blog. That put a SCREECHING HALT to my commenting at many Blogger blogs.

I’m sorry, folks, if I’m going to take time out of my busy, busy day to come read your posts, you damn well better be asking me for my name, email address and website URL in the process. Otherwise, I’m out. Gone. I don’t want to log in to my Blogger account and leave my comment, because then you’ll be taken to my Blogger account INSTEAD of my site when you click on the link left behind with my comment. Can we say COUNTERPRODUCTIVE to using commenting as a strategy for gaining exposure and building traffic for my site?

Same goes for LiveJournal, or anywhere else that I have to have an account for that blogging platform. Not happenin’, folks. I’ve got enough passwords to remember.

Now, Google has since seen the light and put back the option of allowing commenters to leave their name and URL, but apparently a lot of the owners of the blogs I used to comment at haven’t noticed and switched their commenting options back. Too bad, too, because I’ll bet they’ve lost a fair amount of commenting activity.

Ok, rant over.

Encourage Comments At Your Own Site

Nothing beats the sense that you’re blogging in a vacuum better than getting comments on your posts. In the beginning, you can feel like no one is reading your site and it can be downright discouraging. Yes, you can email your friends and ask them to come and leave a comment (and I encourage you to do that if your site is brand new. Exposure is exposure is exposure…) but you want to go out of your way to encourage your visitors to leave comments, too.

Plugins That Encourage Commenting

In addition to being a DoFollow blogger, I use three other plugins to encourage commenting: WP Ajax Edit Comments, CommentLuv and Subscribe to Comments.

WP Ajax Edit Comments allows visitors to fix any typos in the comments they leave. Awhile back, I left a comment at Barbara Swafford’s blog on her post Should You Edit Your Reader’s Comments? and promptly made a typo I couldn’t fix myself. Ugh. So, I left a second comment correcting myself and letting her know about this plugin, and now she’s using it, too, and I can comment at her blog all I like without appearing to be a doofus. Love that plugin. I use it here so no one (including me!) has to leave behind typos.

Comment Luv is another comment-encouraging plugin because it goes and grabs the commenter’s last post and puts a link to it at the end of their comment. Andy Bailey has gone to town on adding features to this baby, and I highly recommend it.

Subscribe to Comments allows your visitors to subscribe to the comment thread of the post so they’ll get an email when I or anyone else responds to the comment they left. Handy, eh?

Write to Encourage Comments

Hands down the best way to encourage comments is to ask for them! Ask questions in your post. Add a poll. Be just a bit controversial. Stick your neck out. Trust me, someone will kindly come along to chop your head off, but that would be a case of mission accomplished, right? You got a comment.

Write quality content that helps people solve a problem, makes them laugh, or makes them think.

Maybe You Don’t Want Comments, After All

Depending on the type of blog you have, you may elect to take comments off your blog altogether, like Naomi did. She’s living, breathing proof that you can make a living online without comments on your blog. She’s made 6-figures with her business this year already, so who am I to argue with her? But she’s quick to acknowledge that commenting is a great traffic building strategy, but draws this distinction:

Commenting on other people?s blogs is a very good strategy for getting people to your site. Meticulously commenting on the same blogs, day after day, because it makes you feel all fuzzy inside is not the same thing.
- Naomi Dunford, IttyBiz.com

Commenting is a traffic building strategy where strategy = planned, has a point, isn’t just a way to waste the day away feeling busy.

Avoiding Comment Burnout

I have the following rules about commenting that I follow religiously:

1. When commenting at others’ blogs, if I don’t have anything remotely useful to say, I keep quiet.
2. Some comments left at my blog don’t require a response from me. When they do, I respond if I can also follow rule #1.
3. When someone links to me, I go check them out. Then I follow rule #1.

One of the hazards of using commenting as a traffic building strategy is tricking yourself into thinking that you have to comment back to everyone who comments on your stuff. It’s fine to do that in the beginning when you’re calling your best friend or business coach to celebrate every comment left, but one day, hopefully sooner than later, you’re going to find yourself drowning in comments and unable to keep up.

I have over 200 blogs in my reader, and no, I don’t comment on all of them. If I tried, I would do nothing but comment all day long. Besides, just because I CAN say something, doesn’t mean I NEED to say something. The Earth will not stop spinning on its axis if I keep quiet. People WILL live to see another day, even without my two cents thrown into the pot.

Keeping an eye out for being useful in my commenting keeps me from burning out, even when I’m on a purposeful commenting ramp-up mission to boost traffic or gain exposure. Remember – commenting is a strategy.

Unless you’re at Aunt Edna’s blog or your sister’s MySpace. Then commenting is simply commenting.

Related posts:

1. Give Extra Link Love by Using the CommentLuv Plug-in
2. NoFollow, DoFollow – Do You Know or Even Care?
3. DIY SEO: Step By Step Instructions on SEO You Can Do Yourself Today