Mozak Design Blog
Plugins In Review: Login LockDown
When you have a Wordpress blog, one of the problems has always been hackers. While I have never had the displeasure of having my website hacked, I do know those who have. Of course, the default username ‘admin’ does not help with this. Through trial and error, hackers can get into your dashboard and have their way with whatever they want. The Login Lockdown plug in is an effort to stop anyone from entering your Wordpress website without permission.
The plugin itself is pretty straightforward. You install it pretty much like any other Wordpress plug in by uploading the file to the plug in directory of your website. Activate the plug in after installation and you are protected. However, there is a little bit of customizing you can do. Through the options panel you can set the number of failed attempts and the length of time the person is locked out of your blog. This is a good thing just in case you forget your password.
One of the great things about this Wordpress plugin is that it also captures the IP addresses of those failed log in attempts. This way you can see who is trying to access your blog!
Plugins In Review: Redirection
Picture this, a potential client is searching on Google and finds a link to your site. They click on it and … yikes … a 404 page not found error! How embarassing …
One of the more useful Wordpress Plugins that I have been using on my Wordpress Website is something called Redirection. This handy little plugin helps to keep my site navigation clean and useful. Being highly configurable, Redirection provides many different options to help you keep your website navigation in check.
There are two specific cases when I turn to this plugin.
- First, in the event of a page url change or removal.
- Second, if I want to add an external website as a link in my navigation bar.
In the case of the first application, Redirection prevents visitor loss due to “page not found” errors (404s). Instead, this plug in will redirect visitors to a specific page you select when the invalid URL is requested.
Additionally, Redirection tracks all “page not found” errors that occur on your site. This is important as it tells you exactly which URLs bring people to your site resulted in a 404.
The second application where I find Redirection comes in handy is the addition of and external site to my navigation. This comes in handy if something like a “calendar”, “event registration” or “homepage” exist on another site. To add these items to my navigation I simply create a page with the name I want to show up in my navigation. I then use Redirection to send visitors to the external URL I want when they click on the page name I created. It really is that easy.
Redirection is one of those gems of a Wordpress plugin that helps you gain more control over where your traffic goes because of errors. Installation is quite easy, and works with Wordpress 2.6 and higher.
Check out my video below to see how to install and use the plugin Redirection. (coming soon)
What is Twitter?
Let’s start with a definition from Wikipedia.
“Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.”
Twitter is a micro blog platform. You are limited to 140 characters per post. This forces you to be concise and keep each tweet (Twitter post) to just one topic.
The key to effectively using Twitter is to understand that it is a conversation between people. It is about sharing information. It is not a sales platform although some will disagree with that. I am not saying that you can’t use it to sell but you need to do it the right way.
If all you are planning to use Twitter just as a platform to send out your links forget it now. Just like a blog you need to supply valuable information and build your reputation as a valuable resource.
Do that and when you occasionally recommend something people will be interested. Just send links and very few will continue to follow you.
It works like any type of networking. It is most valuable when you are sorting information about your niche for others. Just like a blog if you find valuable resources from others and let people know about what is valuable to your readers on your blog or followers on Twitter.
Just like off line networking you don’t go to the local Chamber meeting and introduce your business. You talk to people there and ask about theirs. Have an idea that can help them – share it. Do that and you develop relationships that will help your business not because you pitched your business but because you became a valuable resource that others will recommend.
Twitter works the same way. I encourage you to jump in. Start following people whose thoughts you value and begin sharing yours as well.
If you want to follow me you can do so at: http://twitter.com/mozakdesign and I’d be happy to follow you back!
Wordpress Plugin’s In Review: TinyMCE Advanced
Finally you can format your text the way you want!
I remember the first time I sat down to create a post on my new Wordpress blog. It was an exciting moment that quickly changed to frustration. All I wanted to do was change the font size!
Seemed to me like a reasonable enough request. But, I’d be darned if I could figure out how to do that with the default tool bar. Sure I could change from “paragraph” to “Heading 1″ or “Heading 2″ but none of these gave me the results I wanted.
This sent me on a quest for a good wordress wysiwyg editor. After hunting around for a while I discovered two that I liked. One is called “WP Super Edit” and the other is “TinyMCE Advanced”. Since of the two I prefer TinyMCE Advanced, that is the plugin I will discuss today.
So with out further ado here are some of the features this plugin provides:
- Change font size and font family !!!
- Create and editing tables
- Text justificati0n
- Text hi-lighting
- Subscript & superscript
- Anchor links
- Search and replace
- Time & Date insertion
- Emotions (Smilies)
- ieSpell checked
40 new formatting buttons in all.
Needless to say this plugin has become a staple in each and every wordpress website & blog I design. To see the plugin installation in action I invite you to watch the video below:
Good Copy Tip #3: Linking within your website
One opportunity that is often missed is linking to internal pages within your website.
This is valuable in several ways:
- It enables easier creation of scannable pages.
- It creates Google optimized, topic specific, pages.
- It allows you to guide readers into older blog posts.
By linking deeper into your website you can provide a readers with simple lists that they can scan; with the option to learn more on that topic if they follow the link. In addition, linking within your website allows you a way to continue using older posts in your blog. Most blog posts are not looked at once they are about 5 posts old. By guiding readers to older posts and series you have written, you are able to maximize your imvestment in them.
Finally, linking deeper into your site helps to guide your guest through your site to the information that interest them the most. This is crucial as web surfers have little patience hunting for what they are looking for.