Web Publishing

The posts in Web Publishing are usually things I have learned the hard way, or the long way around. I like to do things my own way. I look for better ideas, well, different ideas, later – if I need them. People should always pick and choose what advice they follow. But, I have more than 20 years of experience creating, building, and maintaining my own sites. I’ve learned a few things, in my own contrary, independent way.

There are 866 posts filed in Web Publishing (this is page 4 of 87).

Help to Comment in YouTube Even if you Already have a Google Account

For months, maybe even a year or so, I have not been able to leave a comment on YouTube. I didn’t worry about it, I seldom use YouTube anyway. But, tonight I decided to find out about it.

The first thing I read was about needing to have a Google account in order to use YouTube now. Not a problem. I have had a Google account for years! So, why am I still unable to comment?

Each time I click the comment window a pop up tries to open but closes before I can read anything, even just the URL. So, that is not helpful at all.

I continued my search for help. Someone wrote that the fix was to enable (allow) third party ads on your web browser. I refuse to be stuck with more spam. My email is spamlogged to the point of being unusable and I do not in any way appreciate the ads I am forced to pay for online. (Think about it – you pay your ISP for bandwidth. Ads use a lot of bandwidth in order to open their bloated files. Thus, you are paying to watch those ads. Nice of you, isn’t it?).

So, more seeking for a better solution. I knew I could choose to allow some sites to spring ads on me. I had to do it with Scoop.it so the bookmarklet would work. Now, I went in and set up YouTube the same way. I thought that would be enough. It was not. I had to allow YouTube, Google and Google Plus to give me spam in order to comment on YouTube.

Gee… thanks Google. That mobile phone thing isn’t enough frustration? See if I buy a damned thing from any of your enforced spam. Anyway, see below for the fix to do it yourself. I don’t know where you find the settings in Firefox. But, likely in something about privacy and cookies and blocking content.

I really do like the Chrome browser, Gmail and other features with Google. But, stuff like this makes me wonder if I should be limiting my use of Google. At some point I could really wish I didn’t have all my eggs in Google’s basket.

* make sure “Block third-party cookies” is checked
* go into exceptions and allow these three (without quotes) “[*.]youtube.com”, “[*.]google.com”, “[*.]plus.google.com”

Manage Your WordPress Tags with Strictly Auto Tags

First, download the Strictly Auto Tags plugin.

You can do a lot to get started with the free plugin on WordPress. But, if you really want to manage your tags better, and maintain them, the paid plugin gives extra features and options. Please donate, even if you use the free plugin. Plugin developers need love (and coffee) too.

Second, read this guide to using the plugin from Rob, the creator of the plugin (and a list of others which you can find on his site, Strictly Software).

There are 2 main uses for it.

1. With Auto Discovery ON. This is where it is ideal for news sites as it will find new people, names, companies, institutions etc without using lookup lists. So if I got famous over night and an article was imported about me  I would be found without some other sites list being updated e.g 3rd party API’s (as the other tagging plugins use APIS to send data over and get tag suggestions back and would have to wait for my name to be added to the list). 

So for discovering new names e.g two or more capitalised words like Robert Reid or acronyms like CIA. Then the auto discovery is good for finding NEW possibilities for words to be used as tags.

2. You can always use it with Auto Discovery OFF. If you have a massive tag list you have built up already and just want to re-tag posts then that’s great. It will just use your existing tags as options. 

Obviously you can use it with both options on and see if it finds any new tags worth using. That is your choice.

Always use the example in the readme.txt as a test to ensure it works.

Always read the debugging steps in the readme.txt file to see if it is a bug or you not setting something up or expecting it to do something it isn’t set up to do.

Also if you write your own material I would always save as a draft first, see which tags it has put in, then remove those I don’t want, add those I do before publishing etc. The quality of the tags will always depend on what material you are writing about, stored existing tags that are in that article, and any new words the plugin can find.

I used Strictly Auto Tags, the free version, to re-tag my blog after removing every tag about 2 years ago. I had gotten frustrated with the clutter of tags which repeated each other in slightly different ways and it was a big mess when I wanted to tag a post and had too many options or nothing at all. Anyway, Strictly Auto Tags is great.

How I used the plugin on my own blog

Start by using Discovery to re-tag (especially if you are starting from scratch as I did). Then, go through and edit, revise, add, etc, the tag words which the plugin discovered and added for you. There will be a lot of them but I found none were too extreme or completely off the mark. Most I did delete or revise (making phrases one word or changing a word down to the singular rather than the plural). I kind of enjoyed working on all those tag words. I had forgotten so much about my own site and things I wrote about in the past. I made notes for future blog posts based on the tags discovered by Strictly Auto Tags.

Keep your tags working and sorted out by using the auto tags without Discovery on. Once your tags are set the plugin will tag your new posts with the existing tags. As Rob wrote, save your post to draft first and check which tags will be added. This is when you can edit them if you don’t want a tag or want to add a new tag.

Purchasing the full version for more features and to see what else I can do with my tags now that they are working so well again

Tagging was such a chore for me before that I am going to get the paid version of Rob’s Strictly Auto Tags plugin so I can run it with all the extra features and avoid the tagging problems which caused me to get rid of them all before. I did find tags to be a good thing and I do see that they add to traffic and the chance for my blog posts to be found. So, doing away with tags was a good experiment, but I’m bringing them back now. Very glad to have found a plugin to do a lot of the work for me. Sure, I could have ignored all the past posts and just started tagging from here, but that would bug me. I am a bit all or nothing in that way.

I Remember BlogChalking

This is what I found from the Wayback Machine. The original link which most people refer to does not end with the .com. There wasn’t much left of that BlogChalking at that domain. But, I was pretty sure it had been a .com too so I looked, and found it.

Looks like it had it’s final days in 2006. From there it was abandoned, no updates. I took a screen shot from earlier (2003 which is the year it began according to the site), better times. Then another two images show the last final stages of decay from the Wayback in 2011 (but no changes to the actual site since 2006).

Daniel Pádua, the man from Brazil who began BlogChalking, died of cancer in 2009.

Facebook Also Thinks a Mobile Phone is a Security Blanket

 

Soon after my post about Google’s mobile phone fetish… I open Facebook and get a note about how I can improve the security of my account… using a mobile phone, of course.

Do you see what I mean?

It won’t be long and you will be offline if you don’t have a mobile phone to prove your identity. This is the step beyond word verification. Don’t lose your mobile phone or you won’t be able to prove you are who you say you are.

Google, What if I Don’t Have a Mobile Phone?

Dear Google,

You obviously don’t want to hear from me. Just trying to find a way to contact Google is time consuming and mostly a waste of that time. Even when you get email from Google they make it plain that Google is all "no reply" all day, all the time. See below, the return address is:

 

I only got this far after an hour of looking for some way to contact Google for help. In the past I have left notes for Google on their Twitter account, on their Google Plus accounts (more than one of them) and I have tried over and over and over to find a way to get help from Google about the problem of not having a mobile phone and not wanting to get one just to McHappy Google.

For at least two months Google Plus has offered me (to the point of nagging each time I open my G+ account) the option to have a custom URL. It is misleading. In fact, if you don’t have a mobile phone you can not have a custom URL. Of course, it does not mention the mobile phone requirement in the eligibility for having a custom URL. It should. In over two months I have tried various suggestions and ideas of my own and from other people and nothing has worked.

As frustrating as this is, the bigger issue is how long before you can’t access your Gmail (Google mail account) without verifying yourself with your mobile phone? I’ve been using Gmail since it began. I will be pretty aggravated the day I have to change all my email to something else just because I don’t want to spend upwards of $50 a month for a mobile phone I never wanted and won’t be using.

A lot of people do have a cell/ mobile phone. Not everyone. Personally, I’m not fond of the phone at all. I keep the landline out of obligation. Now and then family or friends phone. Mostly it’s sales calls so I just let them all go and listen to messages when I see the light blinking. Did you know computers are now leaving phone messages, long ones even! Incredible how marketing and sales are being allowed so much leeway.

Anyway, I am really frustrated with Google over this custom URL which they offer but don’t deliver. I’m concerned about the future even more. The latest thing with two way verification for accounts is all about the mobile phone. What happens if I don’t want a mobile phone? Google won’t answer. I know because I’ve been asking them for months and all I ever get are form emails with no-reply addresses.

Scream for help all you want – no one at Google wants to hear you.

On top of that. I just realized the irony of having set up the two way verification with my landline for my Google account (not the custom URL, just the access to my Google account itself). The irony of now having two way verification on my Google account is that I can only use it from my home computer. If I am out somewhere my account will be inaccessible. How is that for ultimate irony? My Google account is now immobile!!! 

 

Don’t Make Twitter a Dead End for your Profile

I found a blog, Dime Store Chic, had a lot of fun reading several posts, reposted a few of them. Then it came time to decide to keep the link bookmarked, follow on Twitter, like on Facebook and join on Google+. If I like a blog I always follow it with whichever social media they seem most active on, or add the link to my collection of links so I can find it again.

I picked Twitter first because it’s the one I like, it’s active and I can get a quick look at what people are doing now, today even. This is what I found:

dead on TwitterWould you follow this Twitter account?  I doubt it. First of all, the first impression is dull and all just automated links back to her own posts. Second impression, I noticed there isn’t even a link to her own blog in the Twitter profile. So she is really hurting herself without knowing it. Can you tell the name of her blog from anything here? No. No link and not even a name to tell you what it is about. All I see are links with no personality.

Maybe she doesn’t like Twitter. Maybe she finds it confusing or too much to deal with. So, why have the account at all then? Would it be better to have this account or none at all? I think none at all would be better than this. We can’t all be experts at everything, or find time to maintain every least aspect of web publishing. So, pick and choose what you can and will do. If you don’t have time to do more than stick up an automated feed on Twitter, just skip it and save making that first impression blunder. Leave Twitter until you have time, or help to figure it out.

Moving on to her Pinterest account. I don’t pick Pinterest to follow people usually. But, I thought here she would make a better impression. She has a lot of images on her blog after all. But… no. There are six boards created on her Pinterest profile. Four are blank, empty. Only one is active with over 170 pins. If she took down the dead end Pinterest boards her account would not look so abandoned.

Google+ and Facebook were dead ends too. That’s four for four. I was actually disappointed because I liked her blog enough that I would have followed at least one of her social media accounts. Instead I wondered if I had found an old blog. I went back to check and her latest post is this month, this year.

I am not writing this to pick on one person because she is not the only one who sets up social media accounts, promotes them on their site and then leaves them as dead ends for readers to find.

I think they just don’t understand how to use social media, or don’t have the time or don’t really want to be that involved in it. So, stick to just a blog then. Don’t set up these dead ends at all. Ignore people who say you MUST have Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and so on. If you don’t really want to create and maintain social media leave it off your profile if you can’t, won’t or don’t maintain them.

Individual Bloggers Need Their Own Niche

Top 5 Ways to Master Online Content

1. Optimize, Not Compromise

Content farms are so obsessed with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that they prioritize search terms within content over logical narrative. Worry less about how Google indexes, and focus on delivering great information about potential keywords.

5. Find Your Niche

Being an expert at one thing is better than being knowledgeable on many things. Do research on a specific area of interest. Find what is under-represented and fill the void.

via Too long. Didn’t read. – The Writer.

I think finding your niche (actually, creating your niche) is the real way for individual writers online these days. We can’t compete with the amount of general content on the content farm sites. Even as a writer on one of the content farm sites we seldom stand out enough to make enough money. So, the key is to stand out on your own in some way. Find your niche, something you can sustain, and then get into promoting it so people will begin to find you out here in the vast online wilderness.

I’m Posting this with ScribeFire

ScribeFireI’ve tried ScribeFire before. I just didn’t stick with it long enough to find it useful. This time around I’m going to try to give it more time and patience for the learning and setting up process.

Do you use third party software for your online writing/ blogging or web site publishing? I avoid a lot of it. More stuff just makes things complicated and confusing – for me anyway. Keep it simple is one of my favourite mottos.

My first impression of ScribeFire this time around was not great. The site has no updates since 2011. That makes me suspect it is a project which faded out along the way. But, so far it seems to be working. I don’t see spellcheck popping up yet though. I know myself enough to know spellcheck has saved me from hundreds of typos. When spellcheck lights up I (usually) listen.

Create a Blogger Wiki to Promote Your Content

Note: This was originally written for HubPages and the writers there.

When you write content on a site like HubPages you want it to be found by people interested in reading about your topic (niche/ genre/ subject matter). But, it can feel like you’re alone in a vast ocean, standing on a rock, jumping up and down, waving and waving without anyone noticing you at all. So, you need to build a platform which rises you a little higher and makes you easier to find.

The established ways to do this are to use social media, backlinks, and other worthy and less worthy ideas which people lump into SEO (search engine optimization). The problem with some of these tactics is the difference between attracting human readers versus attracting search engine bots which don’t actually read your content. Search engines won’t read your content, won’t link to your content and won’t refer friends and followers to your content. A search engine will only list your content for the real people to find. It does not endorse your content the way a referral from a real person can.

So, you need to do something more to bring people to your content. Keywords are not enough. Too many keywords will detract from your content because no one really wants to read that promotional content which is directed to SEO and not human readers. Too many keywords make your writing dull and bland.

Use Google Blogger to Create a Wiki Resource

Try opening a Google Blogger blog, pick a name which suits your content.

Write an introduction post and an about page.

Look for other content such as content curation feeds and RSS feeds relevant to your main topic.Some of them, like Scoop.it, will have widgets which display the content feed. Plus, this is another place you can suggest your own links to as you write new posts. So you will see your HubPages post appear in the feed on the widget you have displayed. This is especially nice because people reading your wiki will see you as an authority beyond the content you have created yourself. It’s like making yourself famous.

Create a few links to sites which you know are excellent references for your topic. You can ask for a link exchange with these sites – once your wiki is established, aged and seasoned a bit.

Now the part where your own content comes in.

Begin to post links to your HubPages posts/ content. Do not repost the content, just create an index. Sort your posts into subtopics branching from the main theme or genre which you write about. (If you write about several topics set up a fresh Blogger account and repeat the steps above for each topic).

Use your subtopics as post headers (titles) and add your links relevant to each subtopic in your topic/ genre. Check your links, make sure they are all going where they should be going – it is not too hard to miss something when you are cutting and pasting several links this way.

In your blog sidebar, over the links to outside reference sites, post links to each of the posts you have just created (the subtopics). Like building an index to your own subtopics in the sidebar.

In this way you are creating a wiki for your content which focuses on your HubPages content but not exclusively. A wiki is a personally created resource about one topic. Traditionally, a wiki is not run by just one person but several contributors sharing knowledge and resources. You can gather others to join you too. However, then you are sharing some of the limelight but building a wiki community is a great way to share your links among the community you create. So it is a trade off and something you can consider.

This idea does not work as well on WordPress.com because Blogger.com is Google’s own appendage blog site. So, it gets some preference.

It does take extra time and energy to create this kind of index to your HubPages content, but it will bring you to the attention of the Google and other search engines. Also, extra Adsense (which you can easily load on Blogger too).

Don’t let your wiki stagnate.

Maintain the blog, add your fresh HubPages content to the subtopics which you have set up.

Add new outside links as you find really good sites to refer people to.

Create an actual post for the blog once in awhile, monthly is fine. The post doesn’t have to be labour intensive. An update about the work you are doing to research your topic is a good post. Or, something you heard/ read in the news relevant to the topic. The point of keeping a monthly post is to show the site is active, at least once a month.

Link to this blog in each of your posts on HubPages. Just add it to the links with a note about it being your wiki or reference site for people who would like more information, etc.

Share the wiki.

The link to your Blogger wiki is one more link you can promote to social media, content feeds, and all the other routine places and ways you promote your content.

Creating the wiki is giving your content (on HubPages or any other sites you write for) an extra boost, another way to be found in the great, big ocean.

Participate Outside of HubPages

If you aren’t already involved in forums and other online communities within your topic make sure you get involved now. Join a relevant forum and be active. Daily is nice but not very practical. Aim for at least weekly and then read as many posts in the forum as you can and contribute. Of course, you can create a signature to use in the form with at least one link to your wiki or your HubPages link, both if possible.

From the comments on the original post:

 

That Grrl  Hub Author

@prarieprincess I got the idea as I was replying to someone else in the forum who was complaining about Google and traffic and etc, the same old stuff. I have never been overly reliant on Google for traffic. I like to look for my own ideas to bring in traffic/ readers.

One thing people writing here don’t quite understand is that HubPages is not buying your content/ articles. If they were there would be copyrights involved. HubPages is buying your social media skills and whatever else you do that works to bring in readers (traffic) to the site. HubPages sells ads which appear with your articles. We get a percent of that. So, in reality the whole thing is not about your content but aobut the traffic you generate here.

Knowing this it is a really good plan to focus on bringing readers from outside of HubPages into HubPages without focusing on Google. This is because once you are in the database at Google you will either rise or stay about the same. There isn’t a lot of point in putting all your eggs in that basket.

So, generating traffic in other ways is the key. I got the idea of the Blogger wiki because I had been looking at wiki sites that week and it popped into my mind that I already have all my old Blogger sites from when I began online ages ago. Why not use them for more than just leaving a trail of links. I know they still get traffic even though I have done nothing but ignore them for years.

Thus the Blogger wiki idea was formed. I added more ideas to what I could do with it as I went along. I don’t have a finished example yet. I’ve got so many projects I’m working on that I am hoping to get my nephew out sometime to help me move stuff along.

 

That Grrl  Hub Author

I have my own blogs with domains and paid hosting. But, you don’t have to go that way. I didn’t start out that way. I’ve been online more than ten years. I was online several years before making the commitment to paying for web hosting. So don’t feel you need to rush into it. A Blogger blog is still free for software and hosting and that will do just fine. More than that is just vanity – which is how they call it a vanity URL/ domain.

I would do both. There is no reason you can’t have an index of all your HubPages post in the sidebar of the blog. Then create individual posts with summaries and links at the end for each post too. This blog is your space to bring your content to the foreground, show it off and get it found. People are using the term ‘discoverable’ lately. and that is just what you are doing.

The only thing you should not do is copy your post and create the dreaded duplicate content. However, unlike at HubPages, on your own site you can have all the links you want. (HubPages gives you a notice if you link to the same domain more than twice).

Have fun with the blog, decorate it. Add widgets for social media which you use and of course highlight your posts here. Then do post the blog link around – use it for your signature in online forums and communities. Get the link around so people can find your content. This is how Google search bots will also find your content and consider it as important because there are links to it in a source outside of HubPages. Also, the link back from your posts on HubPages will keep the bots looking at your links and finding more of your content. They used to call them spiders because they follow links from one starting point to other directions, branching out from the starting point, spidering out.