Saturday, 22 February 2014

RSS feed reader options - the saga continues

When Google Reader was retired, I posted about my search for a replacement.

Eventually I settled on TheOldReader.   This had a few headaches - too many other people made the same choice, so they had performance problems.  Then they were going to shut down.   They they got help and weren't shutting any more.   Now they've siaid that only the first 100 subscriptions are free, and that people need to pay to have more than this.   The design still looks a bit clunky.

I may yet end up paying them $30/year - it's not unreasonable for the service.   But OTOH, I don't see paying a small amount for any service as a guarantee that it will actually survive.

But in the meantime, I'm hunting for options again.    Here's some info about what I've tried.




InoReader

The first tool that has caught my eye is InoReader.   It is
... a Cloud based RSS Reader aimed to fully replace Google Reader and even provide additional tools and functionalities for power users.
Initially it came to life as a proof of concept project, but the author quickly realized that such system cannot be managed and handled by single person for a long time, so the development and support was handled to a company ...

You can register separately, or log in using Facebook or Google accounts. It will import subscription files from the reader part of Google's Takeout file, or other OPML format files.

Add Author's Profile Picture and Name in Multi Author Blog

In this tutorial, we will see how to add the author's profile picture and name on a Blogger blog just below the post title. Not only that this can give your blog that personal touch but attaching an image to your blog posts in Blogger can help visitors identify, and perhaps have a level of trust with you. Also, this could be a great addition to blogs with multiple authors, since the info for each publisher will be shown below the titles of their respective posts and this way, they will get the proper credit for their work.
multi-author blog, blogger tricks

Related: How to Add or Invite Multiple Authors in Blogger

Adding the Author's Profile Picture / Avatar and Name in Blogger

Step 1. From the Blogger Dashboard, go to "Template" and click the "Edit HTML" button.


Step 2. Click anywhere inside the code area and press the CTRL + F keys to open the search box. Paste the following code inside the search box, then hit Enter to find it:
<span class='post-author vcard'>
Just below this line is the rest of code, which should look something like this:
              <span class='post-author vcard'>
                <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
                  <b:if cond='data:post.authorProfileUrl'>
                    <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
                      <meta expr:content='data:post.authorProfileUrl' itemprop='url'/>
                      <a expr:href='data:post.authorProfileUrl' rel='author' title='author profile'>
                        <span itemprop='name'><data:post.author/></span>
                      </a>
                    </span>
                  <b:else/>
                    <span class='fn' itemprop='author' itemscope='itemscope' itemtype='http://schema.org/Person'>
                      <span itemprop='name'><data:post.author/></span>
                    </span>
                  </b:if>
                </b:if> 
</span>
Note: If you are using a custom template, it could look something like this:
<span class='post-author vcard'>
<b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
<data:top.authorLabel/>
<span class='fn'><data:post.author/>
</span>
</b:if>
</span>
Step 3. Now that you found the code, delete it. Please note that it should start and end with the tags marked in yellow. This code is repeated two times in the template's code and you will need to remove both occurrences.

Step 4. Next, search for this line (you'll find it twice but stop on the second one):
<div class='post-header-line-1'/>
Step 5. Just below the line, paste the following code:
<span class='post-author vcard'>
<b:if cond='data:post.author == &quot;AuthorName&quot;'>
<span class='author'><a href='Author-Profile-URL'><img src='Author-Image-URL'/></a></span>
</b:if>
        <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
          <data:top.authorLabel/>
            <b:if cond='data:post.authorProfileUrl'>
              <span class='fn'>
                <a expr:href='data:post.authorProfileUrl' itemprop='author' rel='author' title='author profile'>
                  <data:post.author/>
                </a>
              </span>
            <b:else/>
              <span class='fn'><data:post.author/></span>
            </b:if>
        </b:if>
      </span>
Replace the AuthorName text with the EXACT name that appears on the Blogger profile, i.e. the one that appears in the posts or comments. If it is added in a different way, Blogger will not recognize the username, nor the image and the code will not work.

To display the author's pic, add the URL of the author's Blogger profile and the image URL by replacing the text in blue. It is recommended to use an image with a maximum height of 40px and 40px wide. Once done, the photo of the author will appear next to the "posted by" text just below the post title.

Now for those who maintain a blog with more than one author, you will need to add the following code just above <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
<b:if cond='data:post.author == &quot;AuthorName2&quot;'>
<span class='author'><a href='Author2-Profile-URL'><img src='Author2-Image-URL'/></a></span>
</b:if>
If you have more than two authors, repeat this block of code for each author that you want to add.

Now, let's go one step further and add the CSS styles.

Step 6. Search using CTRL + F for this tag:
]]></b:skin>
Just above the ]]></b:skin> tag, paste the following CSS code:
.post-header {
width: 100%;
padding: 2px 5px;
margin: 5px;
clear: both;
float: left;
}
.author img{
float: left;
margin: 0px 5px 10px 0px;
max-width:100%;
height:45px;
border-radius: 10px;
}
.post-author{
color:#777;
font-size: 13px;
font-style: italic;
}
.post-author a {
color:#777; }
Note: to change the size of avatar, modify the 45px> value.

Step 7. Click on the "Save template" button and that's it. You should see now the profile picture and name of the Blogger author below the title of each post.

PageRank Checker - Check Your Google Page Rank

PageRank is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. Page Rank was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of Google as a way of measuring the importance of website pages.

What is Google PageRank and Why Is It Important

According to Google:
"PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites."

Briefly, the Page Rank is an assessment of the importance of a web page. This relevance is calculated and published on a scale from 0 to 10. Google basically takes into account the number of backlinks that each page receives, however, the number doesn't matter that much if we don't build high quality backlinks from sites which are related to our links, preferably internal links.

A greater importance has the quantity of internal links linked by other websites, which happens when you create a post and someone publishes the link that redirects to this post that you created. So, the more backlinks your blog or site has, the higher is the chance of having a good PageRank.
pagerank, check page rank

Now that we have a basic understanding of what Page Rank is, how about checking yours?

Check Google Page Rank using the PageRank Checker

You can easily calculate your page rank and check the importance of your page. Just enter the address of your website / blog below and check it out:

Check Page Rank of your Web site pages instantly:

This page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

Do you want to share your page rank with your visitors? You can add a button to your blog by visiting the PageRank Buttons page.

Thursday, 20 February 2014

The difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO

The search engine optimization (SEO) is a good way to promote your blog on Google search results and other search engines. For those who don't understand how SEO works, here you can find several SEO articles that might help you, but we need to be also aware of the good and bad SEO techniques that could have a direct impact on our ranking.

This article will shed some light on the terms known as black hat and white hat SEO and we will get to know what's good and what is not when we optimize our website and its content.

black hat and white hat seo

What is Black Hat SEO?

From the 'SEO dictionary', the term black hat SEO has to do with the abusive techniques that will force the search engines to look at a specific site and rank it. This might work at first, but the algorithms can already see some of these techniques that have become common for a fast result.

Such practices to trick the search engines are, for example, the excessive use of keywords, especially in headings and subheadings; transparent keywords to the user or the so-called hidden text, automatically generated content, pages redirecting automatically to other content and more.

What is White Hat SEO?

The white hat SEO has to do with the good techniques in the 'eyes' of the search engines. These are considered ethical techniques for the ranking, helping thus, the positioning of a website or blog. However, working on the white hat is a process that requires dedication and results may take longer to appear (this is why so many people opt for black hat in order to 'try' something more 'effective') but the results could be much more safe and satisfactory on a long term.

Keep in mind that Google has plenty of tricks up its sleeve to penalize anyone who doesn't act in accordance with the policies and rules of their website - this includes removing your page from any of the positions. Fair enough, after all, why Google would 'reward' somebody with the top spot if the site doesn't provide good content for its users and at the same time, doesn't meet the requirements of the algorithm?

For those who are interested and want to get to the top of Google search results, visit the webmaster guidelines page. There, you can find more information about how to create good content, how the design of your blog/site should be and how to work with your links. Also, you can find mentions about black hat SEO techniques.

Add floating social media sharing buttons below Blogger post titles

It is becoming increasingly important to make our posts appreciated and shared on social networks and one of the best ways to get traffic to our blog or site and boost sharing stats is to add social sharing buttons.

In this tutorial we will see how to add a floating social media sharing bar below the title of Blogger posts, so when a reader scrolls down the page, he will still be able to see the sharing buttons without having to scroll back to the top.

Adding the below jQuery script will make the buttons float in a fixed position as soon as they reach "the top" of the page. By scrolling back, the buttons will return to their initial position.

The social sharing bar includes buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

Social Media Sharing Buttons below Blogger Post Title

Step 1. From the Blogger Dashboard, go to "Template" and click on the "Edit HTML" button:


Step 2. Click anywhere inside the code area and press the CTRL + F keys to open the search box. Once you see the search box, type the </head> tag inside the search box and hit Enter to find it.

blogger search box, ctrl + f

Step 3. Just above </head> add this script:
<script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
$(function() {
var $movesbuttons = $("#floating-social-buttons"),
$window = $(window),
offset = $movesbuttons.offset();
$window.scroll(function() {
if ($window.scrollTop() > offset.top) {
$movesbuttons.css({'position' : 'fixed', 'width' : '550px', 'top' : '0px'});
} else {
$movesbuttons.css({'position' : 'absolute', 'top' : 'auto'});
}
});
});
//]]>
</script>
Step 4. Now before the ]]></b:skin> tag (press CTRL + F to find it) add the following CSS styles:
#floating-social-buttons {
padding: 6px 0px 12px;
position: absolute;
background: #F6F6F6;
border-bottom: 1px solid #DEDEDE;
width: 550px;
height: 18px;
z-index: 99;
}
.floating-social-buttons {
margin-left: 5px !important;
}
.floating-social-buttons li {
float: left;
margin-left: 5px;
list-style:none;
}
To change the width of the bar, modify the 550px values in red. Note that this value also appears in the script which also needs to be modified.

Step 5. Finally, just below the second <div class='post-header'> (press CTRL + F and hit Enter twice to find the second one) add the following code:
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<div style='padding:5px 0 35px 0;clear:both;'>
<div id='floating-social-buttons'>
<ul class='floating-social-buttons'>

<li><iframe allowTransparency='true' expr:src='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=&quot; + data:post.url+ &quot;&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;height=25&amp;action=like&amp;font=tahoma&amp;colorscheme=light&quot;' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' style='border:none; overflow:hidden; width:100px; height:25px;'/></li>

<li><a class='twitter-share-button' data-lang='en' href='https://twitter.com/share'>Tweet</a><script src='//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type='text/javascript'/></li>

<li><script src='http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js' type='text/javascript'/><g:plusone expr:href='data:post.url' size='medium'/></li>

<li><a class='pin-it-button' count-layout='horizontal' expr:href='&quot;http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;media=&quot; + data:post.thumbnailUrl + &quot;&amp;description=&quot; + data:post.snippet' style='margin:0 10px 5px 0;'>Pin It</a> <script src='http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js' type='text/javascript'/></li>

</ul>
</div>
</div>
</b:if>

Customizing the Floating Social Media Sharing buttons

If you want the buttons to appear at the end of the post, paste this code before or after <div class='post-footer'>
If the bar overlaps with the post content, then change 35px to a higher value.

Step 6. Click on the "Save template" button and you're done!

So these were the steps for adding the horizontal social buttons bar on Blogger. Using this bar it is also useful as it could help you to get more social traffic for your blog.