One of the most popular posts on BloggerDesign is how to get Flash (swf) into a WordPress post. The previous post is about three years old so I thought I’d write up a follow-up post, as embedding Flash is much easier now as it’s all built into WordPress.
With the newer versions of WordPress there is a button to embed media.
Embed Button
Once clicked, all you have to do is enter in the Flash (swf) file URL, set the dimensions, hit ‘Insert’, and WordPress will do the rest.
Embed Window
It’s that easy. No plugins, no confusing code, just provide WordPress with the URL of the Flash swf file and it’ll write the code to embed the Flash file into your post.
As a bonus, the embed option also works with Shockwave, Quicktime, Windows Media, YouTube URLs, and Real Media if you need to embed those media files as well.
A bloggers dream is to get noticed. That could be in the form of a post getting re-tweeted hundreds of times, hitting the homepage of Digg, shared a lot on Facebook, getting noticed by the media, or one of the many other ways a blog can get traffic. However, a flood of traffic can quickly cripple a blog and turn that dream into a nightmare. The good news here is that the WP Super Cache plug-in can help minimize issues caused by too much traffic.
The WP Super Cache plug-in creates a static HTML file of each post and serves that file up to users. This static HTML file loads faster and is a lot less demanding on the web server and database. Now if hundreds or thousands of people were to visit the same post in a short amount of time, instead of re-pulling that post from the database and piecing it all together, WordPress would just show the cached page; aka a static HTML version of the post. This page now loads faster and more efficiently.
Whether you are new to WordPress, or have been using it a long time, there are always features that are available in the software that people either forget about or don’t know exist. So I thought I’d write up 10 lesser known WordPress features.
1. More options in the WYSIWYG editor.
When writing your blog post in WordPress, there is a toolbar with items such as bold, italic, and lists. At the of that toolbar is a box with little squares on it. Click it to reveal another toolbar with options to underline, change the font colors, embed meida, undo, and more. Quite a few handy options hiding there.
2. The convenient drop down menu.
At the top of the admin area, in the dark grey bar, there is a drop down menu that lets you add a new post, add a new page, go directly to the drafts, upload media and a few others. What are a few clicks away via the sidebar may only be a click or two away with the drop down menu.
There are a lot of people who think that WordPress is just blogging software, but it’s much more than that. It can be a website’s entire content management system (CMS).
Here are 31 reasons why WordPress works as a CMS.
- Simple to install.
- There is a WordPress plugin to add almost any functionality you want.
- Can setup multiple users with multiple levels of control on the site.
- It’s SEO friendly.
- Easy to theme.
- Easy to customize design and add widgets.
- One piece of software can run both the website and blog.
- Comes with pages and posts to separate the blog from the website.
- Post and page revisions so you have a history of changes to content.
- RSS feeds included with no setup.
- Built in media area for images, documents and so much more.
- Flexible theming structure that allows you to create multiple different layouts and easily apply them to any post or any section of the site.
- Built in link manager makes it easy to add a resources section to your site.
- Thousands of powerful WordPress functions allow developers to pull all sorts of information into any part of the site.
Google Analytics is a full-featured analytics suite that is free to all to use. The data it captures lets blog owners know referrers to their site, keywords, popular posts, unique visitors and so much more.
With the Google Analyticator plug-in, you can view a summary of the blogs Google Analytics, for the past 30 days, right on the dashboard for quick and easy access.
Here’s how to setup Google Analytics on WordPress’ dashboard.
1. Sign up for a free Google Analytics account. If you already have a Gmail, or other Google account, then just sign-in. http://www.google.com/analytics/
Get Google Analytics
2. Get the Google Analyticator plug-in, install it on the blog, activate the plug-in, and remember to configure it.
Download The Plug-In
3. Once you have Google Analyticator up and running, go into the settings click the link to authenticate with Google.
Authenticate with Google
4. Google will then ask you to grant access.
Grant Access
5. Once access is granted, Google Analyticator will confirm that you are indeed authenticated.
Authenticated
6. Head back to the WordPress dashboard and check out the blogs Google Analytics summary for the past 30 days.
The nice thing about the iPhone WordPress is that there is a plug-in for just about everything.
Lets say you want to create a fancy image gallery to showcase your photography. With NextGEN Gallery you can add as many images as you want and have the beautifully displayed in blog posts or on a gallery page.
Image Gallery with NextGEN Gallery
Want to poll your audience? With WP-Polls you can create as many questions and get as many answers as you want.
Polls with WP-Polls
Maybe you want to you want to add Google Analytics to all pages of your blog AND see your stats on your WordPress dashboard. Google Analyticator can do that.
Google Analytics via Google Analyticator
Lets say you want to create a contact form. With cforms you can create simple, or complex, forms all by dragging and dropping form elements.
Forms with cforms
Need to find out how to easily embed a YouTube video in your post? Viper’s Video Quicktags lets you embed YouTube, DailyMotion, Viemo, Flickr, MySpace and more.
YouTube Videos with Viper's Video Quicktags
As blogs grow, and new content gets created, old blog posts can quickly get lost in the archives. As much as bloggers try to keep everything organized, it’s hard to ensure that all posts get the exposure they deserve. However, there are ways to help ensure that older posts get additional exposure.
1. Related Posts
On individual post pages, add links to other related posts. This shows visitors that there is more content on your blog that might be of interest to the reader. I’d suggest showing 5 posts as it gives a little variety without giving to many options.
Tip: Try out the Yet Another Related Posts Plug-in to integrate related posts into a WordPress blog.
2. Top or Popular Posts
In the sidebar, create a section for the blogs most popular posts. Again, pulling in 5 posts from the entire history of the blog and showcase what users feel are the best posts on your blog.
Tip: Read How To Find Your Most Popular Posts for plug-ins and ideas for obtaining posts.
There are thousands of blog posts that get published every day and your posts are competing with them. Not only is good content needed, but so is a good image. Imagery can draw users attention to the content and give your post an additional boost.
Screenshots, logos, people, and product images are all good easy ways to incorporate imagery into a blog post. Almost anything is better than a big block of text.
When considering what type of image to add, think of what’s visually appealing. It may not always be a product shot, or a picture of a smiling person, quite possibly an image of the sky or an animal can convey the feeling you are trying to get across in your post much easier.
As an example, how do you feel just by looking at the images below?
Cat
Storm
Abstract Lines
Flower
Leaves
Each image should give a different feeling. When added to the post, the images can set the tone before someone reads anything more than the headline.
It’s never any fun to follow a link just to find out the page you were looking for can’t be found. Chances are, the user may spend a few seconds trying to find the correct page or just bail on the site. To ensure that visitors stay on your site, site owners should ensure that the 404 error page is friendly and helpful.
I did some research in the WordPress plug-in directory and came up with many plug-ins to enhance the default WordPress error page. However there were only two plug-ins that I could get to work and liked. The fist is Dunstan-style Error Page.
Dunstan-style Error Page
The Dunstan-style Error Page has a really nice layout that includes recent posts, a quick error report button, and a feedback form. It’s all built into the plug-in and there is nothing that needs to be configured.
The downside here is that the Dunstan-style Error Page tries to make integration simple but actually makes it complicated. The code did not work right with my design and I had to spend a few minutes modifying the plug-in so the layout was visually correct. This may not be an issue with all themes, but I could see it being a big deterrent; especially if you don’t know code.
WordPress, like any software, has the ability to break and that then can cause a blog owner quite a bit of anxiety. This can be caused by plugins not working properly, file corruption, database problems, or many other things. Even though your data is usually just fine, having a blog down is not what a blog owner wants.
Here are 5 things you can do to try and fix a broken WordPress Install.
Before trying to fix any issues, make sure to back up your blog! The fixes below should not cause any harm, but it’s always better to have a backup you don’t need than not to have a backup when you need it.
Items to backup:
- Your /wp-content/ folder
- Your blog’s database.
1. Disable Plugins
Plugins add a lot of additional features and functionality to a blog but can cause also cause unexpected issues such as admin pages that show nothing but a white screen, slow loading pages, or PHP error messages on public facing pages.
