Sitemaps are not only important for helping visitors find what they’re looking for, but they’re also an easy way to increase the amount of internal links to your important pages. I’m not talking about XML sitemaps created for search engines (although they can be important too), but rather a sitemap for your readers with links to all of your posts, or at least your most important ones.
WordPress users can use the Sitemap Generator Plugin from Dago Design to automatically create a sitemap for their blog. This plugin creates a helpful sitemap page with links to your posts arranged by category.
2. Create a FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions pages can help you to get internal links to your posts while using highly targeted keywords and phrases. Create some common questions readers might have that can be answered by your blog posts. Pose the question on the FAQ page and partially answer the question and provide a link to a particular post for more information. When phrasing the questions, use keywords that readers are likely to use when performing a search, as this can help to improve traffic from search engines. Also use keywords in the anchor text of the links to your posts.
3. Link to related posts
Linking to posts on similar topics can help your readers to find additional content that may interest them. Just as importantly, it can also improve the number of internal links to your blog posts. You can manually create related links at the end of your posts, or you can use a plugin to do it for you. WordPress users can download the Related Entries plugin.
4. Include links to your most popular posts on your sidebar
Many blogs contain links to specific posts in the sidebar. Linking to those that are the most popular is a good way to increase your page views and also to improve your internal link strength. This also can either be done manually or with the use of a plugin. Doing it manually will require updates and changes whenever you want to feature new posts, whereas a plugin like MostWantedwill eliminate the manual effort.
5. Write a series of posts
One easy way of building up the number of internal links going from one post to another is to write a series. As the series is written and published each post can link to the others. If you have a very long post, consider breaking it into a series. Be careful not to do this all the time as your readers may start to feel like you are using them to gain page views.
Bounce rate is a very important metric for website owners. It basically tells you what percentage of your visitors are “bouncing” away after landing on your site (e.g., they just visit one page and leave before clicking on to a second page inside your site). A bounce can occur for several reasons, including:
The visitor hit the “Back” button on his browser.
The visitor closed his browser.
The visitor clicked on one of your ads.
The visitor clicked on one of your external links.
The visitor used the search box on his browser.
The visitor typed a new URL on his browser.
All the actions above would cause the visitor to leave your site. Provided he did any of these actions right after arriving at your site (and before clicking on to a second page), it would be counted as a bounce. In fact the formula for finding the bounce rate on your website is:
Bounce rate = Visits that left after one page / Total number of visits
For example, if during a certain month your site received 120,000 visits, out of which 80,000 bounced after visiting just one page, your bounce rate for that month would be 80,000 divided by 120,000, which equals to 0.66 (or 66%). Notice that you can calculate the bounce rate of your whole website or of single pages inside it.
Obviously the lower the bounce rate on your website, the better, because it means that visitors are getting engaged by your content and design, and that they are clicking to visit a second (third and so on) page on your site.
How do you know the exact bounce rate on your site? A web analytics program like Google Analytics will automatically track the numbers for you.
Next week I’ll talk about what is considered to be low and high bounce rates, as well as about the misleading numbers you can get from new websites. Stay tuned.
As one could guess the top 5 are: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook and AOL. Below you’ll find a compilation of the list that appeared on the Cnet blog:
Curious points in my opinion:
Technorati in the 28th position? Are they still around…?
Federated Media, 17th, doesn’t own any online properties as far as know. They are an advertising network, so not really sure how the computations are being made.
These days I pretty much don’t use any browser plugins or extensions, but here’s one that I think everyone should have. It’s called “Nanny for Google Chrome”. I installed it yesterday, and I have a feeling it will give me a great productivity boost.
Here’s the problem I was trying to solve: despite knowing it’s a waste of time, I spend far too much time every day on Facebook, Gmail, Reddit and news sites. Combining all of them I think it would add up to 2 or 3 hours per day. Sure Gmail is mostly work related, and the others have a professional aspect too (e.g., I read news sites to keep up with the latest tech developments), but still it’s not where I add value to my business, so ideally those activities should be kept to a minimum.
The solution: The Nanny for Chrome extension basically allows you to input a list of URLs you want to control, specifying the amount of time per day you are allowed to use each one. Here’s how my list looks like right now:
Gmail – 30 minutes per day
Facebook – 10 minutes per day
Reddit – 10 minutes per day
NYTimes, WSJ, Economist, etc – 10 minutes per day combined
After I use my quota the extension will basically block the sites, and I’ll do my best to respect that. If the quota is consumed while you are on the site the extension will show a blank screen with this headline: “Shouldn’t you be working?”. Pretty effective huh?
You can also block sites within specific time intervals (e.g., from 9am until 5pm), but since I work pretty much 24/7 I decided to give each URL an allowed time per day.
If you don’t use Google Chrome you can download similar extensions for pretty much every other browser out there. Just search on Google for “extension/plugin to block URLs” and the name of your favorite browser.
I am looking forward to seeing the results this will have. Within a couple of months I’ll post an update to let you know.
Facebook has made some significant changes to the layout of Facebook Pages in recent months. The custom landing tabs are gone and all Facebook Pages are now rendered using the new Timeline view. Page owners can add cover photos and they can also highlight important stories by pinning them to the top.
Facebook Pages, by default, include apps for Events, Photos, Videos and Notes. However, if you would like to include custom information on your Facebook Page – maybe a Google Map of your business or YouTube videos or maybe a calendar of events – you need to create an app for that. Let me share a few good examples.
The official Facebook Page for Nokia has a Welcome Tab that highlights some of their recent phones. The Nike page has a Locations Tab that highlights the location of Nokia stores in the country. Apple’s App Store page has a Featured Tab where they have put a list of their top-selling apps and games. The Al Jazeera Page on Facebook has a “Watch Live” Tab where you can watch news right inside Facebook.
Have you ever wondered how do big brands create such interesting Facebook pages? They may have big marketing budgets but do you really need to hire skilled designers or programmers to build such fan pages? Well the answer is obviously no. You can create beautiful custom apps for your Facebook Page without writing a single line of code and all you need are few minutes.
Building Custom Tabs (Apps) for Facebook Pages
Facebook Apps for Pages, in simple English, are like regular web pages that are embedded inside Facebook using the IFRAME tag. Thus, any object that can beembedded in a HTML web page – like audio MP3s, Google Maps, YouTube videos, presentations, Google Calender, jQuery Carousels, photo slideshows, etc. – can be easily added to your Facebook Pages.
Before we get into the actual process of creating custom tabs (or apps) for Facebook Pages, we need a find a place to host the HTML, CSS, Images, JavaScript and other files associated with our web pages. I prefer using Google Sites to host pages because they are free, you get a WYSIWYG editor to create pages and Google Sites can be integrated with Google Analytics so you more easily track visits to your Facebook pages.
The other big reason is that Google Sites can serve pages over secure (https) and regular (http) connections. This is an extremely important point because a majority of Facebook users may have turned on “secure browsing” in their security settings. If your Facebook app serves content from a regular (http) URL, all these users will see is a warning message and you definitely don’t want this to happen. Google Sites is thus a recommended option.
How to Create a Facebook App for your Page
Enough theory, let’s get our hands dirty and create a custom app for our Facebook Page. If you get stuck, follow this video tutorial.
Step 1: Open Google Sites and create a new site. Choose “Blank Slate” for the theme and, under Site Settings, set the width as 100% so your content occupies the entire width of the Facebook Canvas. Also disable the Header and Sidebar since we don’t want this stuff to appear on our Facebook Page.
Step 2: Compose a new page in Google Sites and add some content to this page using the built-in WYSIWYG editor. If you are an experienced coder / designer, switch to the HTML view and add HTML code directly to your page. You may insert images, maps, videos, spreadsheets, gadgets, tables and everything else just like a regular HTML page.
Step 3: Open the Facebook Developers page at developers.facebook.com and, if this is your first Facebook App, click “Go to App” to add the Developer app to your Facebook Profile. Next click on the button that says “Create a new App” and give your app a name (you can skip the other fields).
Step 4: Expand the “Page Tab” option under Basic Settings and set the URLs for “Page Tab” and “Secure Page Tab” the same as your URL of your Google Site’s page. The Page Tab URL should point to the http version of the Google Sites page while the Secure Page Tab URL should use the https version.
Step 5: You should also upload a 111×74 pixels thumbnail image with your Page Tab as it will show up in the header of your Facebook Page. Use bigger fonts inside the image for better readability. Save the changes and your Facebook App is now ready.
Step 6: Now we need to add this custom Page Tab to our Facebook Page. That’s easy. Copy the App ID of your Facebook App that you just created and replace XZY in the following URL with that App ID. Open the modified URL in your browser and you should see an option to add the app to your Facebook Pages.
That’s it. You can add more apps /tabs to your Facebook Page using the same technique and it is also possible to alter the order of these tabs in the header.
If you ever need to update the content of a Facebook tab, just update the corresponding Google Sites page and your Facebook tab will update automatically because internally, you are just serving the same Google Sites Page to your Facebook Fans.
Here’s a video tutorial that will walk you through all the steps in greater detail.
The Wikipedia website now includes tools to help you create formatted ebooks using content from one or more Wikipedia pages .
You can read Wikipedia ebooks inside the iBooks app
Wikipedia has offered the PDF export functionality on their website for some time but with the recent change, you can export a selection of Wikipedia pages as EPUBs which is a much better format for reading articles offline on mobile phones, ebook readers and tablets. PDF is still a more suitable format for creating print-ready ebooks.
How to Create eBooks inside Wikipedia
It takes a minute to convert you favorite Wikipedia pages into an eBook. Here’s a quick guide:
Click here to open Wikipedia with the Book Creator enabled. Alternatively, you can open any Wikipedia page and choose Book Creator from the toolbox menu in the right sidebar.
Next browse to any Wikipedia page and click the “Add this page to your book” link to queue that article into your ebook.
You can also hover your mouse over any internal Wikipedia link to add the linked page to your Wikipedia ebook without having to open the page (see next screenshot).
Once you have bundled your favorite pages, click the Show Book link, give your ebook a title and download it in the EPUB format.
Hover your mouse over a link to add that linked page to your Wikipedia eBook
You can use iBooks on your iPhone and iPad to read these Wikipedia ebooks while the free Aldiko Book Reader app is a recommended option for reading ePUB files on an Android device. Kindle doesn’t support ePUB files but there workarounds available.
Here’s another Wikipedia ebook on the Mughal Kings of India. The text of all Wikipedia articles is available under a Creative Commons (share alike) license so it should not be a problem if you ever plan to distribute these ebook files through any of the ebook stores.
I just upgraded my Windows 7 desktop to Windows 8 and the process couldn’t be smoother.
All the existing software programs work just fine in Windows 8 and the built-in Windows Store offers a plethora of new full-screen “apps” to choose from. Desktop search is so much better in Windows 8, the UI feels more snappy and the system will boot faster. You don’t need to install a separate anti-virus program as Windows Defender is already included in Windows 8.
If you haven’t played with the Windows 8 beta versions earlier, it may take a day or two to get comfortable with the new layout but overall, Windows 8 is a must-have upgrade.
Upgrading to Windows 8 – Step by Step
If you are also planning to make the switch to Windows 8 this weekend, here are 3 things you would need:
A Windows machine running Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP. It doesn’t matter if you have computer is running Windows XP Premium or Windows 7 Home Basic.
A valid credit card or a PayPal account to pay the upgrade fee – you will be required to pay $39.99 for the Windows 8 Professional edition.
An internet connection for downloading the Windows 8 installer (2.05 GB). You may also order the Windows 8 installer on a DVD though it may not be necessary as it is quite easy to create your own Windows 8 DVD.
Please note that you are opting for an “upgrade” so it will overwrite your existing copy of Windows and there’s no way you can uninstall Windows 8 to switch to the previous Windows installation.
Also, your existing software programs will only be preserved if you are moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your current PC is running Windows XP or Vista, all your files and data will be preserved but you will have to reinstall the software apps after upgrading to Windows 8.
Ready? Here’s how may upgrade your computer to Windows 8.
First download and run the Upgrade Assistant program. This will essentially perform a few checks on your computer and will also suggest a list of software programs / hardware devices that may not be compatible with Windows 8.
Next you need to order your Windows 8 upgrade pack right inside the installation wizard. Choose the “Checkout” option, enter your Credit Card details and the next screen will show your Windows 8 product key that you may need at the time of installation. You don’t have to write then down on paper and Microsoft will also send a receipt of your order and the Windows serial number to your email address.
Important: What you are buying is the upgrade license that will only work on an existing Windows machine. You cannot use this Windows 8 license on a new machine that you could be building from scratch. If you wish to install Windows 8 from scratch on a new hard disk, you need the System Builder that may not be available at all locations.
The upgrade assistant will now download the Windows 8 installer files to your computer. This process may take a while since it will require the transfer of ~2 GB of data from Microsoft servers to your disk.
Tip: The Windows 8 installer files are stored in the C:\ESD\Windows\Sources folder – it’s hidden so you may not find it inside Windows Explorer.
Once the installer files have been downloaded, you can continue with the installation or you may pick the second option that says – “Install by creating media.” Here you can save the Windows 8 installer files in a single ISO file and then, from the wizard itself, burn the ISO image into a bootable DVD. This may come handy later when you want to repair or reinstall Windows 8 later but have deleted the installer from the disk to free up disk space.
Once the DVD is ready, double-click the Windows Setup shortcut (you’ll find it on your desktop) to run the setup again.
You can either do a clean install and choose “Nothing” or use the “Windows settings, personal files and apps” option to preserve your files as well as programs (recommended). Also, if you choose “Nothing,” your personal files (anything saved inside the User folder and on the desktop) will be moved to a windows.old folder.
Choose the first “Install Now” option and Windows 8 will finish installing itself. Simple!
