MickMel SEO

After about a week in beta, WordPress 2.6.1 has been released.  There aren’t any exciting new features, but it includes over 60 bug fixes.

You can download it here.

(via WPCandy)

Geek Ramblings has posted that WordPress 2.6.1-beta1 has been released, with a variety of minor bug fixes.  In particular, Dougal highlight the following fixes:

• Allow disabling password reset per-user.
• Query functions now allow a comma-separated list of post_status values.
• Several more link generation bits are made SSL-aware.
• Advertise the Atom 1.0 feed in the default theme.
• Atom API uses the newer WP authentication functions.
• Fix for an object caching bug in plugin updates.

None of those really excite me enough to upgrade to the beta version, but I’m certainly looking forward to getting my hands on the final copy of 2.6.1 when it comes out.

I apologize for not posting very much lately.  I’ve been working with a handful of bloggers to try to get their traffic (and revenue) beefed up, and I’ve not had much time for this site lately.  The techniques I’m using are really working quite well, and now I’m opening it up to other people.  I don’t want to try to assist too many people (it takes a personal relationship with each blog), but if you’d like some help with your blog, let me know.  Here’s the simple version of how it works:

1. I manage your blog (WordPress updates, plugins, SEO tweaks, ad placement, etc).
2. You continue to write your blog posts.
3. I get a 25% split of your ad impressions.

To help explain this idea to potential clients, I’ve set up a simple site outlining how it works.  The first question that most people have is: “Wait.  I’m trying to earn more revenue, and I’m not sure I want to give up 25% of my revenue.”  It’s a fair question.  However, my clients (so far) have all been very pleased, as they’ve started earning much more than the 25% that I get.  Here are some stats froma recent client I’ve started helping.

Those are genuine stats from Google Analytics, snipped just a few minutes ago.  Each dot represents one week, leading up to last week.

The beauty of the revenue-sharing is this — you pay nothing.  Nada. $0.00.  Also, because I’m getting a small portion of the ad revenue, you can rest assured that I will work hard to get your blog running as smoothly as possible.

If you’re already WordPress-savvy and doing well, then you certainly don’t need my help.  However, if you’re having problems keeping your site running well, or if traffic just isn’t increasing as quickly as you think it show, shoot me an e-mail and we can chat.

As first revealed on Mobileography, the WordPress app for the iPhone is now available in iTunes!  This is a slick little (free) app that makes it easy to write/edit posts and your WordPress blog.  This works with WordPress.com blogs or any self-hosted blog that is version 2.5.1 or higher.

My only complaint so far is that there are no comment tools in there.  I’m often having to clean up comments on the road, and a better way to do that would be nice.  That being said, this is a superb little app and I’m sure it’ll only get better with time.  Go get it and you’ll see what I mean.

WordPress 2.6 has just been released, and comes with a handful of very nice features.  They include:

• Word count display below Save and Publish buttons
• Theme pagination and a hot live preview feature
• The number of plugin updates available is now shown in the Plugins tab
• Ability to change the location of the wp-config.php file
• Multiple plugin activate/deactivate; improved sorting
• Admin page caching for faster speeds
• Improved galleries
• “Press This” bookmarklet for quick posting from anywhere on the web via your toolbar
• Post revisioning
• Drag-and-drop gallery sorting
• Multiple checkbox selection (on Manage pages) using shift+click

I’m out of town right now, but I’ll update in a few days and let you know what I think.  If you load it on your blog, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

I always thought there were two options for adding an image to a WordPress post:

1. Upload it through the image manager.
2. Enter a URL and “hotlink” it from there.

It turns out there’s a third, as described by wp-fun — upload and crunch directly from the net.  When you click on “choose files to upload”, just paste a URL in that box.  WordPress will pull the image from that URL, crunch it, and upload it to your server!

As an example, take this image from the Digital Earth Blog.  Rather than save it to my hard drive and then upload it to my blog, I can do it in one step.  Voila!

Between that trick and the excellent Fancy Zoom plug-in, you can add a pretty nice image to your post in just a few seconds.

Please note that this trick apparently doesn’t work on Macs, because they don’t have a filepath box.  For the rest of you, enjoy it!

Mickey

I’m not brave enough to try it, but Wordpress 2.6 Beta 1 is now available for those wanting to give it a try.  The new features, according to boren.nu:

• Post Revisioning
• A “Press This” bookmarklet for tumblelog style quick posting
• Caching of static files with Gears for faster Admin page loads
• A new and improved image editing dialog that offers lots of control over the images in your posts
• Theme previewing as seen on WordPress.com
• Built-in word counting in the post editor
• The ability to disable remote publishing for the security conscious
• XML-RPC API for changing blog options
• Better SSL support for the Admin
• Hierarchy-aware paging in the Manage Pages and Manage Categories admin pages.
• The ability to relocate your content directory
• The ability to move wp-config.php out of your web root
• Drag-and-drop sortable galleries
• Customizable default avatars
• Bulk delete, activate, and deactivate for plugins
• Check box range selection with shift-click
• TinyMCE 3.1.0.1 with lots of bug fixes
• jQuery 1.2.6 with some nice performance improvements
• jQuery UI 1.5
• Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements

If you decide to give it a try, leave a comment and let us know what you think of it!

This isn’t a new plug-in, but it’s new to me and I love it!

I recently converted one of my sites from a custom CMS to WordPress mu.  I manually 301 redirected some of the popular pages, but decided to let the rest of them die off.  However, I just installed the Redirection plug-in and I’m cleaning it up like magic!

It automatically logs 404 errors on the site, then lets you turn that 404 into a 301 redirect with a single click.  I point the 404 to the comparable page on the new blog, and things are quickly falling into place.  I should see much less of a traffic drop-off now that I’m using this.

It won’t be a terribly useful plug-in for most blogs, but if you’re converting any site to use WordPress, this is a great way to get things tidied up.

WordPress Expert points out a site running an alpha version of WordPress 2.6.  They also have a short list of new features appearing in WP 2.6, which include:

• Google Gears Support
• Identicons (default Gravatars)
• Wiki-style post revisions
• “Press This”, a meta bookmarklet.  An example is if you’re watching a YouTube video, you can click the bookmarklet have have a new blog post set up with the video already embedded.  Could be pretty cool!

Like most blog software, WordPress will ping a list of services each time you write a post.  I’ve spent the last hour or two refining my list and I think it’s pretty solid. Feel free to use this on your own blog if you’d like.  in WordPress, just go to [settings] and then [writing], and there is a box near the bottom that says “Update Services”.  Just copy and paste this list into there and you’re done!

If you have any other additions that you feel deserve to be on the list (or if you think some should be removed), please leave a comment and let me know.

The list:

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.feedsky.com/ping
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2