XML and HTML Sitemaps For Your WordPress Site – The Basics

How To Create XML and HTML Sitemaps in WordPress
Most people have heard they need a sitemap so Google will like their site but what are they and how do you go about creating one?

Sitemaps are recommended for search engine optimization to help Google (and other search engines) discover all of the content on your site. Search engines typically discover the content on your site by following all the links that exist to your site, and within your site (your navigation etc). When you have a large site or one that has a complex  structure which might make it harder for Google to find all the pages on your site, a sitemap is especially helpful because it simply lists all of the available content.

Sitemaps come in two flavours: XML and HTML

XML sitemaps are designed for search engine bots, not humans.
HTML sitemaps are more geared toward humans, but search engine bots can crawl them too.

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How To Create An XML Sitemap

The easiest way to create an XML sitemap is by using an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or All-in-One SEO. Both have the capability to create an XML sitemap. 

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Make Posting To WordPress As Easy As A Facebook Status Update

Make Posting To WordPress As Easy As A Facebook Status Update

In a Google+ community recently someone wanted to know how they could make posting to their WordPress blog as quick and easy as posting to Facebook or Google+. When you post a link on those social networks, all you have to do is paste a url and  the title, description and image for the webpage you’re linking to are automatically generated,  so it’s very easy to quickly share information.

I recommended three possibilities to make posting to WordPress this easy (click to enlarge screenshots).

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Getting The Word Out With Jetpack: Sharing, Subscribers, Social Media Networks

Jetpack WordPress Plugin Social Features

This is a guest post from my friend and super-talented WordPress developer, Suzette Franck. I’ve mentioned the Jetpack plugin before and in this post Suzette will take you deeper into it’s social marketing features.
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Let’s face it, no matter how pretty your blog or website is, people come back for fresh, compelling, unique and informative content. While there are various services that will accomplish the same functionality, never before has posting to all the networks simultaneously been make simpler than with the magic of the plugin Jetpack. Jetpack is chock full of goodies like the Publicize, Sharing and Subscriptions features that can help the most amount of people see your unique content in your social network. Support for posting to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn,  and Yahoo, as well as share buttons for the major networks are all included in this no cost but priceless plugin.

What is Jetpack?

Jetpack (latest version is 2.0) is a free add-on suite of plugins once only available to WordPress.com users made available for your self-hosted blog. If your blog is hosted at WordPress.com, you do not need this add-on to access these features, but if you are self-hosting your blog, for example, at Media Temple, WPEngine, HostGator, Blue Host, etc. you will need to download, install, and activate this plugin to have it provide the features we will be covering, Also, you will be required to have a WordPress.com account, so that all of your subscriptions and stats can be accessed centrally right form the WordPress.com dashboard. I will walk you through the installation and configuration process and get you up and running in no time posting your unique content to your followers. 

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Intro To Podcasting With WordPress

podcasting with WordPress

This a guest post by my friend and multimedia WordPress wizard, Jason Tucker. He streams live and archives the OC WordPress meetup group, and has recently launched a new Google Hangout and podcast show called WP Watercooler which you can watch live on Mondays at 11am PST, or you can catch the archive on the website and download the podcast via iTunes. He kindly agreed to share some of his wisdom here. Now over to Jason……

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So you want to learn how to podcast? In this post I’ll go over some of the basics of podcasting using WordPress, a mic and some audio or video recording software.

What is a podcast?

Before I get into how to start your own podcast I think we should define what a podcast is. Wikipedia states the following:

A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of audio, video, PDF, or ePub files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. The word is a neologism derived from “broadcast” and “pod” from the success of the iPod, as podcasts are often listened to on portable media players.

So, in plain English,  a podcast is a way for you to receive and then consume typically audio or video in an episodic fashion. I listen to quite a few podcasts –  some are news focused, and others are either short stories or very long shows. I’ve listened to podcasts that are 5 minutes long all the way to 2 hours long. Either way, think of a podcast as setting a DVR to receive a show someone records and makes available at various intervals, typically every week. 

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How To Automatically Post Your Blogs To Facebook and Twitter

How To Automatically Post Your Blogs To Facebook and Twitter

A common question that clients ask me is about how to automatically update their Facebook page, Twitter account or other social profiles, when they publish a new blog post.

There are many ways to do this – here are a couple of my preferred methods. Although there are some WordPress plugins available for these types of tasks, generally speaking I don’t use them. Sometimes they are tricky to configure, or perhaps just not that reliable. Plus, why add unnnecessary plugins when you can acheive the same thing just as well, if not better, another way?

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