BloggersGuide.net

Creating a Google Sitemap for Your Wordpress.org Blog

2008-12-03T20:31:45Z

In case you don’t read my other blog, this month I’m participating in NaBloPoMo, and instead of posting entirely on my personal blog, I’m splitting my posts between BloggersGuide.net and SarahJoAustin.com. Today, I want to talk about sitemaps.

“Sitemap” is one of those web developer buzz words that won’t mean anything to you–or that will simply frustrate you–until you can create one for your own site. Essentially, a sitemap is web file that contains links to every page on your site, and they’re important because they allow spiders to get to every page of your site–pages that they might not get to crawl ordinarily. (Remember search engine spiders can only crawl to a web page if it’s been linked to from another page. And if you don’t have many links to your site, your site might not get crawled much, if at all.)

If you have a small, static site, creating a sitemap in XHTML is pretty easy, but if you have a complex site or blog, creating a sitemap can be a nightmare because every time you update your site, you have to update your sitemap. What’s even more frustrating is that search engines, especially Google, like sitemaps to be written in XML, which is incredibly unforgiving. You make one mistake, and the whole file goes to crap. (Kinda like a knitting project.) What’s a blogger to do?

If you’re using Blogger or using Wordpress.com, you’re SOL, but if you’re using Wordpress.org, the handy dandy Google XML Sitemaps plugin is exactly what you need. This plugin generates a sitemap.xml file and notifies search engines when your file has been updated. I won’t go over the settings in detail, but essentially you should set the plugin to build your sitemap automatically, to notify all search engines, to include all pages and content, to build the file in the background, and to automatically detect your file. Once set, the plugin will create your sitemap and leave it in your main directory.

Once you have your sitemap.xml file, you’re not quite finished. Because the plugin’s title references Google, you need to tell Google about your sitemap. By doing this, you’ll essentially tell Google, “Hey! Here’s a map of my website so your spider will know how to find all my pages. Check it out!” To submit your sitemap to Google, you must have a Google account and be signed up for Webmaster Tools. Essentially, Webmaster Tools allow you to see what the Googlebot sees when crawling your site. You’ll see broken links, incoming links, and outgoing links, plus you’ll have access to a handful of tools that tell Google your preferences in how your site is filed.

To add your sitemap to Webmaster Tools, you’ll need to add your site’s URL in your dashboard. This creates an “account” for your site, and you can add as many sites to your dashboard as you like. (Yes, I wish Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Feedburner, AdSense, and AdWords all worked from the same dashboard, too. Santa, this is my Christmas wish.) Once you’ve added your site, you can verify it by adding a meta tag to your site’s <head></head> tags or by uploading a file to your site. Verification isn’t required, but it is recommended.

Next, click Sitemaps in the Webmaster Tools navigation, and click Add Sitemap. Select Add General Web Sitemap from the dropdown menu, and then type ’sitemap.xml’ in the textbox under #3. Click the Add General Web Sitemap button, and you’re ready to go. It can take a few hours for Google to crawl your sitemap, but in any case, it doesn’t take too long.

And there you have it. As long as you keep your Google XML Sitemaps plugin updated, every time you make a change to your site’s files, Google (and anyone else you submit your sitemap to) will be notified of those site changes. Easy peasy!

Five More WordPress Plugins to Simplify Your Blogging

2008-11-18T22:32:48Z

When I finally bought my own domain and hosting, I knew that I was going to use Wordpress.org as my blogging software. As a regular reader of Blogger’s Guide, the first thing I did once WordPress was installed was check and install the “Five WordPress Plugins That Make Blogging Life Easier.” Since then, I’ve downloaded and installed several other plugins, and these five have are just as helpful as the first five. They aren’t as vital as WordPress Database Backup and WordPress Automatic Upgrade, but they certainly make blogging life easier.

Subscribe to Comments: This plugin gives your readers the option to subscribe to comments via email by placing a button below the comment form. Once logged into a post, readers can easily change their notification settings if they decide they don’t want to get any more updates. Plus, Subscribe to Comments lets you choose the default wording your readers will see or lets you write your own.
Comment Remix: If you want to build loyal readers, have a conversation. When the blog author responds to comments, readers know they are being heard. Subscribe to Comments emails your readers your replies and the replies of any other commentser, and Comment Remix makes it easy peasy for you to respond, right from your WordPress dashboard. My favorite feature of this full-featured plugin is the unreplied comment notifier: an unobtrusive red speech bubble. Comment Remix also provides widgets that display top commenters, posts with the most comments, recent trackbacks, and more. You also have control over how trackbacks are displayed, the order in which comments are sorted, and whether or not you want to use comment tags. With a combination of Subscribe to Comments and Comment Remix, your readers and you can easily carry on meaningful conversations.
Add to Any: One of the easiest ways to promote your blog is to let your readers do it! By installing the Add to Any plugin, users can choose which social networking site they want to share your post on. You can choose how large the Add to Any button is (you can even create your own), and whether it is also appended to your feed.
Google XML Sitemaps: In order for search engines to crawl your site (more accurately/better), you should have an XML sitemap saved on your domain. This plugin automatically creates one for you and updates it each time you write a new post, while notifying Google, MSN, and Ask at the same time. These features and many more make Google XML Sitemaps a must-have if you are trying to build your SEO.
Ultimate Google Analytics: If you’re like me, you love combing over your analytics and Ultimate Google Analytics helps to show you exactly how your readers are using your site. This plugin inserts the Google Analytics tracking code into every post page, tracks outbound links (including mailto:), and tracks downloads. All you have to do to get started is to enter your Google Analytics account ID.

BloggingFingers.com Review

2008-09-12T18:14:58Z

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog review (it’s hardly been weekly, as I promised), but it’s time to get back on the horse. This week, I’m reviewing BloggingFingers.com, a blog with “ideas, tips, creativity, and money-making strategies for blogs.” Bueno. That’s exactly what we need! BF is owned and authored by Matt Jones of Cambridge, England, (coincidently, not the Matt Jones with whom I went to high school). Let’s look a little closer:

Posting Frequency
About once a week

# of Subscribers
382

Emphasis
BloggingFingers is mostly focused on tools and techniques for making money with a blog; however, several posts are directed to beginner bloggers or are about social networking and increasing traffic.

Essential Reading

My Thoughts
Weird name. Maybe it’s a British thing, but I don’t get how fingers and blogging relate. Because I’m a bit finicky about my grammar, a handful of grammatical and mechanical errors distracted me from the content, but those can be overlooked. I’m not at all crazy about the design—there’s too much happening in the sidebars, and there are too many forms that request information from the reader.

All that said, blogging is ultimately about content, and for this reason, I’ll keep subscribing to it. The information BF presents is useful and practical, and the author has plenty of experience to draw from, which keeps the content fresh.

Have you checked out BloggingFingers.com? I want to know what you think about this up-and-coming blog!

Five WordPress Plugins That Make Blogging Life Easier

2008-09-15T20:00:33Z

Life is crazy, right? And for amateur bloggers, our blogs can easily get shoved to the back burner when our lives get in the way. That’s what happened to this blog in August, and as I try to get back on track, I’m making my blogging life easier with these five WordPress plugins:

Akismet. Honestly, I don’t know how you can use WordPress without this plugin. I mean, there’s a reason it comes pre-installed, right? I help a friend manage his blog, and I signed in to do some updates, and he had over 400 spam comments! And Askimet was not activated! Yes, this plugin sometimes has some flub ups, but it captures 99/100 spam comments on my blogs. Totally worth it!
WordPress Database Backup. Regular backups are on the to-do list of every good blogger, but I’m guilty of postponing that little task more often than I should. This little plugin backs up your WordPress database automatically (according to the schedule you set) and will email you the file!
WordPress Automatic Upgrade. I’m sure I’m not the only one who dreads seeing the nag appear when WordPress is ready for an upgrade. And this is one more task I tend to put off mainly because I have five blogs that have to go through that process, and I know manually making the upgrades will take half a day. This plugin creates backups, deactivates your plugins, uploads the new WordPress, activates your plugin, and everything else involved with upgrades in five minutes. It’s a breeze!
WordPress Related Posts. I’m not currently using this plugin on Blogger’s Guide, but I have it in place on another blog that has more content, and I love it. It takes a post’s tags, matches them to other posts with the same tag, and lists those posts at the bottom of the post. It slows down page load times a little bit, but it encourages readers to stay longer on your site.
All In One SEO Pack. I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to search engine optimization, but I do have two minutes to type up a description and a list of keywords for every post as I write it. Easy peasy. And the plugin lets you set descriptions, title formats, and keywords for your entire blog, too. Gotta love it.

No, blogging cannot be fully automated, but by simply automating or putting to use the above WordPress plugins, my to-do list is shorter and I feel less out of control when it comes to my blogs. So tell me, what WordPress plugins can you not live without?

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I’m Quasi Back

2008-09-12T17:13:41Z

This is the first day I’ve had to think about this blog in a long while. I started because I was passionate about blogging and about all I was learning about blogging, but then life sort of got in the way, and what was once a priority got shoved to the back burner. Ugh.

So I have a bit more free time now that things are settling down at work, and I have published all the back issues of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival. I also have a fancy little to-do list of Blogger’s Guide tasks I need to complete every day/week, and hopefully, that will keep me motivated to keep this blog alive.

A good friend and I are meeting every Friday to work: she grades papers and I work on miscellaneous projects, so in theory, I have time set aside to work here a little bit every week. More later…

Blogger’s Guide Carnival | August 29, 2008

2008-09-12T17:02:19Z

This is the August 29, 2008, edition of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival! The posts below were written on other blogs and were submitted by their authors at BlogCarnival.com. Thanks, everyone, for contributing!

Michael. presents WordPress Free Blogging Platform Software Review posted at Review Hookup.

Rod presents How to exclude pages from WordPress’s page listings posted at Hippo Web Solutions, saying, “How to take control of your WordPress page listings without hacking.”

Raymond presents Battling Blogger Burn Out and Lack Of Blog Posting Frequency posted at Money Blue Book.

Sudhanshu presents Blogger to Wordpress posted at Gyaan Sutra.

MoneyNing presents Spend Money On Good Web Hosting posted at Busy Blogging Dot Com, saying, “Don’t be cheap about web hosting! You won’t be sorry in the long run!”

Raymond presents The Best Credit Card Rewards For Google Ads and Search Advertising posted at Money Blue Book.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of bloggers guide carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Blogger’s Guide Carnival | August 22, 2008

2008-09-12T16:48:46Z

This is the August 22, 2008, edition of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival! The posts below were written on other blogs and were submitted by their authors at BlogCarnival.com. Thanks, everyone, for contributing!

Richard P. McLaughlin presents Asking For A Stumble posted at Cheap Keywords.

Richard P. McLaughlin presents WordPress Translation Plugin posted at Cheap Keywords.

texasdave presents 5 Ways To Improve Your Adsense Earnings posted at Make Cash Online.

MoneyNing presents Be Patient with Increasing Traffic to Your Blog posted at Busy Blogging Dot Com, saying, “Be patient. Build it and they will come!”

Cheryl Hines presents Article Writing For Dummies! posted at Internet Marketing With The Hines’.

Nesher presents Spice your Blog with relevant content with Zemanta Plug-in posted at Blogging for Good in the Modern World.

Kacper Wrzesniewski presents What are the benefits of taking break from blogging? posted at KacperWrzesniewski.com, saying, “Taking a break from blogging can be a very beneficial experience.”

Aahz presents Lighten The Load Of Your WordPress Blog - Part One posted at Philaahzophy, saying, “If you love WordPress, do it a favor and lighten its load…”

That concludes this edition. For more information about how I edit the Blogger’s Guide Carnival, check out our Carnival page. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Blogger’s Guide Carnival | August 15, 2008 Edition

2008-08-15T03:41:48Z

This is the August 15, 2008, edition of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival! The posts below were written on other blogs and were submitted by their authors at BlogCarnival.com. Thanks, everyone, for contributing!

Nesher presents 14 Ways to Promote your Blog Offline posted at Blogging for Good in the Modern World.

Hops presents How to track all your blog mentions posted at Hop To It!.

Christopher Johnson presents Making Money With Amazon.com posted at CoffeeBreakEarnings.com, saying, “Making Money With Amazon.com Affiliate Sales”

Christopher Johnson presents Blogging With Wordpress posted at CoffeeBreakEarnings.com.

Christopher Johnson presents Making Money Blogging posted at CoffeeBreakEarnings.com, saying, “You can make money blogging without ads and affiliates.”

Robert Phillips presents 3 Simple Ways to Increase Blog Traffic posted at How to Create a DVD without Spending a Dime.

seanjames presents Activating FeedFlare is optimizing your blog posted at Practical Jokes.

seanjames presents How to add Social Bookmarking Icons to your site posted at Practical Jokes.

Rod presents Stumble your way to a Rush of traffic posted at Hippo Web Solutions.

MoneyNing presents Be Patient with Increasing Traffic to Your Blog posted at Busy Blogging Dot Com, saying, “Be patient and keep writing to gain readership!”

Rob Edmond presents How to Be a Great Guest Blogger, and Be Invited Back posted at Blog To Great, saying, “Info on the importance of writing for other blogs. Help & tips on how to be a desirable “guest” blogger and how to get invited back.”

James Hills presents Blogging Lessons - Follow Your Passion, Not Your Wallet posted at mhn Integrated Online Marketing.

Kacper Wrzesniewski presents Taking break from blogging? posted at KacperWrzesniewski.com, saying, “Sometimes blogger needs to take a break from writing. How to handle such situation?”

Samir Bharadwaj presents Blog Ads by PerfomancingAds posted at SamirBharadwaj.com, saying, “Blog ads are the most lucrative way to monetise your blog. The new PerfomancingAds takes the effort out of selling advertising and managing inventory, so here’s a detailed guide to the whys, hows, pros, and cons of the service.”

Robert Phillips presents How to Use Blog Carnivals to Increase Traffic posted at How to Create a DVD without Spending a Dime.

Blogger’s Guide Carnival | August 8, 2008 Edition

2008-08-08T17:10:52Z

This is the August 8, 2008, edition of the Blogger’s Guide Carnival! The posts below were written on other blogs and were submitted by their authors at BlogCarnival.com.

Sally Thompson presents 100 Insanely Useful Web Tools You Never Knew You Needed posted at Accredited Degrees.

I’m Still Here!

2008-07-21T04:07:31Z

I’ve been MIA the past two weeks, and I apologize. We’re prepping for the fall at work, and I will be in a tailspin until mid-October. I’m also frantically working on an editing project that needs to get finished before the end of August. Oh, yeah, and I’m training for a triathlon. That said, I’m a little too mentally drained when I get home from work, so I’ll be posting when I can, but I’m not sure when that will be. Hope to get something to you at least once a week! Thanks for reading!