CSSJockey.com » WordPress http://www.cssjockey.com Unique & Practical Web Presence Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:09:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Enable Auto-Complete Search in WordPress Blog! http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/enable-auto-complete-search-in-wordpress-blog http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/enable-auto-complete-search-in-wordpress-blog#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:41:04 +0000 CSSJockey http://www.cssjockey.com/?p=626 "One sometimes finds what one is not looking for." This quote by Alexander Fleming explains all what I am going to share with you today. I am pretty sure that you are aware of Google Search Suggest and Yahoo Search Assist feature. This feature helps you effortlessly find exactly what you’re looking for and no doubt, it lists a few suggestions to keep the user looking for more and more.]]> “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for”

This quote by Alexander Fleming explains all what I am going to share with you today. I am pretty sure that you are aware of Google Search Suggest and Yahoo Search Assist feature. This feature helps you effortlessly find exactly what you’re looking for. No doubt, it lists a few suggestions to keep the user looking for more and more.

As you type something in the search box, it automatically offers search terms and phrases in real time. How nice will it be to have the same feature on your website or blog. In this post, I am going to explain an easy way to add search suggestion feature on your WordPress blog or website.

Things You’ll Need

jQuery: You can download the lates version from jQuery.com
Autocomplete Plugin: Download this plug-in by Jörn Zaefferer from http://bassistance.de

Now let’s play with some code

Include this code within <head>..</head> tag.

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.autocomplete.pack.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="js/jquery.autocomplete.css" media="screen" />

Here I am assuming you are using “js” folder to keep all your java scripts and supported files. You may need to update the location of these files based on your folder setup.

Here’s the actual jQuery code to enable this feature on an input box:

<script type="text/javascript">
var data = "Search Terms Separated With Spaces".split(" ");
$("#myInputBox").autocomplete(data);
</script>

Variable “data” hold the terms that you would like the user to see in the search suggestion list and $(“#myInputBox”) is the id of the search input box.

Let’s check out how we can automatically call WordPress tags in our search suggestions, using WordPress wpdb class:

<?php
global $wpdb;
$search_tags = $wpdb->get_results('SELECT name FROM $wpdb->terms');
foreach ($search_tags as $mytag){
echo $mytag->name. ' ';
}
?>

Here I am using WordPress wpdb class to fetch all tags assigned to the posts.

Here’s the complete code to enable this feature on your WordPress blog. Just replace the folder name with actual folder and the jQuery selector $(“#myInputBox”) with the actual id of search input box.

<script type="text/javascript" src="<?PHP bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/REPLACE_THIS_WITH_THE_ACTUAL_FOLDER/jquery.autocomplete.pack.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/REPLACE_THIS_WITH_THE_ACTUAL_FOLDER/jquery.autocomplete.css" media="screen" />

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
var data = '<?php global $wpdb; $search_tags = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT name FROM $wpdb->terms"); foreach ($search_tags as $mytag){ echo $mytag->name. " "; } ?>'.split(" ");
$("#ID_OF_SEARCH_INPUT_BOX").autocomplete(data);
})
</script>

Download this file which contains the above mentioned code.

If you face any issues or need help implementing this code on your blog, feel free to post your queries in our forum. Don’t forget to add your inputs in the comments section below.

]]> http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/enable-auto-complete-search-in-wordpress-blog/feed 45 Why I use WordPress as CMS? http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/wordpress/why-i-use-wordpress-as-cms http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/wordpress/why-i-use-wordpress-as-cms#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:07:08 +0000 CSSJockey http://www.cssjockey.com/?p=566 WordPress as CMS

Best CMS, Ever!

If you think WordPress is yet another blogging platform, take a quick look at other pages of CSSJockey (right from the homepage). Do you really think we could do this with  “Just-Another-Blogging-Software”? Absolutely not!!

Custom Pages, Custom Widgets, Photo Galleries, Portfolio, eCommerce! What, out of these, and even more hasn’t been set up using WordPress.

Only recently, I updated my portfolio with more websites that I had finished, which were not under non-disclosure policy. After adding these projects in my portfolio, I realized that in accomplishing 90% of my work, WordPress plays the role of a CMS. With all the work done so far I am amazed by just how much of its capability I have discovered and how much of it is still unknown to me. Here are a few things that my clients ask when I recommend using WordPress, even for static websites, and what I’ve to say to back my recommendation.

Is it easy to use?

It is The Most Robust and Feature-Filled Platform, which is not only easy to use, but also, very much user friendly. So far all my clients are really happy with the decision to use WordPress as a backend. Moreover, WordPress.tv has made our lives much easier. I refer my clients to this website to learn the features and backend functionality while I am busy creating the best solutions for their requirements.

I need a blog as well…

I guess everyone has realized the value of blogging for their personal and professional web presence by now and most of my clients ask for a blogging platform with a unique and custom website design. It’s really easy to create a few custom pages within WordPress, rather than, creating a WordPress theme that matches the website design. And its really easy to embed WordPress features on these static web pages.

What about Search Engine Optimization?

I am pretty sure you are not new to this term and would want your website to be listed in top search results. With WordPress, you can use plugins like All in One SEO Pack, just to name some, that does most of the work without user intervention. SEO is a wide topic and there’s a lot that needs to be done to achieve good search engine rankings. However, a WordPress installation with a few plugins can help you get there without much hard work. You might want to check a few posts I have written on search engine optimization.

What all WordPress can do?

Honestly, I can’t deny that after using WordPress I haven’t even cared to search for any other CMS. WordPress is an amazing platform which can be customized to create Personal websites, Portfolio, e-Commerce, Galleries and Photo Blogs, Magazine or News websites, Article Libraries and a lot more. If you are comfortable with custom functions and template tags you can actually do wonders with just a single custom WordPress theme.

I don’t know programming?

While creating websites for my clients, I make sure they don’t have to spend their valuable time learning xHTML/CSS to update their websites. I have taken WordPress customization to next level where it provides a separate section in admin area to update the front end of our custom themes. It also has WYSIWYG capabilities where you can update and stylize the content which is not a part of WordPress post or page.

Moreover, these custom functions don’t save any data in core WordPress database tables (wp_options) so there’s no chance it won’t work with any other plugins and features.

Here’s a screenshot of Custom Theme Options I provide to make my client’s life a bit easier.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

That’s not all, to add a few more features in the list…

  • WordPress is Free and Opensource
  • WordPress is easy to install and upgrade
  • WordPress is standard compliant
  • WordPress is Popular (CNET, Ford, ZDNET and various other popular sites has used WordPress as a CMS)
  • Free support from a vibrant and amazing community of developers and contributors
  • Huge amount of documentation is available
  • Plugins are available for almost everything you can think of

I bet no other CMS can compete with this master piece. If you are using WordPress as CMS please drop your website links in comments. Don’t try to spam as a very powerful spam protection plugin (Akismet) comes with its default installation :D

]]> http://www.cssjockey.com/web-development/wordpress/why-i-use-wordpress-as-cms/feed 20 Google Juice: Update Services and Optimize Link Structure http://www.cssjockey.com/business/seo/google-juice-ping-update-services-optimize-link-structure http://www.cssjockey.com/business/seo/google-juice-ping-update-services-optimize-link-structure#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:36:36 +0000 CSSJockey http://www.cssjockey.com/?p=480 Google Juice: Hard To Get But Tasty To Drink series. Here we tell you about Pinging various Site Update Services and Optimizing Link Structures which will help you get your web pages listed in Google search results within 30 minutes.]]> Hello again. So, after reading the Part 1 do you still think getting that tasty Google Juice is all that difficult? No, it isn’t. You just need to be right with the basics. After talking about WordPress Plugins to assist you in SEO, today we’re going to talk about how to ping Site Update Services from your WordPress website and about tuning your web site’s link structure (permalinks).

Pinging Site Update Services

As this WordPress Codex page explains,

Update Services are tools you can use to let other people know you’ve updated your blog. WordPress automatically notifies popular Update Services that you’ve updated your blog by sending a XML-RPC ping each time you create or update a post. In turn, Update Services process the ping and updates their proprietary indices with your update. Now people browsing sites like Technorati or Sphere can find your most recent posts!

There are several site update services up and running which you can add in WP-admin >> Settings >> Writing, in the update services section. Add one service URI per line. Once you update your WordPress website with a new post or new page, these services will automatically be pinged. Then these pings are processed and associated indices (plural of index) are updated with your update.

You can have a list of active update services from this WordPress Codex page and copy them into your update services section (WP-admin >> Settings >> Writing). As easy as that!

Tuning your website’s permalink structure

Having title of the post or keywords from the post in the URI of your web page is obviously better than having numbers, question marks and other symbols. Not only humans can identify the subject of the page from its URI but search engines also find it easier to identify and assort web pages in this manner. A link like this: http://www.cssjockey.com/seo/search-engine-optimization-google-juice-hard-to-get-but-tasty-to-drink tells you and Google bots clearly what the page is going to be about. However the WordPress default, which for the same page is http://www.cssjockey.com/blog/?p=469 (click to see that it’s actually the same!), which is not at all intuitive.

You can easily figure it out that if you are Google’ing from a specific keyword then obviously the results will list URI with these keywords in the link higher than the URI containing numbers and/or symbols.

Note that this tip is very effective for static websites as well. Always name and link your website and web pages with the title of the page, or keywords relating to the subject of the page instead of serial numbers.

Customizing permalinks in WordPress

You can learn further more about what permalinks are and how to use them on Using Permalinks page of WordPress Codex. The WordPress default link structure, also known as Ugly permalinks structure is the least SEO friendly link structure. However changing your permalinks is easy.

On CSS Jockey and my other websites, I am using /%category%/%postname% structure which has remained pretty fruitful for me. You can optimize your own links by following these steps:

  1. Login to WordPress Admin Area
  2. Open the Settings Menu and Click Permalinks
  3. Click Custom Structure and customize the link structure.

Refer to the Using Permalinks page to see various tags that you can use.

Please note that websites hosted on Windows based hosts (Microsoft IIS Servers) experience issues setting up SEO friendly pretty permalinks. So in case you’re on such a one, stick to the ugly or almost pretty permalinks to avoid issues, or migrate to a Linux based host.

Pinging maximum number of Site Update Services and tuning your link structure play a good deal to get you listed in Google search results or other search engines in less than 30 minutes! Try implementing these magic tricks on your website and let me know how well did they work out for you.

And for the next part in this series, we are going to discuss how to use various social networks to promote our websites and blogs. We’ll talk about what all services you can use and how they are important for you and your website. Till then, see you.

]]> http://www.cssjockey.com/business/seo/google-juice-ping-update-services-optimize-link-structure/feed 6 Google Juice: Hard To Get But Tasty To Drink! Part-1 http://www.cssjockey.com/business/web-presence/search-engine-optimization-google-juice-hard-to-get-but-tasty-to-drink http://www.cssjockey.com/business/web-presence/search-engine-optimization-google-juice-hard-to-get-but-tasty-to-drink#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:32:35 +0000 CSSJockey http://www.cssjockey.com/?p=469 Google Juice - Hard to get tasty to drink!!

Google Juice - Hard to Get But Tasty To Drink!!

What is Google juice anyway?

If you’ve been blogging for a while I am pretty sure you are not new to this term. For everyone else, I’ll take a few words to explain what it is and how to get it to save you valuable time and several hours of study and research.

In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, Google Juice is a term which means the unique visitors coming to your website from search engines (primarily Google, because of its domination in Search Engine market). This is also known as organic traffic which only stops by if your website is optimized for search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.

Importance of Google Juice

The more you get, the better it is for you. As per a research done by forrester.com, 80% of Internet users find websites by searching for keywords on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask etc. and it’s really important that your web pages are listed in the results. If for a particular search term, pages from your website are listed on the first page of the search results then you are going to have loads of visitors stopping by on your website if they are looking for that search term or related stuff.

Pages from your websites stand a chance of getting some visitors even if they are listed on the second or even third page of the search results. Otherwise you shouldn’t (actually, you can’t!) expect significant traffic coming in from Search Engines unless the person who’s looking for something is patient enough to dig a couple of pages of search results for some search term.

How well are you ranked in Search Engines?

Technically speaking what makes your web-presence known is by your search engine ranks. Simply put, how well you are known online is determined by the rank your website enjoys in search engine. Page Rank (PR) by Google is one such important metric assigned to websites listed in Google Search Results which web-masters and advertisers often use to judge the quality of a website. The higher it is (on a scale of 10), the better a website is considered and the higher it is listed in Google Search Engine Results. Obviously, it enjoys more Google Juice than lower ranked websites.

Get listed in Google within 30 minutes

All those SEO and Make Money Online websites next door will try to show you ways to scale the first page of Search Engine results once you’re listed but what they won’t tell you is how to get listed in Google search results within 30 minutes!

We’ll consider scaling the front page of search results in a later post in SEO series but right now concentrate on how to get your web pages listed so soon.

This post is the first part of this series (Get Listed in Google within 30 minutes) and will be focused on websites and blogs built with WordPress as CMS. However, a lot of these tips apply to static websites as well. So, let’s start sharing best practices…

WordPress Plugins and SEO

With the popularity of WordPress and the contributions by the WP community, managing websites and implementing SEO has become a lot easier. There are various WordPress plug-ins that are available for SEO purposes but the 2 plug-ins I would like to recommend to you are:

1. Google XML Sitemaps
This plug-in will create a Google Sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Every time you edit or create a post, your site map is updated and all major search engines that support the site map protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

Once you activate this plug-in go to plug-in settings and create the sitemap for first time. You can see the output with this URI: http://www.your-domain.com/sitemap.xml. Now we have our sitemap ready so let’s tell Google about it. Type http://www.google.com/sitemaps in your browser and login with your Google ID and Password.

On this website you can submit your sitemap to Google and Google will start indexing your website. This process requires site verification where you need to add a Meta tag or upload an HTML file to your web server. It’s very easy to complete and you can get step by step instructions on Google website.

2. All in One SEO Pack
This plug-in optimizes your WordPress website/blog for Search Engines. It automatically optimizes page titles for search engines and generates META tags. This avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs. For WordPress 2.7 (the latest version) you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want while writing the posts or pages. You can fine-tune almost everything related to search engine optimization. To get most out of it, do a little keyword research for the content and use best keywords while writing the posts and pages.

Tomorrow, I will further dig into SEO stuff relating to getting listed in Google within 30 minutes of updating your blog/website. Next thing I’ll talk about is services that your WordPress can automatically ping and notify them about updated content. I’ll also tell you how to fine-tune your link structure (permalinks) as they are not very search engine friendly by default. Stay tuned…

UPDATE

This post was indexed within 8 minutes of being published, publish time was 16:02 and Google indexed this post at 16:10.  Check out the screenshot.

I am enjoying the Google Juice!!

I am enjoying the Google Juice!!

]]> http://www.cssjockey.com/business/web-presence/search-engine-optimization-google-juice-hard-to-get-but-tasty-to-drink/feed 18