Power to Earn Money

Word Press Sitemap Plug-in

Having a sitemap for your Wordpress blog is just as important as having one for your website in that it ‘maps’ your blog for the search engines making sure everything you want ‘crawled’ is seen. However, the installation is not the same. Placing a sitemap in your blog is accomplished by installing a plug-in, activating it and configuring the settings.

There are 2 ways to install this plug-in:

Manually download the plug-in and upload to the plug-ins directory then configure
Automatically install from the Dashboard (Recommended)

Manual Download of XML Sitemap

For those that want to give it a try, the manual download can be accessed at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/. Once you’ve downloaded the plugin follow the installation steps at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/installation/. If you encounter any problems, there are other tabs available to help out – FAQs, Screenshots, etc. Unless you are proficient with FTP programs and code this method is not recommended.

XML Sitemap Plug-In Installation

The easiest way to install the Google XML sitemap in your Wordpress blog is through the Admin – Dashboard.

Log-in through the Admin account to access the Dashboard.
Under the Plug-in heading; Click on ‘Add New’ – this will open a new screen.
In the ‘Search’ box type in ’sitemap’ and perform a search. You will see a list of sitemap plug-ins to choose from.
The Google Sitemap should be first – click on ‘Install’.
Return to the Plug-in Section on the sidebar and click on ‘Installed’. This will open a new screen.
You will now see the ‘Google XML Sitemap’ plug-in in your list of plug-ins. . Click on ‘activate’.
Now, from the Dashboard go to the heading ‘Settings’ – you should see ‘XML Sitemap’ listed – probably near the bottom. Click to open.
The screen displayed allows you to configure the settings for your blog’s sitemap.
Most of these can be left on default, however, you will want to change the ‘Update Notification’ section. Checking the boxes for Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo will allow those search engines to crawl your blog. If you do not do this the purpose of the sitemap will be defeated.
Continue reading through the other options - make any changes you feel you need.
At the top of the page, generate your sitemap.
Save update (at the very bottom)

Couple of issues I ran into.

Yahoo.com

1. You will need a Yahoo account in order to get an ‘Application ID’. If you do not have a Yahoo account, the link to get one is under the space for the ID number. Click through and follow the prompts to get your ID number. Once you get it, copy and paste it into the ID box on the ‘Settings’ page.

2. Should you have any problems logging-in to Yahoo, it may be due to not allowing cookies. If this is the case, you will need to allow ‘cookies’ for the Yahoo website. This can be done from the Internet Explorer tool bar.

Click on Tools > > Internet Options > > Privacy > > Sites > > (type in the address for Yahoo – http://www.yahoo.com) and click ‘Allow’.

Close the Tools box. You should now be able to log in to Yahoo without any problem.

Ask.com

After generating my sitemap (for the first time), I received an ‘error’ message that there was a problem notifying Ask.com. On checking the Internet for solutions, it would seem that this is a common problem in that Ask is not accepting this information. To get around this issue, I went back to the ‘Update Notification’ section in my ‘Sitemap Settings’ and unchecked Ask. I then clicked on the ‘Update Options’ link at the bottom of the page.

Once you have your sitemap installed and the setting configured, you will not need to do this again unless you change something on your server or blog (this does not include adding posts or pages.) If you feel you want to have Ask.com as part of the ‘Update Notification’ section, you can periodically go in and check their ‘box’ and ‘update options’ to see if they are accepting sitemap information.

The Importance of Sitemaps on Websites

Having a sitemap on your website is just as important as correctly optimizing it for the search engines using good seo information. A sitemap is a page that gives an overview of the website in a form similar to how an Index in a book might look. The sitemap may include every page of the website if the site is smaller or may consist of only category and subcategory pages if the website is very large. However, in every case each one of the entries is a link to its respective page making it easy for not only the visitor to find but also for the search engine spiders to crawl.

How to Organize a Sitemap (HTML)

You decide how your sitemap looks and how you want it organized. The most common ways to organize a sitemap are

Category
Alphabetical
Importance of page
Visually

Most often, the sitemap will resemble an outline with the website pages arranged according to category or topic. This makes it easy for the visitor to get an overall picture of the website, how it is organized and defines what the site has to offer. While this makes it easy for visitors to locate pages, remember that a sitemap is also accessible to the search engine spiders. Therefore, the sitemap can either be in index or outline form (HTML), or it can be in a hierarchical fashion (XML) which would lead to better search engine optimization.

What do the search engines see?

When Google introduced ‘Google Sitemaps’, web developers were able to publish lists of links with the idea being that since some websites may have pages that are only accessible through user entries and forms - then having a sitemap could show the search engine spiders where these pages were located. Fortunately, all the major search engines – Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask – support the sitemaps protocol. While having a sitemap does not guarantee your website will be crawled nor does it guarantee it will be indexed even if crawled . . . it is still the best chance and the best way for the search engines to ’see’ your site.

It has been noted by some Search Engine experts that having both types of sitemaps is of benefit. In this case the HTML sitemap would be an active link a visitor may click, while the XML file is uploaded to the root directory and submitted through a Google account.

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Creating a sitemap in HTML

Where do you begin when writing an HTML sitemap? My favorite way is to get paper and pencil and go through the website making notes as to the categories, pages, links, etc. This gives you the opportunity to view your site as if you were a visitor. Include all the pages you want indexed. Once all of the information has been gathered, write a single HTML page to serve as the sitemap, make all the links active to their respective pages and upload it. Be sure you include a link somewhere on the home page for your website visitors to use.

Creating a sitemap in XML

Creating an XML map is done through a program. My favorite program to us is available at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. It is free and menu driven. The four (4) steps you take to complete the process are listed below in abbreviated form

Enter your website URL
Press ‘Start’
View generated sitemap details (this will include number of pages and broken links), XML file content and a link to the compressed sitemap. You download the sitemap, unzip it and upload it to the “public_html/” folder of your site.
Go to your Google Webmaster Account and add your sitemap URL following the directions there. (If you don’t have a Google Webmaster Account – get one!)

Further to Step 3’s reference to broken links: You’ll find that at the conclusion of having the sitemap generated you will be shown all the broken links in your website. For a small one-time fee you can get the addresses to all of those broken links so that you can go in and fix them. (Having broken links in a website can impair your search engine rankings.) After you make the fixes, go back and generate another sitemap. Continue repeating this process until you have no more broken links. In my opinion, this 1-time fee is money well spent!

There is so much more to getting a page ‘ranked’ than just SEO work. Stay on top of current SEO news, stay current with the on-going changes, and get access to a lot more helpful information with a subscription to the best SEO service out there.

3 Ways to Place AdSense in a Blog

You already know you can make money from having AdSense ads on your website and blog. And, while placing ads within a website page is pretty easy – just copy and paste the code – putting AdSense ads in a blog is a little different and some may even find it confusing.

Here are three ways you can put AdSense (and other ads) within a blog.

Place the ad in an individual post
Place the ad in a Text Widget
Place the ad in a Plug-in

How to place an AdSense ad within the individual post

This can easily be done once you’ve logged into your account , set up the ad and generated the code. You are now ready to copy and paste the ad code directly into the individual post where you want the ad to show. It should be noted that you must use the HTML screen to do this. If you paste the code in using the ‘Visual’ screen, it will appear just like it is – WYSIWYG – ‘what you see is what you get’. By doing this you will be showing every line of the ad code as well as exposing your merchant number!

If you choose to show ads on individual posts, you should be aware that you will still need to follow the Google guidelines regarding the number of ads allowed per page. If you are not sure of these limits, take time to read the AdSense guidelines.

For example: You’ve elected to have 10 full posts shown on your blog’s home page – if you were to place 1 AdSense ad per post, this would equate to 10 ads, causing you to go well beyond the total number of ads Google allows per ‘page’. Even though they are 10 separate posts, the fact that they can all be seen and accessed from the same ‘1 page’ results in their being considered part of ‘one page’. If you had any AdSense ads in the sidebars, these would also need to be taken into consideration.

How to place an AdSense ad within a text widget

This is another way to display AdSense if you want them in one of the sidebars. In order to do this you must first place a Text Widget where you want the ad to show. This is done by going to the ‘Appearance‘ section of the blog Dashboard and opening the Widgets page. Once there you can select the Text widget from the list of available widgets and then drag it where you want it. (Note: The sidebar where you want to drag the Text widget must be open.) Once you have it in the sidebar of choice, you can move it up or down to change its placement if there are other widgets already there.

OK, you’ve got the Text widget in place, now you’re ready to put the AdSense code into it. To do this follow the same procedure for generating an ad. Copy the code and paste it into the open Text Widget. My preference is to place the code inside of some HTML code, specifically the <div> tag. I have found that sometimes the AdSense will work without it, and sometimes it won’t. So, I prefer to go ahead and put the code in. When using the <div> tags, the complete AdSense ad would look like:

<div>

AdSense code here

</div>

Once you have completed placing the code in the widget, select Save and then Close.

For more information on widgets see Word Press Settings or Plug-ins and Widgets: Whats the Difference?

How to place an AdSense ad within a Word Press Plug-in

This is probably the best way to display AdSense ads. Not only will this plug-in manage your ads but also will rotate them and limit the number of ads displayed to meet the guidelines. It also recognizes many of the other ad networks including-

Widget Bucks . . . and you can use unsupported ad networks too.

Some features of this plug-in are:

Import ad code automatically
Widgets and sidebar modules compatible
Automatic limiting of ad display to meet network terms and conditions

This plug-in can be downloaded at this link – http://code.openx.org/projects/show/advertising-manager . Once there you’ll also find other helpful information and a forum should you have any questions or need help.

If you haven’t started using AdSense to monetize your blog, use the information here to take your first step towards making money on line.

Making Money with Google’s AdSense

For those that may not be familiar with AdSense . . . AdSense is a program that pays you for displaying ‘targeted’ Google ads on your site. These ads can be customize to match the mood and feel of the site, or seamlessly blend into the site’s look. Success and activity can be tracked through various methods one of which is ‘channels’. Since Google maintains the advertisers ‘pool’, the publisher (site owner) never has to negotiate any advertising rates and best of all – signing up for an AdSense account is free.

Of all the ways to monetize a website, Google’s AdSense is probably the most recognized. If you currently have a website but are not using AdSense as a method to earn revenue online, you may want to consider doing so. Here are a brief overview and a few tips to introduce you to the program.

Three Basic Step$ to Making Money with AdSense

Once you have made application and been accepted . . .

You decide where to show the ads on your website
Google then displays relevant ads based on various factors including content, demographics and/or location
You get paid based on your choice of offered payment options (a benchmark amount must first be reached)

AdSense Isn’t Just for Websites

Ads can be placed on mobile webpages, RSS feeds, parked domains, site search and blogs. In addition to having a choice of where to display ads, you can also choose how the ads appear. You have options to:

Select different sizes of ads
Select colors to match site
Create color-palettes to save for future use
Select presentation of ads, i.e., text, image or both
Choose font, corner style
How an ad’s space will be filled if an ad is not shown (color, PSA or other non-Google ad – recommended)
Set up channels for tracking your ad’s success
Name your ads for easy recognition
Manage your ads regarding channels, editing, and hiding

Note: Google AdSense ads are not deleted but rather are ‘hidden’ through a function on the ‘dashboard’.

Tracking Your Success

There are detailed reports to help you track your ‘clicks’ and improve your performance. You can watch earnings by day, date range, page, domain, ad unit, clicks and more. Google Analytical Reports offer an even more detailed breakdown of your earnings.

This is a very basic overview of what Google AdSense represents. If you would like more information on Google AdSense or would like to make application for an account, click here to take a tour.

How to Perform a Screen Capture

You will find there are times you want to capture what’s displayed on your computer’s screen. Doing so can be useful in showing the steps to perform a procedure, capture an image you are unable to ’save as’ or ’save as target’ or just capturing something that you like.

Side note: Individual images can be saved by clicking the right mouse button one time while over an image. This will open a box allowing you to save that image to your computer by selecting either ’save picture as’ – allowing you to rename it if you so choose – or ’save target as’ – keeping the same name . You can then save that image to a folder in your computer or to an external drive.

While screen captures allow you to work with the captured screen as an image in a graphics program, this does not mean all screen captures must be images. Performing this function will include everything visible on the screen including all images and text – even though the text is not an image – or it can be a selected area that may be nothing but text with no images. Whatever is on the screen and designated to be captured will be captured and displayed as an image in the graphics program.

Paint Shop Pro (PSP) 7 was used to show this procedure as outlined in the steps below. But if you don’t have PSP (both versions 7 and 8 work the same) – then any good graphics program you may be using should work pretty much along the same lines . . . as long as there is a function allowing you to ‘import’. (Click on the images below to enlarge.)

Step 1

Open the graphics program. From the ‘File’ icon select ‘Import’. This will offer options for importing, i.e. digital camera, digital input, screen capture, etc. Select Screen Capture. You will then have a choice of ‘Set Up’ or ‘Start’. If you have not performed a screen capture before, select ‘Set Up’.

Step 2

In ‘Set Up’ you decide how you want to perform the capture. You designate the area to be captured (part or all), how you want to activate the capture (Hot Key or right mouse click), and the time delay in seconds (if applicable). You will also have the option to include the cursor in the capture and/or to perform multiple captures. Once the set-up has been completed you can hit OK to save these settings to use later or ‘capture now’ to perform the action immediately.

Step 3

Before you start the capture process, what you want to capture should be visible on the screen. Next you will minimize that page to the lower tray (those icons and programs that are displayed at the very bottom of your monitor ). You should now have the screen to be captured minimized and the graphics program open.

Step 4

From the graphics program, go to ‘Import’ and select ‘Start’. The page to be captured will automatically appear on the screen and depending on how you have set up the program to activate the capture (timed or right mouse click) – the action will be performed.

Note: If you have more than one screen open and residing in the tray, you will need to restore the screen to be captured once you have started the capture process.

Step 5

On completion of the process, you should see an image of the screen capture in your graphic program ready for you to work with and save.

Paint Shop Pro by Jasc is an excellent program that allows you to perform all the basics you would ever need. And, while their latest is Version PSPX2, in my opinion, the Paint Shop Pro 7 (which I’ve had and enjoyed for several years) is the easiest one to use and the best value for my money.

Basic lessons in HTML, CGI, SEO, domain registration, hosting – build an on line business!

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