Hello Happy Site Owners! This week’s tips include a new online WordPress book club, what you need to know if you have or want a member site, new features in the free Sucuri plugin, and what broke with an update of the WordPress SEO plugin, a new redirect plugin, and a plugin that’s going to perk up the ears of podcasters, music site folks, and affiliate marketers, the release of a Genesis bug fix and another theme update from StudioPress, what you need to know about a dedicated IP address and SEO, updates on where Google is going with Authorship, one Google Deck to rule them all, a new Masters of Hangouts on Air series, and for dessert, I’ll introduce you to one of my fave folks on G+ that has the most luscious posts. So let’s dive in. Listen to the podcast.
Featured
I’m running a new series of posts on BlogAid all about Microdata and Genesis. I’m up to Part 3 in the series of tests that I’m running to help you understand exactly what microdata is and can do for you, and why being on Genesis 2.0 is so important.
Part 1 tells you all about the Microdata Revolution. Part 2 tells you exactly what comes in the Genesis 2.0 framework and why it matters. In the latest post, I show you the results of adding the WordPress SEO plugin to the test and what happens when you hook up authorship. It’s a very powerful combo, and if you don’t do any more than that, you’re going to be way ahead of most of the 60 million other sites running on WordPress.
I’ve got more posts in the series where I’m testing and reviewing tools and plugins to help you customize the microdata on your site.
I know some of you SEO copywriters are all over this new series, especially those that write for small businesses or non-profit organizations. And I know the serious content marketers who follow BlogAid are too. I’ve even attracted the attention of a few plugin developers.
But, I also know some of you could care less about all of this. For you, bookmark the roundup page of this series and come back next year and read it when everyone else starts selling classes to teach you how they made a fortune from all the new traffic that came to their site because they were an early adopter. Just remember where you read it first.
Bottom line, you have to start where you are. If you’re new to blogging, then this is too much to learn and do. If you’re an experienced blogger, then what I’ve written so far may be what helps you break out of the pack in SERPs. The posts to follow will take extra time to markup posts and pages. But, doing it could make all the difference to your business.
WordPress Tips and News
Remember the shock we all went into when WPDaily suddenly shut down? Well, they’ve done it again. 8Bit was the company behind WPDaily. And the new WordPress news magazine, Torque, has a report on 8Bit’s sudden departure. You may remember that the folks at Torque purchased the WPDaily archives so they wouldn’t be lost to everyone in the community.
Herky jerky moves do not inspire confidence. Everything these guys at 8Bit and WPDaily put out was successful. But the recent pattern of sudden closures makes me cautious to use what they individually create next.
I say that, knowing everything changes and products and platforms come and go all the time. But it’s usually a slow death, not leaving at the height of popularity, and especially at the height of profit.
The ring leader, John Saddington, had already started moving into his latest project while still at WPDaily and 8Bit. It’s PressGram. So keep your eyes on that to go big too. Let’s hope it doesn’t go bust just as quickly.
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And while you’re at Torque, check this out. They are putting together a book club and they’ve taken in some feedback and decided to meet online via a G+ Hangout. They will be leaving comments on the site open for further discussion as well. The first book is The Master Switch by Tim Wu.
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I really appreciate Chris Lema answering one of my questions to him in this blog post about whether one WordPress membership site account can have multiple log ins? Chris is my go-to guy for all things related to what membership plugins can do because he has purchased and run them in production. In other words, I can trust his reviews and opinions of them.
And if you’re thinking about starting a member site, be sure to see Chris’ SlideDeck for a presentation he recently gave on that topic titled Six Membership Lies. Be sure you pay attention to the first one.
WordPress Plugins
Some of the links below are to the plugin developer’s page, but you can find most if not all of these plugins in the WordPress plugins repository.
The Free Sucuri plugin now includes more features. I also noticed that the BackupBuddy plugin was recently updated. It has a scanner in it that is provided by Sucuri. If I have time, I’ll compare features in the two, but it’s likely that I’ll continue to just use the one in BackupBuddy that I already have. If you’ve compared the features, please leave a note in the comments for us.
If you have BackupBuddy, this scan is not automated. You need to run it once in a while. When you go to the BackupBuddy link in your admin pages, there’s a little sub-link there for Malware scanner.
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Did the recent update to the WordPress SEO plugin break your site? It’s fixed now and you can read more about it in Joost’s post. Basically, he made a change to the content analysis section, which most of you may know as the focus keyword tool.
Apparently, the change freaked out on shotcodes from things like image galleries, and that includes the native one in WordPress. And Team Joost wasn’t expecting to run into so much crappy code from other plugins that produced most of those shortcodes. That specifically included the API. So, he came up with a filter for it.
One of the ways Joost knew about these breaks was through the tracker in his plugin. So, I suggest you consider turning that on.
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This is going to make it to my plugins to test list. It’s called Simple Redirect. I currently use the Redirection plugin, but it has one drawback that I’m making a new video to show you how to get around, so look for that post in the next few weeks. I think this new plugin probably doesn’t have that drawback, and is why I want to test it.
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Podcasters, music site folks, and affiliate marketers listen up. There’s a new iTunes plugin over at CodeCanyon that allows you to place iTunes content on your site.
As you know, I loyally follow Muhammad Haroon’s daily plugin post over on Softstribed and he has a sweet Premium Plugins section. So, I’m going to give you a link to that post with this new plugin so you can use his affiliate link. Happy to help those who are helping me help you. It takes a village. It’s the first one listed in that Premium Plugins section near the bottom of the post. It’s called iTunes Content. Be sure to see the live demo when you jump over to the CodeCanyon site. The red button for that is in the top left.
Themes
Genesis released version 2.0.1 for very minor bug fixes. I’ll have a new video on one of them for you soon.
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StudioPress has just released another theme that has been updated to Genesis 2.0 standards. It’s the Going Green theme. So, go check that out.
SEO Tips
A dedicated IP on your hosting will not give you an SEO advantage. There other reasons for having a dedicated IP, like an SSL Certificate for e-commerce. You can read more about it in this post on Torque titled The Myth of the Dedicated IP Address for SEO.
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There’s a new post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog for rel=”author” frequently asked (advanced) questions. Notice that these are more advanced questions, not the basic how to things about setting it up.
And then if you actually want to understand the implications of what’s in that post, do what I do and read +Mark Traphagen’s take on it titled Google Answers Questions About Google Authorship.
We are crazy lucky that someone in Mark’s position, with all the knowledge he has, gives so generously of his time in posts and Hangouts to help us understand what’s going on. He’s the one I count on to help me translate Google-speak into something I can take action on in a way that is appropriate for me and my clients.
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Where is Google going with Authorship? That’s the question that +Mark Traphagen answers in this post with his takeaways on a recent Matt Cutts video and other signals he’s getting from online tests.
Scroll down below the video to read his takeaways. And pay close attention to the first one. Authorship is something you need to start immediately. It’s not just about getting it hooked up. It’s about writing authoritative content right now too.
G+ Tips
One Deck to rule them all. Y’all already know how hooked I am with the info Decks provided by +Michael Bennet. He has outdone himself and compiled a link with ALL of the Decks plus a new one. You’ll want to bookmark this because you’ll be referring to it again and again.
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+Eric Enge has created a new Hangout series called The Masters of Google Plus Hangout on Air Series. The first one is Thursday August 29th at 1:30 EDT and features one of my favorite folks +Mark Traphagen, who will be sharing his expertise on Google Plus and SEO. Some of their talking points will be:
Correlation vs Causation, and the related studies
What passes PageRank, and what does not
How to effectively increase your Profile PageRank
How to effectively promote content to pass PageRank to that content
Actual ranking impact? What do we know now?
The nice thing about Hangouts on Air are that they’re recorded. So you can go to Eric’s link and catch them after the live event too.
Dessert
I want to introduce you to one of my favorite folks on G+. His name is +Sam Stormborn Ormandy and I absolutely relish his posts. He’s a Digital Artist, Illustrator and Graphic Designer all the way down to a soul level. What he shares just moves me. So be sure to go check him out.
Wrap Up
That’s a wrap for this week’s Tips Tuesday podcast. You can find this podcast on iTunes, as well as Stitcher, and the Blackberry Podcast. You can also subscribe directly to the blog posts to get them via email. Visit BlogAid.net for more tips, tutorials, and free resources to make your site better.
And I’ll see you online!
You're reading Tips Tuesday – Plugins, Member Sites, Authorship, and Genesis Themes, originally posted on BlogAid - WordPress for Non-Geeks and copyrighted by MaAnna Stephenson.
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