And the winner is?

In the process of upgrading this blog to the latest version of WordPress, I got lazy. So lazy that I created a nice little list of commands that I could just copy and paste at the command line that would back up my files, delete some others, and copy across new files.

Well, not paying attention, I started this all from the WRONG DIRECTORY!!!

So I deleted this blog’s “wp-content” directory. Good thing I had a backup of my theme on my laptop.

I also have any images that I’ve previously embedded in posts on my laptop. The problem is, WordPress places these images in different directories by default. For example, any images I added to this post would be uploaded to wp-content/uploads/2007/06. I now have to find all posts with images, find out exactly which ones they’re using, and where they need to be uploaded. Yippee-ka-yay(you should know the rest of THAT saying…)

Anyway, here’s the SQL I’m running in phpMyAdmin to get all posts with the phrase “/uploads/” in them (indicating an image, at the very least):

select post_content from "wp_posts" where post_content like '%/uploads/%'

This is probably not the best way to do it, but it’s working.

So, why am I telling you all this?

After this most IRRITATING of things anybody could do to themselves, I needed SOMETHING to make myself feel better…

Well Scott from “Self Made Minds” has a competition running that I decided to try out for to take my mind off of my screw up. The prize is for an established, yet under-used (I believe) website, “fictionforum.net“.

I figure, being an avid reader, I might be able to do something with it…

Anyway, whether I win or not, (and Scott, please don’t take this as sucking up), you MUST subscribe to that blog. And, read EVERYTHING right from the very beginning. It is THE most informative blog at the moment for anybody trying to make it online. Using real examples from his (their?) site “Coolest Gadgets“, I’ve learned more from that blog in the last month than I’ve learned from 90% of the other blogs I’ve ever read…

Trackbacks and how to abuse them

The inimitable Chris Garrett has written a nice little explanation on Trackbacks and why you should use them.

Read the full story here!

See that line above? The whole “read the full story here” bit? That is a dodgey way to get more visitors. The reason is because when your trackback gets posted to the “recipient” site, it generally puts an excerpt of your post surrounding the link as the comment on the site. Now, if you have a really enticing “comment” that is placed in the comments section of the other site, you might draw visitors to your site.

It may not always work, depending on how your trackback gets formatted because some sites just have the post title as the trackback, and others use some of your post’s text.

Now, I am REALLY not condoning this, but I have been a “victim” to this before. I had a BEAUTIFUL post with a ton of info, and a lot of comments. But one of the comments just had “read more info here”, so a lot of my visitors were leaving there. I didn’t really mind as a lot of those visitors returned, but it was a decent lesson.

So, go on, teach me a lesson. Send me some trackbacks.

Killer Flagship Content – ANOTHER review

Well, Chris Garrett is definitely getting a few links for this one. He’s written a 14 page eBook called “Killer Flagship Content“. And he’ll link to anyone who does a review on it.

Of course, when you write something good, you shouldn’t need to “bribe” anyone for links. And this is one of those times. His ebook is available if you subscribe to his feed, and you should definitely download it, print it out, and go sit in the bath for an hour and read it. If it takes you less than an hour, read it again.

He describes flagship content as the content that you build your blog around. It’s a post, series or “message” that will draw people back again and again to your site. In his words:

This is “flagship content”. It is an effective way of creating a powerful blog
property using a core of content that you build around. The post, series or
“message” is added to and referred to repeatedly over time, increasing the original value
and relevance and also keeping it fresh. While the main benefit is branding and
educational value, there are other benefits I will describe later.

There are 3 sections/themes in this book that I think every single new blogger should read:

- How to create flagship content
- Flagship content ideas
- How to promote your flagship content.

So, go do yourself a favour and subscribe to his RSS, download this ebook, and read it again and again and again!

Where do your subscribers come from?

Ever wondered how your new subscribers arrived at your blog? If you’re using FeedBurner, the best you can see is how many subscrobers you have, what they’re using to read your feed, etc… Lots of useful statistics, but it doesn’t show you how they arrived at your site, and what path they took through your site before eventually subscribing to your feed.

Well, thanks to the ingenious idea from this post: “What’s your blog analytics set up? Here’s mine.“, you can use Google Analytics to watch your visitors subscribing in droves. Well, trickles for some (and drips for others).

Assuming you’ve installed the Google Analytics tracking code in your site’s template, you can just add the “click tracking” code to your subscribe links. Liam Morrison (I assume) says it better:

As Google Analytics allows you to measure outbound clicks from a site from any particular link, I’m using this as a useful way of tracking who is subscribing to the rss feed, the content they read here before signing up, and how they find this blog. True, not everyone who clicks on your feed link will complete the subscription process, but I’m comfortable with using this measure as a pretty close estimation.

If you view the source code for this page, you should see that I’ve added the following line to the to anchor tag for the “subscribe” links at the top right of the page:

onClick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/subscriber/top_text/');"

If you’re viewing this post on it’s own page, then on the right you’ll see the “Comments Feed” link. I’ve also added the tracking code there. But, because this link is being called using the WordPress “comments_rss_link()” function, I’ve surrounded the link with a “span” tag, and added the “onclick” code to there.

For example:

<span id="comments_subscribe_span" 
        onClick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/subscriber/comments_subscribe/');" >
    <?php comments_rss_link('Comments Feed'); ?>
</span>

Now all I need is a few more subscribers to see if this really works.

Free Blogging Resources

In the last week or 2 somebody posted about their resources they use for blogging, such as PhotoShop, etc. but for the life of me I can’t remember who it was… If it sounds familiar to you, please let me know so I can link out.

Anyway, I thought I would give you the cheap man’s version of some blogging resources, i.e. FREE! These are programs and sites I use for my blogging activities that don’t cost me a penny…

WordPress:

Does anybody NOT know about WordPress? Well, it’s only the best free blogging software available, thanks to the community of developers, and the LARGE variety of skins and plugins.

I mean, isn’t this blog just the prettiest you’ve seen?

Stock.XCHNG:

This site contains photos that you can use free of charge. Some of them you have to notify the photographer (ask permission?), and others you have to notify AND give credit to the photographer, but most of them you can just use. Most people know that adding pictures to posts make them look more interesting, and therefore keep the reader’s interest for longer than 3 seconds.

Paint.net:

According to the website:

Paint.NET is free image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing.

I used to use “gimp“, but I don’t need that powerful a program as all I do is crop or resize images before uploading them to the blog. I can also use Paint.net for blurring out sensitive info from screenshots, and add a few nice effects, like “zoom” to photos…

Statistics:

I use the following free statistics tools:

HitTail – You can read what I have to say about HitTail here: “HitTail – a useful statistics service”
Google Analytics – Maybe a little too much info, but useful none the less
phpMyVisites – A nice little php statistics tool that you can host on your own server which therefore gives you real-time overview statistics.
StatCounter – A nice, VERY detailed and VERY useful statistics package. The free version only logs the last 100 visitors though… I fully recommend the “Recent Visitor Activity” screen which shows you all of the following info on 1 screen:
- Visitor referrer
- Entry page
- Exit page
- Time on site
- Pages per visit
- # of returning visits
- Country of visitor
- A whole lot of other useful info which is getting tedious to list…

OVERKILL, I know, but I guess I’m just statistically addicted.

Google Reader:

I use this for reading my Blog and News feeds. Subscribing to a nice long list of blogs is required if you’re addicted to the internet, so having a good feed-reader is mandatory. I like Google Reader mainly because of the ability to use keyboard shortcuts (if you get used to them they will DRASTICALLY speed up your reading abaility). Other great features are the fact that it’s so easy to add subscriptions, and so easy to handle feeds, whether sharing them, starring them (adding to favourites?) or just plain marking them “unread“. One feature I would LOVE to see is the ability to rename my subscription folders/tags. So, Google Reader developer reading this, what do you think of this feature? I mean, having to delete a tag and create a new one just because of a simple spelling error is a bit tedious…

Hosting:

Ok, this is the one thing that is absolutely necessary, but unfortunately tends to be the thing that you have to pay for. I use ANNO as my hosting provider due to the fact that I needed a .co.za web address. They also cater for the non-South African websites, of course. Reason I’m plugging them here? Well, where you come from you might be used to good service, but here in South Africa, unfortunately, that tends to be a rare thing. But DAMN do the staff at ANNO know how to treat customers. They tend to jump at every question or request, and I haven’t had one request turned down.

I would fully recommend them as a good website hosting provider for South Africa, and if you click on this link: ANNO you will get a 10% discount if you sign up with them. (In case you visit them at a later stage, just remember the coupon code “geniosity“