The Webmasters Network

A lonely fact of a webmasters life is the time spent locked away in solitude as we notch up backlinks to our websites. Some come organically through people visiting our sites and bookmarking us on a do-follow social networking site or by placing a link to us on one of their own websites such as a free Wordpress or Tumblr blog. Other links we create artificially by connecting with other webmasters and asking them to link to us in return for a link back to them or we add our sites into the many directories that are available to us. It takes a lot of time to build backlinks even when auto submitters are used.

A couple of days ago I learned about a directory project that is changing all that. It is called BungeeBones and offers 10,000 backlinks for the price of 1. Intrigued, I took a look, thought this sounds good – too good to be true; so I looked more deeply into it and contacted the project’s leader to find out more details. After several email exchanges, which I might write about in a later article, and a bit of research I concluded the project is genuine and will do as it heralds, namely, give thousands of backlinks for the free price of one.

BungeeBones is a directory with a difference – it is a remotely hosted human edited directory hub that allows webmasters to plug-in to it and display it on their own websites.  Any webmaster can submit URLs to the directory and can optionally place a version of the directory on a submitted  site. Each version of the directory is a stand alone product. Thousands of webmasters are already plugged in and connected through it so a link submitted to a directory on one site will potentially display in every other directory that is connected to the hub.  It is like using an automatic directory submitter: one click submits a link to thousands of directories.

If you are already inspired enough to use the BungeeBones directory to increase traffic to your website then please feel free to click here and move on to the Installation guide otherwise please read on if you need a little more conviction…

The hardest part of setting up any directory is getting people to submit to it. A directory is like a city – it is either living, breathing and bustling with activity or it is a ghost town with sand blowing in the wind, shutters banging and a few tombstones poking out of the ground. Most webmasters won’t submit to a dead directory that gives them the spooks. So the more links a directory has, the more alive it looks, the more likely a webmaster will submit to it and recommend it to their buddies.

The second hardest part of setting up a directory is convincing visitors to browse it. Again, visitors prefer directories that look busy and well used.

It is common knowledge that some webmasters make their directories look busy by pulling in links from other, better established, directories like DMOZ and Gimpsy. Such a tactic might give the impression of a thriving directory but it has one very big flaw: it gives away loads of valuable backlinks; and most of them are nonreciprocal. It creates a flood of traffic away from the directory with little to no traffic returned. Does that sound like a good deal to you?

The BungeeBones’ directory is already fully set-up, has thousands of users, is growing daily and is getting a lot of publicity. The iron does not get much hotter than this.

This is the first remotely hosted directory I have seen that apparently functions as a cloud network. It is a cross between a directory, an exclusive do-follow social bookmarking site, a search engine, an ad network and a traffic generator that provides serps benefits to webmasters. To submit a link to any one of the directories connected to the BungeeBones’ network is the same as to submit it to any other node of the directory. It is a one-to-many equation: one link submission equals many link submissions – a submission to one directory will potentially display at every other directory connected to the BungeeBones’ directory hub. It benefits all connected webmasters mutually.

Each directory set up within the network drives traffic to every other website plugged in to the network.

Each installed directory node has its own meta tags and webmasters have some control over the links displayed in their directory node. This reinforces the uniqueness of each directory to search engines.

You’re thinking, “Yeah, but, all the links and descriptions will look the same.” That is true, but ask yourself how many descriptions you use for your own sites when you submit them to multiple directories.

Most webmasters repeat the same anchor text and URL description in most of the directories they submit them. Search engines will arrive at each BungeeBones directory node, spider it, see a similar set of links, see different meta tags, see a different directory URL, will decide webmasters are too lazy to provide unique descriptions for their links then, after a cyber chuckle to itself, will index the directory as being different to every other. Consequently, each spidered link will count as a unique backlink.

There is no need to worry about spam. The directory is self-policing. Submitted URLs have to be approved by a human editor before they are added into the directory. After a URL has been approved for entry into the directory, webmasters and visitors can rate their value. The more valued the URL the more prominent its placement within the directory – in lay terms, higher votes, better placement. The system is hard to abuse due to IP monitoring and other, non-disclosed built in fail-safes.

So, what could make this directory better? It’s already set-up, it’s self-policing, provides traffic and backlinks; could it get any better?

Try this: participating webmasters earn commission from the sale of featured links and the sale of multiple category placements by the webmasters they refer to it. Plus participating webmasters get their links featured and inserted into multiple categories for %50 of the typical price. Remember the initial URL insertion into one category is free per domain so there is no cash outlay to join this expanding network.

To recap, the BungeeBones directory offers:

1. An easy to set up, fully functional directory
2. Pre-installed links which make the directory look busy and active
3. A directory that can be set up for each website a webmaster owns
4. A free to install, free to set up and free to submit to directory
5. A directory that can be uniquely styled to make it stand out
6. An easy to manage directory. It looks after itself – it is managed by BungeeBones so you can set it and forget it
7. Multiple category listings for any URL for a modest fee
8. Featured listings
9. Commission from upsells
10. Built-in anti spam system
11. Thousands of backlinks from the many websites that are already plugged into the directory
12. Targeted traffic
    

Installation

Installation is easy. It comes with one prerequisite: you must submit a URL to the directory before you can install it under that URLs domain.

There are two forms of the directory:

1. A standalone installation
2. A plugin for Wordpress and Joomla!

URL submission is simple. You can submit through any of the directories that are currently connected to the BungeeBones hub or you can add your submission through BungeeBones when you install a plugin into Wordpress or Joomla!

The directory can be installed into a folder under the top level domain (TLD) or in the root folder of the TLD of the submitted URL. You can install the directory as many times as you wish under as many names as you want under as many TLDs as you decide provided you install the correct code issued for the TLD you wish to install it at. For example:

If you go to my standalone directory at http://journalxtra/directory and submit your URL then you could install your directory on your own website at (assuming you submitted the URL http://example.com) either of

• example.com/directory.php, or
  
• example.com/subfolder/directory.php

The installation code for a directory is tied to the submitted domain to ensure accurate referral details and to maintain unique metatag information for the directory displayed at that domain.

To install the standalone directory

1. Submit your URL to any of the directory’s access nodes. This gives you access to your user control panel and enrolls you in the commission share program;
2. You will see your URL listed in the User Control Panel under the “User CP Home” tab. Next to your URL are the words “Add a Widget”. Click them.
3. The next screen provides both instructions for the installation and questions about the directory you wish to install. There are 7 questions and instructions in total, let’s go through their answers one-by-one:
   1. You have the choice to create an installation folder under your domain’s root folder. For example, your-domain.com/some-folder . If you create a folder for the installation then you should put the name of that folder as the answer to question number one. If you choose to install your directory at the root of your domain (e.g your-domain.com/directory.php) then you should answer “root” to question number one;
   2. Decide what you want to call the file that will hold your directory’s installation code. This file must be given a php file type (for example, directory.php). Whatever you name this file is the answer to question number two. Ensure there is no other file with the same name where you intend to create this one. Use your server control panel to create that file either at the root of your domain name or under the folder specified in answer to question number one (for example, create it at either http://example.com/directory.php or http://example.com/sub-folder/directory.php);
   3. Your directory will need a title so that it is easily recognized by human visitors and distinguished as unique by search engines. Think of a title and use it to answer question three. Whatever you put into here will form part of your directory’s metatag information. Do not use the name of your domain in this section or your metatags will display your domain name twice;
   4. Create another part to your directory’s title, a short slogan, and enter it in response to question four;
   5. Decide whether you want to display non-paying links or not. If you want your directory to be small and to only show paid submissions choose “no” in answer to question 5; otherwise choose “yes” and use question 6 to select whether non-paid (free) link submissions should be displayed indefinitely else for any period up to a year. It is this option that helps multiple directories to appear as unique entities to search engines due to the differences created among them by virtue of the links they display.
   6. Branding. Your directory can be branded as either BungeeBones or AdvertiPage. The differences between the two options are purely cosmetic from a human perspective and only affect the submit URL button and the landing page webmasters reach when they click it. Choose the brand that suits the impression you want to give fellow webmasters – AdvertiPage is more stylish.
4. Click “Submit Link Info” to be taken to a confirmation page. Check the setup details you entered on its previous page and click either back or next to cancel or confirm as appropriate.
5. The installation code. You have two options: use a predefined template or create your own template. The code should be pasted into the file specified during step 3 of the set up process. For example, if you created a file called directory.php then that is where the code should be pasted. The directory will not function correctly if the installation code is in the wrong place. The two code formats are:
   1. Code Format One which can be copied and pasted as is into your directory file, it will need only minor tweaks to style it;
   2. Code Format Two which is for more advanced webmasters and provides only a page header and the content creation script. This should be used by those who wish to create their own directory layout. Line 4 of part one of this code must have your affiliate ID entered into it. You can copy this from line 4 of Code Format One (displayed above it).
6. If needed, you can recreate your directory code if you make a mistake, want to move your directory to a new location or want to change the directory’s metatag titling.
7. Unless already present, remember to create a robot.txt file (can be left empty) and an .htaccess file (apache/linux servers). The .htaccess file should contain the line “DirectoryIndex name-of-directoy-file.php” (change “name-of-directoy-file.php” to the name of the file created in step 3.2 and do not include the quotes). Do not overwrite those files if they already exist.

To install the content management system widget

Wordpress

At the present time, the Wordpress plugin is still in beta and only works with the default permalinks structure. However that is no reason for you not to enjoy using this wonderful directory. You have at least four options to connect your own directory to your blog:

1. Use the plugin
2. Create a direct link to it in your blogroll
3. Put a link to it into a text widget
4. Create a page with a link to it inside of it

To use the plugin

The plugin is now at beta version 0.0.3 (although Wordpress still displays it as 0.0.1)  and now works with permalinks. It is under heavy development. I have spoken with the project’s leader, Robert Lefebure, on many occasions this past week and sincerely trust he will have the plugin out of beta soon – he has already made great strides toward that end. Here are the installation instructions:

1. Install it from here at Wordpress or locate it from your Dashboards Plugins tab by clicking Add New and typing BungeeBones into the search field.
2. Create a blog page called Directory (or anything else you like) and enter the following shorttag into it:
   
[bungeebones_directory]

   
3. Save the page and make a note of the page ID (it will look similar to this ?page_id=544). If you are using permalinks, you might need to disable them while you get the page ID (re-enable them after you have got your page ID). Disabling and re-enabling permalinks will not affect your blog’s functionality provided you re-enable the same permalink style.
   
4. Go to BungeeBones or one of its access nodes and submit your URL. Make a note of the URL number it displays after the submission process.
   
5. During the submission process you will be given the option either to create a Directory Widget or to just Add Your Link. If you wish to add your link at a later time then you can re-visit your Bungeebones Control Panel (User CP Home) and click the “Edit This Widget” link listed next to the URL you wish to place a directory at. The instructions for adding your directory either during the URL submission process or afterwards (at a later date) are the same as listed below.
6. The next screen provides both instructions for the installation and 7 questions about the directory you wish to install.The answers depend on where your blog is installed, let’s go through those answers one-by-one:
   1. The first question requires you to state where your Wordpress blog is installed. When you browse the homepage of your Wordpress blog, does your browser’s address bar show your domain name (e.g http://my-blog.com) or does it show your domain name and a folder name (e.g http://my-blog.com/superblog/ or http://my-blog.com/superblog/extra/). If your address bar only displays your domain name then your answer to question one is root if your address bar shows a folder or series of folders then your answer will be all those folder names inclusive of the forward slashes between them (e.g superblog/extra).
   2. The second question asks you for the name of your directory page. Enter the page ID you noted in step 3 above (e.g ?page_id=544).
   3. This question is split into two parts and is about meta tags. This question is optional but their completion will help distinguish your directory from other BungeeBones directories. In case you didn’t know, meta tags control information such as the title that is displayed within a web browser tab and the keywords that are displayed to search engine spiders. They do not affect the display of the page but can help to improve search engine placement.
      1. The description meta tag is often the description of a web page that is displayed by search engines when it is returned within search results. Enter the description you would like search engines to display to potential visitors when they see your site in their search results. A description should be less than 250 characters (approximately 50 words). BungeeBones automatically provides a description via dynamic meta tags. This description is complete and unique for each BungeeBones page but the same across all sites. If you want to make this description unique for your site, add a few words, say 10 (50 characters) that will inspire someone to click your link and not someone else’s link.
      2. Keywords are used by search engines to help determine the relevance of a website or web page to a search request. Search engines prefer to gather keywords from within a web page but placing them into a meta tag can help a search engine determine that your site is just what someone is looking for. Keep them relevant to your directory and separate each keyword or key phrase with a comma e.g “search directory,music search,find,”
   4. Decide whether you want to display non-paying links or not and if so for how long you want to display them.
   5. Your directory can be branded as either BungeeBones or AdvertiPage. The differences between the two options are purely cosmetic from a human perspective and only affect the submit URL button and the landing page webmasters reach when they click it. Choose the brand that suits the impression you want to give fellow webmasters – AdvertiPage is more stylish.
7. Click “Submit Link Info” to be taken to a confirmation page. Check the setup details you entered on its previous page and click either “Go Back” (to change them) or “Continue and Finish” (to confirm them).
   
8. All being well, when you submit the form you will be taken to a new page that shows some code. You need to get your affiliate number from it. Don’t worry, it’s easy to find. Look at Code Format One and find the 4th line down that looks similar to
   
$affiliate_num = 2584;

   The number at the end is your personal affiliate number. Make a note of it.
9. Return to your Wordpress Dashboard and click the “Editor” tab under “Plugins”. At the top right hand side of the plugin editor you will see a drop down menu, select the plugin called “BungeeBones Remotely Hosted Web Directory” and edit the file “bungeebones_config.php”. There might be two of them so edit both. They are listed toward the bottom of the file list on the right hand side of the page. One of them is as described below (it is usually the second bungeebones_config.php).
   1. Near the top of the file is a line that reads
      
$affiliate_num = ????;

      It’s the forth line of text from the top. Change the question marks (here highlighted in red) with the affiliate number noted in step 8.
   2. If your Wordpress blog is installed in a subdirectory of your root domain (e.g http://example.com/myblog as opposed to just http://example.com) then you will need to edit the eighth text line from the top that looks like this
      
$offset = -1;

      Raise the offset number by 1 for every folder listed in your blog’s URL address after the root domain name when you view your blog’s homepage in your browser’s address bar. For example, if when you view your blog your browser’s address bar reads http://example.com/my-blog then the offset number is raised by 1 from minus 1 to 0, like this
      
$offset = 0;

      Likewise, if your address bar reads http://example.com/folder/my-blog then the offset number will be raised by 2 from minus 1 to 1
      
$offset = 1;

   3. Are you using permalinks? If you are you will need to edit the eleventh text line down that read
      
$bb_permalink_name = "bungeebones-distributed-web-directory";

      Swap “bungeebones-distributed-web-directory” for the name of your directory page (e.g links-directory) so that it looks similar to this
      
$bb_permalink_name = "links-directory";

   4. If you wish to set up dynamic meta tags you will need to perform some minor surgery to your theme’s header.php file. The instructions for this are listed in bungeebones_config.php. I know they work on some blogs but getting it to work with some themes can be tricky. I’ll add these instructions here as soon as I am more familiar with setting them up
   5. Save the file and test your new Directory page. Some themes require new pages to be activated before they become visible in their menubar

To create a regular blogroll type link

Firstly, install create a standalone directory as described above. Then go to your Wordpress Dashboard and look down the left hand side of the page. Near the top is the “Links” tab, click Create a Link Category, create a category called Remote Directory then click Add New and enter the URL of your standalone directory and assign it to the newly created Remote Directory category. This will place a link to your directory on every page that displays your blog links. Some themes might need the link to be enabled before it becomes visible.

I won’t provide instructions for adding a link into either a blank page or a text widget because doing so is fairly straight forward once a standalone directory has been created.

Joomla!

The Joomla! directory component has been available for much longer than the one for Wordpress hence it is a much more mature and more popularly used product. I’ve not yet tried it. I promise I will create a test installation of Joomla! this week to try it and write up the installation instructions. In the meantime the Directory component and full installation instructions are available here at BungeeBones.

I will update this BungeeBones direcotory installation guide whenever merited by the script’s and plugins’ development.

Those Web Links Again

Submit a URL to BungeeBones

View my BungeeBones’ standalone directory

Download the BungeeBones‘ Wordpress Widget (please sign up through my URL to make me look good )

Download the Joomla! plugin, again please make me look good by signing up through my URL.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010

Updated Wed, 3rd Feb. 2010

We Wordpress bloggers are a funny lot. We style our sites with a theme, we edit it to get it how we want it, we think it’s perfect and then we see another theme that’s even more perfect so we start over again. Some of us even go so far as to learn to create our own “perfect” themes only to decide that the next pre-made one we see is even better. I suppose we just get bored very quickly. Well I know I do; and I get very annoyed with myself because each time I use a new theme I have to set it up to work with my plugins, ad server, widgets and content styling. So it was an absolute pleasure to find a very customizable theme that keeps my settings even after it’s been updated by the theme’s creator. It’s called Suffusion and has more options than a Jumbo Jet’s cockpit has buttons. Thankfully, its front cover comes with those immortal words from The Guide, “Don’t Panic”, written on it in big red letters.

In those imortal words: "DON'T PANIC"

I’m sure the number 42 features in there somewhere as well but I won’t know for definite until I’ve gotten ’round to counting all the lovely options provide for configuring the framework and theme.

It’s not as difficult to configure as it appears. This theme is bursting at its seams with configuration options and it is worth your while to take a look at them and learn how to use them. An overview of those features will follow shortly.

It has 16, yes, sixteen, default already configured theme styles available to its users. Just take a look at these:

Choices, choices...

O.K, so 8 of them are black and 8 of them are white but that still makes 16 and I’m not budging from that count; not even if you twist my arm up my back and smack me on my head with your biggest knuckle. The theme’s creator has already has designs for new theme styles and has stated he will add them into the framework as soon as he can.

The default themes can be used as they are or as templates for personal designs. They’re about as configurable as a template can be so it’s very easy to make your site look and feel how you want it to:

All of the colors can be changed,

The font can be selected from a list of websafe ones that accounts for browser differences,

There are two ways to change the page width – either specify a desired width for the whole page or specify desired widths for the sidebars and content area and let the framework calculate the full page width,

It has five widget areas – one horizontal bar for the top, one horizontal bar for the bottom, two vertical bars for the sides and a small widget for the header,

The header and footer graphics can be specified or a gradient can be fashioned with the specification of two colors and its direction,

The widgets can be moved about within their bars by site visitors (this option can be turned off),

It has 10 pre-designed templates. Each one is individually configurable from within the theme’s options pages,

It has inbuilt Google Analytics support,

It has inbuilt search engine optimization options (SEO) in a similar but less complex fashion as Greg’s High Performance SEO plugin,

CSS can be specified…

The list of options just keeps on growing. This is the current full list of configurable components:

Visual Effects

• Theme selection
• Header Customization
• Body Background Settings
• Body Font Settings
• Sidebars and Widget Areas
• Widget Styles
• Footer Customization
• Sizes and Margins
• Custom Emphasis Elements

Blog Features

• Navigation Bar Setup
• Posts and Pages
• Excerpts / Full Contents
• SEO / Meta Settings
• Comment Settings
• Featured Content
• Tabbed Sidebar
• Page Navigation
• User Profiles
• Analytics
• OpenID Setup
• Custom CSS, JavaScript & RSS

Templates

• Magazine
• Single Category
• All Categories
• Single Author
• No Sidebars
• Single Left Sidebar
• Single Right Sidebar
• Single Left, Single Right Sidebar
• Double Left Sidebars
• Double Right Sidebars

Built in Widgets

• Follow Me (very attractive social bookmarking widget)
• Google Translator
• Twitter

The theme also supports widget shortcodes (the little [tags] used by some plugins to effect their insertion into posts).

If you haven’t guessed, I am very impressed with this theme and one of my favorite parts is that updates do not undo my hard work at customization. It has only one downsides:

1. the theme doesn’t always download and install properly via the Wordpress Add New Themes installer. The solution is to either re-download it via the installer or to manually upload and unzip it to your webserver into wp-content/themes. Upload it manually if the first activation of the theme fails or just delete the theme folder (suffusion) from wp-content/themes/ to restore your admin panel. This bug is rare and is wholly caused by errors with the Wordpress download page and not the theme.

Its creator, Sayontan, is a genius and he regularly updates the theme and implements user suggestions so if you try it now and think of a feature you’d like it to have you might be able to get your feature added into the theme within the next few releases by adding your suggestion to his forum (details below).

Those details in brief

Theme Title: Suffusion

Download: from Wordpress.org

Support: from the developer’s forum

Upside: It’s very configurable and is under regular development

Downside: Pages do not display in the navigation bar until selected to do so.

Alternatives: create a template from scratch, use a template generator or try the Atahualpa theme or Swift.

All in all, this is the most configurable Wordpress theme I’ve seen in a very long time.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010

As they say, it’s not rocket science, but getting the right plugins to create blogs that run themselves can seem like a trek up an incredibly steep hill when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Well put away your hiking boots, grapple and rope and let me take you to the top in a cable car.

I’ve written and developed several blogs to sell affiliate products and it’s only through experience that I’m now armed with the knowledge required  to create a blog that runs itself with minimal input from me. Which is good because I can build them, forget about them and move on to other projects.

Before moving on to the plugins, here’s a little information for the uninitiated:

An autoblog is one that writes itself using a combination of RSS feeds and data feeds. The RSS and data feeds are usually provided by paying sponsors or non-paying article and news directories.

Autoblogs come in two forms:

semi autoblogs, which use a combination of content pulled from RSS & datafeeds and content created by a blog’s author/s; and

full autoblogs, which use only content from RSS and datafeed sources.

From  a search engine optimization (SEO) standpoint, autoblogs are not a very good idea. The more original a blog’s content, the more likely it is to feature in the first page of a search engine’s results. Although, Google has now implimented a live search feature which will return results based on the newness of a post which could mean autoblogs with unoriginal content will begin to feature highly in search results; we will have to see how it pans out.

To combat auto blogging penalties, many providers of RSS feeds and some providers of datafeeds use morphing feeds. Morphing feeds “spin” the content – feed distributors swap specified words and phrases to limit the unoriginality of feed content to minimize search engines penalizing feed users for having unoriginal content. Don’t worry if a source doesn’t provide morphing feeds, there’s some nifty software around to turn non-morphed feeds into unique content.

RSS and datafeed syndication is resource hungry so once you’ve got your site set-up and your initial feeds imported, only syndicate as many items per feed as will not upset your host by hogging resources. If you use shared hosting with Hostgator, keep your CPU and memory usage below 25%; if you do go above 25% then be sure it’s never for longer than 90 seconds at a time and never often.

The Plugins

There are five requirements (excepting luck) to a successful Wordpress autoblog:

1. Good Hosting

2. Wordpress Blogging Software

3. A Good, Attractive and Practical Template Design

4. One or More Feeds

5. The Right Plugins

Items 1, 2, 3 and 4 are down to you. I can only help you with item 5, The Right Plugins.

The plugins are required to bring in your feeds, spin them (if non-morphed), add tags to them, optimize them for search engines, publish them, publicize them, update the sitemap and update the search engines. Pretty much everything a non-autoblog author does manually. If you need to publish videos and galleries then you might like to view the more complete list of general purpose plugins which is available here.

Fetching RSS Feeds

Feed Wordpress is easy to set-up, looks nice and is simple to use and configure. Each feed can be configured to be published into specific categories under a specific authors name. Feeds can be set to automatically update or to update when pinged.

WP Scraper scrapes information from other websites and reposts it in a blog. A good use for this is collecting exchange rates or weather information for live updates (although most sites provide RSS feeds for those purposes). This can even be used to fetch content from another blog or site you own. Use with caution – copying another webmasters’ work could land you with a hefty fine or DOS attack. I’ve never used this plugin but you might find a use for it.

CSV Datafeeds

Comma Separated Value files are provided by content suppliers for the purpose of creating both static and dynamic website content. They can either be downloaded, edited then uploaded by a CSV importer or they can be directly imported into the reader. Wordpress has an inbuilt CSV file importer (Tools>Import); I don’t know how good it is. There are many CSV import plugins which cost money, these ones do not:

CSV Importer works well and permits post releases to be scheduled.

WP CSV Pig is simple to use and is new. It’s currently very basic but it does work.

Feed and Content Spinning

There are many plugins available to re-write content and feeds by replacing words and phrases with synonyms (alternatives). Not many of them are free. The ones listed here are free.

Real-Time Find and Replace swaps text and  images as they are served to browsers and bots. Because the replacements are done in realtime, no permanent changes are made to posts which is good because it means changes can be undone by specifying a new synonym or by disabling the plugin.

Global Synonym Text Re-Writer re-writes feeds as they are created so any mistakes must be manually corrected. It works with WP-O-Matic (another feed syndicater) but not FeedWordpress. I haven’t tried this particular plugin, I have used WP-O-Matic and prefer FeedWordpress. Global Synonym Text Re-Writer is free, the author’s page suggests it isn’t but it is and has been since he removed the download charge.

Tagging Posts

Tags are important for good search engine ranking and improved internal site search.

Tag Pig adds tags to posts by analyzing their text and fetching associated tags from Yahoo and Embedded Tags.  Comes with a pdf instruction file that is well worth reading. Settings must be updated (re-entered) whenever the plugin is re-activated or re-installed so keep a note of your Yahoo Generic API key.

Optimizing for Search Engines

Greg’s High Performance SEO optimizes posts and sites for better search engine scoring.

SEO Friendly Images automatically adds the alt and title tag attributes to the images displayed by Wordpress blogs. Generally, the only searchable information most search engines collect about images comes from an images alt=”” and title=”” descriptions and their names (eg picture-one.jpg). The better the image descriptions the more visitors they’ll attract from search engines.

Autofields autofills the post editor’s Excerpt and Custom Image fields.

Publicity

It’s important to spread the word about your new posts. Over the Internet this means social bookmarking sites have to be informed about them.

Shorten2Ping broadcasts your posts to up to 46 social networks via Ping.fm (includes Twitter, MySpace, Aim, Blogger etc…). The broadcast message is quite basic but it gets the job done.

FD Feedburner. If you’re not using Wordpress’s inbuilt ping service (Settings>Writing>) then you will likely want to set up a Feedburner account and have feed burner ping search engines for you.

The Sitemap

Wordpress doesn’t produce one of these for you; you must use a plugin to create one.

Google XML Sitemaps builds a Wordpress sitemap and updates it then pings the major (Western) search engines to tell them it’s been updated. It can be set to update whenever a post is created or edited. Alternatively, it  can be set to update whenever it is ping either manually or automatically through a cron job. Pinging search engines too often is not a good idea so be careful how you set it to update.

Autoblogging can be a good way to fill a website with content but be weary that search engines and people are usually very good at recognizing autoblogs. Indeed, they are often called splogs (spam logs) because of the viral nature of their content. To stand out from the rest, remember to use multiple content sources and spin the text to ensure it looks at least a little original.

For those who are wondering, every article on this site is written by me.