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Ever been to St Louis? If not, you should consider it. The weather can be extreme what with the occasional hail, tornado, blizzard, heat wave, sub-zero temps, violent thunderstorm. Earthquake, even. But not all the time.

What St Louis has all the time is super friendly people.

I’m here for The Strange Loop, a conference attended by “creators and users of the languages, libraries, tools, and techniques at the forefront of the [software] industry”. Of little interest to Website In A Weekend readers (bofem) to be sure, but it’s definite value-add for the programmerati.

Since I missed booking a room in the conference hotel (Union Station Marriott), I’m writing this from the Marriott Residence Inn, about a mile up the road. Initially, I was bummed. The Union Station Marriott is “closer” to the conference action, and the Residence is perched out along the freeway, right next the UPS facility.

But it doesn’t matter one bit!

The Residence Inn staff is super friendly. The hotel operates a shuttle which runs from early morning until 10 pm, and dispatches immediately. The shuttle finds me faster than I can get a cab in Washington DC.

About right now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Why do I care?”

Check it out: for some strange reason, a couple of the people at the front desk know me as a blogger!

“How did you find this out?” you might ask.

I found out because when I stopped by the front desk to compliment the front desk folks on how great the shuttle is, one of them told me: “We found out you’re a blogger.”

How cool is that?

It could happen to you.

In some sense, blogging is sowing the wind with seeds. We’re not planting mighty oaks, the competition is far too fierce. We’re more like dandelions: write and write and write and write and hope the winds of the internet blows our words far and wide.

~~~~

I’ve been working full time+ at the University of California, Berkeley since late March. It’s a great job, it keeps me pretty busy but it’s a lot of fun. I’ll be writing more here on Website In A Weekend in the future.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Website In A Weekend Live, from St Louis Missouri

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From the the New York Times, Alicia Shepard now brings us Investigative Reporting Is Now Endangered.

Alicia notes:

But today, resource-intensive investigative reporting is in trouble. How could it not be? Advance Publications, which publishes The Times-Picayune in New Orleans and other papers, is laying off 600. The Detroit Free Press just announced it plans to “sizably reduce” its staff.

As bloggers, do we care?

Probably not.

As bloggers, we know that who you are is much, much more important than what you’re saying.

Your opinion on this (and mine) really doesn’t matter, this is how it works.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Who you are or what you write?

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This just in…

Hello!

I don’t actually need anything (even a reply!) but I wanted to thank you for your excellent Website in a Weekend.

It sounds like a joke, but I prefer to do things the hard way whenever possible because it usually ends up being the most interesting and instructive way to do it. I’m pretty confident about trying most things and usually a quick study, but I’m feeling pretty slow and stupid where this project’s concerned. The saving grace is your website which at least helps me break thing down into manageable, achievable target parts. It’s already been longer than a weekend, but I’m getting there!

Thanks,
M_____

…and my reply

Thanks so much for your encouraging words.

I have to admit I’ve severely burnt out on the blogger thing. So many people have the attitude “Just gimme the results so I can gets the monies.”

I’m not like that. I’m the A or F student. Blessing or curse, I seem to have to understand what it is I’m doing.

Which means I end up “doing it the hard way.”

I think it saves me time in the future though.

And I’m not the only one: http://learncodethehardway.org/.

My estimate is around 10-15% of people are “hard way” learners, and these are the people I want to speak to, to collaborate with, to be around. I hope you’re one as well.

Best,
Dave Doolin

Are you a hard way learner?

Most people aren’t, I don’t think. And that’s cool, even envious in many respects.

For those few of us who are, some words of encouragement.

You bring unique value. Not everyone needs or wants that value. Find the people who want it, need it, appreciate it. Let the others abide.

Stay the course! If it’s worth learning, it’s worth learning the hard way. Just be picky about what’s worth learning.

Take no criticism personally. Even when it is personal. Especially when it’s personal.

Have fun, enjoy life, and seek others on the hard road. We’ll travel together!

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Mailbag: Learning the hard way

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A few weeks ago, I was working with a client to figure out why his blog’s microformatting is not configuring properly. In this case, he’s using my WordPress hRecipe plugin, but something isn’t quite right. The code passes the testing suite. Google Rich Snippets testing asserts the plugin works correctly for me. But not for him.

But that’s not the real issue here.

The real issue is I cannot give him a “solution,” because:

1. I don’t understand his workflow, and
2. We are not yet communicating effectively.

Applying the “5 Why’s” results in “microdata is hard to understand because it’s hard to understand.”

Context is critical

Which is ironic, because microdata is fairly simple… if you already understand something about structured content, how search engines work, HTML and CSS syntax, and probably a few contextually relevant odds and ends which slip my mind.

Know all that, microdata is trivially easy.

Our challenge, my client and mine, is finding that sweet spot where he learns just enough context to handle the issue internally (I’m expensive), and I don’t spend all his money writing a long treatise on material which is available for free all over the web.

So it’s hard. So what.

However, the impetus for this blog post came from P. J. Onori’s article “In defense of hard.” People who know me well won’t be surprised:

I agree with almost every word.

For this client, I wish I could give him a simple fix. But I don’t have one.

What I do have is potentially far more valuable: I know what’s worth learning and what’s not. Here’s what Onori has to say about that:

If a subject is naturally complex, work to make it no more complex than it needs to be, but no less. People are not naturally averse to complexity, however they need to know it is worth their time and energy. Educating them on how to do something is not enough, there should be education on why it’s important.

In this client’s case, for his business model being dependent on serving structured data to search engines, it would be smart and wise to learn as much about structured data as possible, and that includes HTML and CSS as well as the microdata.

Note that I stated “…as much about….”

I didn’t state “learn to be a designer/developer.”

I didn’t state “learn to be a WordPress guru.”

I didn’t state “master PHP programming.”

Learning about something is far easier than learning the thing itself. Learning about something is far more cost-effective and time efficient. Learning about something lets you identify and communicate problems, and maybe even fix those problems yourself, instead of paying me or J. Random Hacker to do something we probably don’t want to do anyway.

You owe it to yourself

I didn’t make the rules, and I didn’t invent the technology. I just report on it and implement it.

If your business model depends on your ranking in Google search results, I very strongly suggest you learn everything you can about microformats, microdata, schema and structured content. This technology is not a magic bullet, and it may not help you, but it’s clear that not having it will hurt you.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Some Things are Hard for a Reason

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Which is what (channeling Madonna) I have been telling myself over the last couple of weeks.

No, not gonna go all Castro here, not my thing.

But still, Madonna is famous for reinventing herself, and reinvention is a skill worth learning.

~~~~

Website In A Weekend is pivoting. That is, finding the next stepping stone on the business path to smashing success, by reinventing the site. Long time readers have been watching this reinvention, this pivoting process, over the last few months. It’s more evolution than revolution, and it’s nowhere near done.

Statistically, 90% of you readers should be doing this (pivoting, reinventing) as well. Unless you’re succeeding beyond your wildest dreams already.

Now, I’m not a big fan of the word “pivoting” applied to starting a small business, but it’s the word all the Cool Kids are using, so we’ll use it here.

And that’s what Madonna has done her whole career: pivoted her brand – her image – to stay relevant with the changing taste and needs of her audience.

I’ve done it too, pivoted my technical skill set to stay current with what’s driving the market. Back in the early 80s, I worked in the oilfield. In the mid-80s, worked construction. In the 90s, I tried to trump the whole process with formal education, which lead to more pivoting (at a much higher level) in wireless sensor technology and model simulation.

About 3 years ago, I started over, from ground zero, a total reinvention. Marketing is now part of everything I do, instead of being this more-than-slightly distasteful task unworthy of attention.

The curious, and game-changing, piece of this reinvention puzzle, is NOT that technology is becoming obsolete faster than it can be mastered. That sucks, but it’s a known problem.

Now, entire markets come and go within the span of a few years.

So, what?

So, this: mastery still matters.¹

In fact, it matters more than ever. Recall I just stated that technology and markets are coming and going too fast to master. While this is true, why are companies finding it so hard to find the people to fill jobs?

Because companies need people with mastery-level skills, who can instantly reinvent themselves to meet their market.

“But how,” I can hear you ask, “am I to develop mastery when markets and technology change so fast?”

Simple: focus on the hard, boring and market-independent skills that so few people do well.

“And what might those market-independent skill be?”

That’s an excellent question, allow me to restate it:

What are the market- and technology-independent skills you must master to allow channeling your inner Madonna?

I’m genuinely curious. Let’s discuss in the comment section below.

Before we get started…

~~~~

Lady Gaga appears to be on the same road as Madonna, continually reinventing herself to serve the needs of her audience. Check this out: the tramp can pivot!

Ok, now let’s talk reinvention

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Dude, you hafta channel Madonna (a Sunday Strategy)

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Here’s a little something which has been in my Drafts queue for almost 2 years. It hardly seems blog-worthy. Then again, I haven’t seen anyone else publish screenshots or discussion on either server status or throttling.

Bluehost server status

Did you know you can check your server status at Bluehost? Here’s what that looks like:

Note the date. Heh.

Bluehost CPU throttling

Are you a good neighbor on your shared hosting account?

Bluehost knows. Here’s why.

I met some Bluehost engineers at WordCamp SF 2011. Cool folks. Mostly Perl hackers, which is appropriate for a Linux-based service. Bluehost also sponsors Linux kernel development, and has contributed code to the time sharing capabilities for Linux. This allows Bluehost to enforce a “good neighbor” policy on all of their shared hosts. If your account reaches a certain level of activity, you will be throttled down.

This is a good thing.

For one, if you have so much traffic that shared hosting is always throttling down, you should be on a different hosting plan. For another, if you have very little traffic and you’re being throttled, you should probably inspect your installation. Something isn’t right, and you should probably fix it.

Here’s what throttling looks like:

You can find the link to the throttling charts in your Bluehost cPanel interface.

Any questions?

Post from: Website In A Weekend

How to Check Bluehost Server Status and CPU Throttling

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Does managing affiliate links feel like underwater barbecue? Like, no matter how much work you put into it, it’s just impossible?

Well, you’re now in luck: Managing affiliates links has never been easier, with the Thirsty Affiliates plugin for WordPress.

Introducing Josh Kohlbach’s Thirsty Affiliates

My biggest problem with affiliate marketing is keeping track of everything. For some reason, I’m not naturally inclined to maintain the business documentation allowing me to find out where all my affiliate links are stashed. It’s a real problem.

Josh had the same problem, and he did something about it. Something we can all benefit from. He wrote a WordPress plugin making affiliate management trivial.

With Thirsty Affiliates, that stress of “Where did I put that affiliate link?” is gone for good.

Thirsty Affiliates takes the stress out of affiliate link management

I’m reaping two main HUGE benefits using Thirsty Affiliates:

1. The link management system is five times easier to manage than raft of spreadsheets. All my affiliate links are right where I want them: in WordPress. Before, I was attempting to keep track using a variety of spreadsheet-based systems. Boring. Difficult. Not worth it. Very stressful.
2. Huge time savings: I log in to my WordPress, and all my affiliate links are right at my fingertips. Incredibly efficient compared to external tracking with spreadsheets or documents.

These two benefits alone repay the purchase price.

Let me be more clear: several months ago, as a pre-release reviewer of Thirsty Affiliates, I liked this plugin so much I sent Josh a few code modifications to make the plugin even better. Trust me, the purchase price of Thirsty Affiliates is far, far less than my hourly rate, and I don’t waste professional time mucking around in hideous code (unless handsomely compensated).

Features to make your affiliate management trivial

Check out how Josh made Thirsty Affiliates tame the affiliate linking beast:

• Add your link once, it’s handled forever via the magic of WordPress custom post types.
• Easy configuration using the standard WordPress settings interface.
• Links are automatically backed up. Just do your normal WordPress backup, it’s handled.
• Inserting a link into a blog post or page is really easy using the standard media library interface. It’s as easy as inserting an image.
• Links can be categorized for added power and flexibility.
• Import/export: enter your affiliate once, and only once, and you can export them to use on another WordPress site.

There’s more, and Josh is continually tweaking and adding handy little features to save you time and reduce your affiliate link management stress overload.

Other reasons I love Thirsty Affiliates

Imagine that thing, that “thing” you have been meaning to get around to, for years. You know, that project where “If I only had the time, I could Rock The Casbah on this thing.” Everyone one has one of these “things,” and for blogging, that thing for me has always been…

…dealing with affiliate links.

I even went so far as to start writing a WordPress plugin for handling affiliate links.

But it’s a good thing I didn’t get very far with my plugin, because Josh Kohlbach and his Thirsty Affiliates plugin has Solved. That. Problem.

Because I’m a programmer, the first thing I look at is the source code. And with Thirsty Affiliates, it’s plain to see Josh’s 15 years experience as professional programmer. The code is well-organized and well-written. It’s all straightforward WordPress and PHP, coded up using best practices.

This means Thirsty Affiliates has some serious shelf life.

1. Well-written code, which means Thirsty Affiliates is easy to maintain and extend. This means it’s a good investment for you.
2. Leverages WordPress custom post types. This is the Right Way To Do It.
3. Link redirection and automatic nofollow attribute.

It’s these little touches which really matter.

What could use a little more polish

Ok, I have to be totally honest here: I’m not a big fan of the styling for the editing screen. But that’s really minor, and it is a branding thing, which is also important.

• Super easy: Add a field for each link to the actual account affiliate site on the affiliate site (versus the sales link). As mentioned above, keeping track of all the moving parts is tough, and one of those parts is the affiliate account itself. For example, as an affiliate of StudioPress, it would be incredibly convenient to have a link to my ShareASale.com account.
• Fields for setting the alt and title tags for links and images would be really nice.
• The most pressing feature would have to be getting a Quicktags button for the WordPress HTML editor. I never use the visual editor, and having to switch back and forth to drop in a link is annoying. However, since most people use the visual editor, Josh was right to have that working first.
• (Super technical) Automatic parsing when an affiliate delivers a cut-and-paste link.

But these are all really minor issues compared to the time I’m saving and the peace of mind resulting from integrating Thirsty Affiliates into blogging. Revenue generation must be considered as part of a viable content strategy, and it just got a lot easier.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

WordPress Affiliate Management Plugin: Thirsty Affiliates

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Here’s an interesting email I received concerning on-page SEO html structure and its effect on search results:

I finally have a minute to reach out. We haven’t spoken since you left your comment on my site. I haven’t had a chance to review the hRecipe plug in [sic] and all the updates you made. Could you please advise if the layout now has the option of tagging the <post type> titles and subtitles to H1?

-Grace

After a few back and forth emails concerning whether hRecipe plugin for WordPress should, by default, use the h1 element for recipe titles, we turned to Google.

What says the Big G?

Let’s take a look:

Matt Cutts states in this video that multiple h1 elements is something Google watches for, and may penalize if the useage doesn’t make sense.

Since Google gets to decide what makes sense, I’m keeping hRecipe titles marked up as h2 elements.

Also, and this is important, hRecipe is open source under the GPL. Everyone is free to modify, or have someone else modify the plugin any way they see fit.

Arguments for and against multiple h1 elements

People arguing for multiple h1 invoke Google’s ambiguity (as of 2009), the lack of a definite standard for structural elements in HTML, etc., and how multiple h1 results (apparently) get better results for them.

People (i.e., me) arguing against multiple h1 elements can’t seem to come up with arguments much better than “Based on my professional experience as an information architect working on the web since the early ’90s, multiple h1 is a bad idea. And, it doesn’t make any logical sense at all, either.”

~~~~
A slight digression… Being intimately familiar all the arguments for or against some contentious issue makes one an expert on the arguments.

It does not make one an expert on the issue itself.
~~~~

Perhaps you are now at that success point where hiring professional SEO help makes sense. I recommend the folks at SEOMoz. I’ve met Gillian Muessig personally and can vouch for her professionalism. Scott Hendison of Seo Automatic is another excellent SEO professional. (Note: I do not have affiliate relationships with either, I simply respect their expertise.)

The upshot: If you’re worried about how many h1 elements (and they are elements, not “tags”) on your web page is best for SEO, you should purchase professional SEO help. Or, you need to run your own SEO experiments (which is what professional SEO people do) and figure out how many h1 elements work best for you.

More about On-page SEO

The really cool thing about on-page SEO is it’s in our control. We can choose whether to use h1, or h2, or what keyword density to write against, or whatever.

I took a look around the web (that means I searched Google) for the latest and greatest articles. I didn’t find much I haven’t already written about (Read through the Building Traffic archives). This article showing 4 graphics illustrating on on-page SEO by Rand of SEOMoz was an interesting and highly relevant exception. As it turns out, getting the simple stuff is still important, but even more important, is good writing.

Content is still king!

And WordPress makes delivering that content easier than ever. I’m happy to be an Amazon affiliate, and even happier to recommend Professional WordPress from Wrox. I use it myself.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

On-page SEO: Multiple H1 Elements Yea or Nay?

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It turns out I have a long time interest in structured content, dating back to graduate school and projects dealing with a lot of raw data. Describing data requires using metadata, and from there it’s not really a big jump to the semantic web and rich snippets.

A current project involves describing projects using metadata. Sounds self-referential, no? It’s not, really, because context matters.

One such metadata specification is Description of a Project, aka DOAP. While I’m not a big fan of the acronym, the concept is sound.

Unfortunately, the main website has been badly compromised. Really badly. I have screenshots.

Check out what happens to sites which aren’t actively maintained, or not securely locked down.

This used to be called "vandalism" and it was A Bad Thing To Get Caught Doing.

Such activity used to be called “vandalism,” destroying other’s property for personal gain. Now we call it “SEO backlinking” and it’s a multi-billion dollar business.

Here’s more:

This is akin to theft, theft being the act of rendering high value goods into low value goods (credit: PJ O'Rourke, "Eat the Rich")

Now, watch what happens with this article. Because it has “SEO” in the title, it’s going to get scraped, for sure. SEO in the title will also attract loads of comment snipers (“Great Post! I lerned so much!”) attempting to free ride for, wait for it… SEO backlinks.

How do you feel about being part of culture which allows this kind of behavior? Backlinks are everything, you know.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Destroy Websites for Fun and Profit! (SEO backlinking, of course)

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Ask Anca is a column written by WordPress expert Anca Mosoiu. Anca is owner of  Tech Liminal (where you can come and ask these types of questions in person every Friday at the WordPress Support Group).

This week, we’ll start covering one of the more fundamental questions involved in building a WordPress site:

“Hi Anca,

How do I pick a theme if I want to customize my site?

A. Designer”

This question has a complicated and lengthy answer that boils down to “it depends”¹.

Here are some things that you can ask yourself to help you get closer to the right answer for you:

1. What are you trying to do with your site?

Are you writing a blog?  Building a site for your consulting business?  Running events?  Trying to market your storefront business?

Using a theme designed for blogging to create a site that needs a different structure (or different kinds of pages with sidebars) can cause a great deal of stress.  For example, the Memoir theme from ElegantThemes is just gorgeous – but if you find yourself needing a 3-column page for your homepage, you’ve got to do some major surgery.

Which bring us to the next question:

2. What’s the shape of your content?

Along with your content strategy, you should also consider the structure, or shape of your content.   Are you writing long blocks of text, or planning to display photos, videos, or your design portfolio?    Do you want to showcase your 16 products in a 4×4 grid?

The structure of your site (i.e. which pages have which sidebars, whether you can have multiple layouts for pages, whether you can move things around) is coded in the guts of the theme. You can change a bit of this around with plugins – but if you aren’t careful you’ll wind up taking on the overhead of managing many moving parts.

WordPress.org’s theme repository lets you search for themes by the number of columns, which can be very helpful if you want to add widgets for supporting content or advertising.  You may also look to see if you can change the number of columns or their position. Notice whether you can make these changes to the entire site (Twenty Eleven, Thesis) or on a page-by-page basis (Genesis, Weaver).

3. How important is total control over the look of your site?

No matter how perfect your theme is, you may wind up wanting to make a change to the look or the structure on one or more pages.  If you get to this point, consider:

3.a. What’s your skill and comfort level with programming?

Many themes promise “easy” customization, but most deliver only a limited set of options².   Working with a theme like Weaver, Suffusion, or Atahualpa is great because you can change colors, fonts, and sizes from within the dashboard interface with a UI, without the need to know any “technical” stuff.  A theme like Platform (from PageLines) that comes with drag-and-drop design is also an option.

As you get more familiar with CSS, HTML, JavaScript and PHP (and maybe a little bit of SQL), you can achieve more control over your site. Many web designers can get by with a good understanding of CSS, followed by the ability to recognize snippets of PHP code and move them around to meet their needs.

4. What do I use?

As a programmer, I prefer Genesis from StudioPress over other frameworks – while it’s complex to modify for a non-developer, it’s well-structured and has some very useful widgets (Featured Posts and Pages FTW!)  to make it a great framework for building many different kinds of sites. It’s “easy” if you’ve put in the time required to learn CSS and PHP.  Otherwise, it can be downright inscrutable because it’s VERY different from other, more typical WP themes.

Another theme that I use fairly often is Weaver. Why? It’s great for people who want to create a site that they can customize visually. Weaver comes with several page templates that allow you structure different kinds of pages. For slightly more advanced users, it also comes with a shortcode you can use to pull content from the database and put it in any page or sidebar. Super-awesome if you want to, say, create a homepage that includes only posts from certain categories, or a homepage that looks different from other pages on the site.

What you can’t get away with when choosing a theme is the need to develop a basic understanding of how WordPress works – the difference between Posts, Pages, and Attachments, or between Categories and Tags. Armed with this knowledge, plus Weaver, you can build many lovely sites for yourself and your customers.

More about WordPress themes on Website In A Weekend

We’ve written quite a bit about WordPress themes. Here’s a selection of articles going into more detail:

• There are more technical criteria for choosing a WordPress theme, which you should also be aware of.
• Dave Thackeray gives us pixel perfection with Atahualpa theme (Inca strictly optional).
• Thesis
• Dave Thackeray also loves Headway theme (two timer!).
• The Journalist theme, by Lucian Marin, is a long-standing favorite of thousands of bloggers. Lightweight, looks good, and easy to customize.

What about you?

What’s your favorite WordPress theme, and why?

Anca Mosoiu runs Tech Liminal, a technology salon in downtown Oakland, CA, where people just like you can get help with their websites, web applications, and general technology concerns. She is translating her background as developer, analyst, and information architect working on large-scale corporate web applications into practical, straightforward tools for the motivated entrepreneur and small-business owner.

Post from: Website In A Weekend

Choosing Your WordPress Theme (4 questions to ask)