O:9:"MagpieRSS":19:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:10:{i:0;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:38:"Turn your commenters into subscribers!";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/xsSwiL8IM28/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3806";s:8:"comments";s:133:"http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comment-email-subscription-form#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:129:"http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comment-email-subscription-formfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"1";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:34:30 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:30:"WordPressEmailWordPress Themes";s:11:"description";s:771:"<p>Only a small percentage of your visitors leave a comment. This group of people is probably also interested in subscribing to your newsletter, if you have one. So I created a method to add a "subscribe to my WordPress newsletter" checkbox to my comment form a couple of weeks ago. The result? 40 new subscribers [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/">Turn your commenters into subscribers!</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:8958:"<p>Only a small percentage of your visitors leave a comment. This group of people is probably also interested in subscribing to your newsletter, if you have one. So I created a method to add a "subscribe to my <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-newsletter/">WordPress newsletter</a>" checkbox to my comment form a couple of weeks ago. The result? 40 new subscribers in less than 2 weeks. That's over 1,000 new subscribers each year if it continues to grow in this fashion.</p>
<p>This isn't for the faint of heart, if you're not a programmer this might be a bit tough to do, but I'll outline how it works:</p>
<h2>Adding a comment meta value</h2>
<p>Using the reasonably new comment_meta API, we're gonna add a piece of data to comments, that stores whether people want to subscribe to the newsletter or not. I did that by adding the following function to my <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>function</span> ymc_add_meta_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>$comment_id</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  add_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span>
    <span>$comment_id</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>$_POST</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>&#93;</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>true</span>
  <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action <span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_post'</span><span>,</span> <span>'ymc_add_meta_settings'</span><span>,</span> <span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Add a checkbox to the comment form</h2>
<p>That wasn't too hard yet right? Next we add the checkbox to the comment form, wherever that is located in your theme, it's just plain (X)HTML:</p>

<div><div><pre><span><span>&lt;input</span> <span>type</span>=<span>&quot;checkbox&quot;</span> <span>name</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span> </span>
<span>  <span>id</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span><span>/&gt;</span></span> 
<span><span>&lt;label</span> <span>for</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span><span>&gt;</span></span>
  Subscribe to Yoast WordPress Newsletter (weekly email)
<span><span>&lt;/label<span>&gt;</span></span></span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Subscribe the commenter</h2>
<p>That's not really rocket science either. The next step is to take this data and work it. What we'll do is use the Mailchimp API to automatically subscribe people, and send them a confirmation email (we still need to make sure they double-opt-in). </p>
<p>First, let's grab the comment:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>function</span> ymc_subscription_add<span>&#40;</span> <span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>$comment</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  <span>$cid</span> <span>=</span> <span>&#40;</span>int<span>&#41;</span> <span>$cid</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
  <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>!</span><span>is_object</span><span>&#40;</span><span>$comment</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span>
    <span>$comment</span> <span>=</span> get_comment<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
  <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_karma</span> <span>==</span> <span>0</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
    <span>// DO WORK</span>
  <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_approved_'</span><span>,</span><span>'ymc_subscription_add'</span><span>,</span><span>10</span><span>,</span><span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_post'</span><span>,</span> <span>'ymc_subscription_add'</span><span>,</span> <span>60</span><span>,</span><span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>The code above makes sure we only do anything with comments that have been approved. So if a comment is approved as spam, it gets ignored. It also makes sure the <code>$comment</code> variable is filled with the comment. Now once we've done this, we're going to check whether the commenter wanted to be subscribed to the newsletter, so within the DO WORK section above, we add this:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>$subscribe</span> <span>=</span> get_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> <span>true</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>$subscribe</span> <span>==</span> <span>'on'</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  <span>// DO WORK</span>
<span>&#125;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>We're checking for "on" because that's how PHP stores a checked checkbox, and this way we can reuse the <code>$subscribe</code> variable later. Once we're sure the commenter wanted to be subscribed, let's get all the data we need to add a subscriber to our mailing list. To do that, we'll need to know:</p>
<ul>
<li>Our <a href="http://admin.mailchimp.com/account/api">Mailchimp API key</a></li>
<li>Our <a href="http://www.mailchimp.com/api/1.3/#overview_description">Mailchimp API endpoint server</a></li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.mailchimp.com/kb/article/how-can-i-find-my-list-id">Mailchimp list ID</a> for the list you want to add the commenter to</li>
</ul>
<p>Once you've got these three, we can create the post request:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>$apikey</span>   <span>=</span> <span>' &lt;your API key&gt; '</span><span>;</span>
<span>$listid</span>   <span>=</span> <span>' &lt;List ID&gt; '</span><span>;</span>
<span>$endpoint</span>   <span>=</span> <span>'http://&lt;your endpoint&gt;.api.mailchimp.com/1.3/?output=php'</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>$request</span>   <span>=</span> <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span>
  <span>'apikey'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$apikey</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'id'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$listid</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'email_address'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>strtolower</span><span>&#40;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author_email</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'double_optin'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>true</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'merge_vars'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span>
    <span>' &lt;merge tag for name&gt; '</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author</span><span>,</span>
    <span>'OPTIN_IP'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author_IP</span><span>,</span>
  <span>&#41;</span>
<span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>$result</span> <span>=</span> wp_remote_post<span>&#40;</span>
  <span>$endpoint</span><span>.</span><span>'&amp;method=listSubscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
  <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span> <span>'body'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> json_encode<span>&#40;</span><span>$request</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> 
<span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>Note: setting double_option to false would forego the sending of an opt-in email, thereby immediately subscribing people to the list. Do not do this as it is illegal in most parts of Europe <em>and</em> in the US to do so. </p>
<p>As you can see, we're using the WP_HTTP wrapper function <code>wp_remote_post</code> to handle the post. At this time I'm not actually doing anything with the result, because I'm a sloppy coder. You should of course check the result and based on that do the following action:</p>

<div><div><pre>update_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
  <span>'subscribed'</span><span>,</span> <span>'on'</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>This will prevent the code from trying to subscribe someone multiple times and overloading the MailChimp API.</p>
<h2>Conclusion: Subscribe those commenters!</h2>
<p>People are interacting with your site already, they're already giving you their email address, have them check that box, and make them subscribe to your list. I personally think it's a great enhancement that would make a lot of people happy. If you're not using Mailchimp but another email provider and are capable to do the same stuff with their API: please post about it, drop a comment here and I'll add a link!</p>
<p><em>Disclosure</em>: Mailchimp sponsors my newsletter and is a regular advertiser on my sites.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/">Turn your commenters into subscribers!</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/xsSwiL8IM28" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:124:"http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comment-email-subscription-form";}s:7:"summary";s:771:"<p>Only a small percentage of your visitors leave a comment. This group of people is probably also interested in subscribing to your newsletter, if you have one. So I created a method to add a "subscribe to my WordPress newsletter" checkbox to my comment form a couple of weeks ago. The result? 40 new subscribers [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/">Turn your commenters into subscribers!</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:8958:"<p>Only a small percentage of your visitors leave a comment. This group of people is probably also interested in subscribing to your newsletter, if you have one. So I created a method to add a "subscribe to my <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-newsletter/">WordPress newsletter</a>" checkbox to my comment form a couple of weeks ago. The result? 40 new subscribers in less than 2 weeks. That's over 1,000 new subscribers each year if it continues to grow in this fashion.</p>
<p>This isn't for the faint of heart, if you're not a programmer this might be a bit tough to do, but I'll outline how it works:</p>
<h2>Adding a comment meta value</h2>
<p>Using the reasonably new comment_meta API, we're gonna add a piece of data to comments, that stores whether people want to subscribe to the newsletter or not. I did that by adding the following function to my <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>function</span> ymc_add_meta_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>$comment_id</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  add_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span>
    <span>$comment_id</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>$_POST</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>&#93;</span><span>,</span> 
    <span>true</span>
  <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action <span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_post'</span><span>,</span> <span>'ymc_add_meta_settings'</span><span>,</span> <span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Add a checkbox to the comment form</h2>
<p>That wasn't too hard yet right? Next we add the checkbox to the comment form, wherever that is located in your theme, it's just plain (X)HTML:</p>

<div><div><pre><span><span>&lt;input</span> <span>type</span>=<span>&quot;checkbox&quot;</span> <span>name</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span> </span>
<span>  <span>id</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span><span>/&gt;</span></span> 
<span><span>&lt;label</span> <span>for</span>=<span>&quot;mailchimp_subscribe&quot;</span><span>&gt;</span></span>
  Subscribe to Yoast WordPress Newsletter (weekly email)
<span><span>&lt;/label<span>&gt;</span></span></span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Subscribe the commenter</h2>
<p>That's not really rocket science either. The next step is to take this data and work it. What we'll do is use the Mailchimp API to automatically subscribe people, and send them a confirmation email (we still need to make sure they double-opt-in). </p>
<p>First, let's grab the comment:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>function</span> ymc_subscription_add<span>&#40;</span> <span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>$comment</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  <span>$cid</span> <span>=</span> <span>&#40;</span>int<span>&#41;</span> <span>$cid</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
  <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>!</span><span>is_object</span><span>&#40;</span><span>$comment</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span>
    <span>$comment</span> <span>=</span> get_comment<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
  <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_karma</span> <span>==</span> <span>0</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
    <span>// DO WORK</span>
  <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_approved_'</span><span>,</span><span>'ymc_subscription_add'</span><span>,</span><span>10</span><span>,</span><span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span><span>'comment_post'</span><span>,</span> <span>'ymc_subscription_add'</span><span>,</span> <span>60</span><span>,</span><span>1</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>The code above makes sure we only do anything with comments that have been approved. So if a comment is approved as spam, it gets ignored. It also makes sure the <code>$comment</code> variable is filled with the comment. Now once we've done this, we're going to check whether the commenter wanted to be subscribed to the newsletter, so within the DO WORK section above, we add this:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>$subscribe</span> <span>=</span> get_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> <span>true</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>$subscribe</span> <span>==</span> <span>'on'</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
  <span>// DO WORK</span>
<span>&#125;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>We're checking for "on" because that's how PHP stores a checked checkbox, and this way we can reuse the <code>$subscribe</code> variable later. Once we're sure the commenter wanted to be subscribed, let's get all the data we need to add a subscriber to our mailing list. To do that, we'll need to know:</p>
<ul>
<li>Our <a href="http://admin.mailchimp.com/account/api">Mailchimp API key</a></li>
<li>Our <a href="http://www.mailchimp.com/api/1.3/#overview_description">Mailchimp API endpoint server</a></li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.mailchimp.com/kb/article/how-can-i-find-my-list-id">Mailchimp list ID</a> for the list you want to add the commenter to</li>
</ul>
<p>Once you've got these three, we can create the post request:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>$apikey</span>   <span>=</span> <span>' &lt;your API key&gt; '</span><span>;</span>
<span>$listid</span>   <span>=</span> <span>' &lt;List ID&gt; '</span><span>;</span>
<span>$endpoint</span>   <span>=</span> <span>'http://&lt;your endpoint&gt;.api.mailchimp.com/1.3/?output=php'</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>$request</span>   <span>=</span> <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span>
  <span>'apikey'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$apikey</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'id'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$listid</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'email_address'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>strtolower</span><span>&#40;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author_email</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'double_optin'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>true</span><span>,</span>
  <span>'merge_vars'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span>
    <span>' &lt;merge tag for name&gt; '</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author</span><span>,</span>
    <span>'OPTIN_IP'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> <span>$comment</span><span>-&gt;</span><span>comment_author_IP</span><span>,</span>
  <span>&#41;</span>
<span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
<span>$result</span> <span>=</span> wp_remote_post<span>&#40;</span>
  <span>$endpoint</span><span>.</span><span>'&amp;method=listSubscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
  <span>array</span><span>&#40;</span> <span>'body'</span> <span>=&gt;</span> json_encode<span>&#40;</span><span>$request</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> 
<span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>Note: setting double_option to false would forego the sending of an opt-in email, thereby immediately subscribing people to the list. Do not do this as it is illegal in most parts of Europe <em>and</em> in the US to do so. </p>
<p>As you can see, we're using the WP_HTTP wrapper function <code>wp_remote_post</code> to handle the post. At this time I'm not actually doing anything with the result, because I'm a sloppy coder. You should of course check the result and based on that do the following action:</p>

<div><div><pre>update_comment_meta<span>&#40;</span><span>$cid</span><span>,</span> <span>'mailchimp_subscribe'</span><span>,</span> 
  <span>'subscribed'</span><span>,</span> <span>'on'</span><span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>This will prevent the code from trying to subscribe someone multiple times and overloading the MailChimp API.</p>
<h2>Conclusion: Subscribe those commenters!</h2>
<p>People are interacting with your site already, they're already giving you their email address, have them check that box, and make them subscribe to your list. I personally think it's a great enhancement that would make a lot of people happy. If you're not using Mailchimp but another email provider and are capable to do the same stuff with their API: please post about it, drop a comment here and I'll add a link!</p>
<p><em>Disclosure</em>: Mailchimp sponsors my newsletter and is a regular advertiser on my sites.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/comment-email-subscription-form/">Turn your commenters into subscribers!</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/xsSwiL8IM28" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:1;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:39:"How To Grow The Engagement On Your Blog";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/FhW_QwGTRZA/";s:4:"guid";s:30:"http://wp-community.org/?p=851";s:8:"comments";s:60:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/31/blog-engagement/#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:56:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/31/blog-engagement/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"5";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:46:20 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:16:"Frederick Townes";}s:8:"category";s:7:"Podcast";s:11:"description";s:326:"This week we decided to dedicate the entire show to helping you bootstrap your blog! Just because something is free doesn’t mean people are going to want it, so we delve into some of the top tactics and tools for &#8230; <a href="http://wp-community.org/2011/01/31/blog-engagement/">Continue reading <span>&#8594;</span></a>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3770:"<p>This week we decided to dedicate the entire show to helping you bootstrap your blog! Just because something is free doesn’t mean people are going to want it, so we delve into some of the top tactics and tools for drawing in those readers, and get to the bottom of what <em>really</em> matters.</p><p>The big issues:</p><ol><li>How to boost subscribers to your blog</li><li>How to increase the number of comments on your posts</li><li>How to turn your blog into a real community</li></ol><ul><li>Who do we recognise as <em>subscribers</em>? There is a huge array of subscribers, from those that use RSS feeds, to newsletter subscribers, commenters, regular site visitors, and not least those who ‘like’ your Facebook fan page or follow your brand profile.</li><li>Two vital ways of pulling return visitors to your site: RSS and email</li><li>In terms of cultivating subscribers and followers to your content, what are the key steps you need to go through?</li><li>We talk about how your blog post could act like as forum for great discussions by making the most of threaded comments.</li><li>Facebook plugins: The pros and cons of using plugins such as <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/">Disqus</a>, <a href="http://intensedebate.com/wordpress">Intense Debate</a> &amp; <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments-for-wordpress/">Facebook Comments</a>. We analyse the SEO issues they come with and debate their value in terms of providing leverage for your blog.</li><li>So, what are the high profile bloggers doing? We debate the increasingly popular <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lightbox-2/">Lightbox</a> popups, and plugins such as <a href="http://www.popupdomination.com/?hop%3Dhishaman">Popup Domination</a>. Do they add value?</li><li>To grow your reach and subscribers you should be commenting elsewhere too. We talk through how, where and why you should be doing so.</li><li>Create evergreen content with great comments! We get to the bottom of how to master producing content like this and reap all the benefits.</li><li>If you are not so hot with creating great content, there are some useful tools you can use to pull in the subscribers</li><li>Once you have built momentum and amassed a handful of subscribers, what are the next steps and how can you make money?</li><li>WordPress 3.1 is around the corner, but what should you be looking out for? Check out all the updates on <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.1">codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.1</a></li></ul><p>We want to hear your ideas on what topics you would like us to talk about, and which guests you would love to hear from! Leave a comment with your suggestions below.</p><p>Useful links:</p><ul><li>Great blog post by Rand Fishkin on seomoz.org &#8211; <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/recommendations-blog-commenting-marketing-strategy">Recommendations For Blog Commenting As  A Marketing strategy</a></li><li>Yoast.com – Joost de Valk’s <a href="http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/">WordPress SEO post</a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Bazaar-Musings-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/1565927249">The Cathedral and the Bazaar</a> – an interesting read if you have some time to kill</li><li>This is a true example of evergreen content. A top notch post written by Avinash Kaushik – <a href="http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/11/blog-metrics-six-recommendations-for-measuring-your-success.html">Blog Metrics, 6 Recommendations For Measuring Your Success</a>.</li><li>Check out <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/">W3 Total Cache</a> by Frederick Townes</li></ul><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/FhW_QwGTRZA" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:2:{s:8:"origlink";s:51:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/31/blog-engagement/";s:17:"origenclosurelink";s:133:"http://media.blubrry.com/wordpresspodcast/media.rawvoice.com/seorockstars/www2.webmasterradio.fm/mp3/wordpresspodcast/11/WP012611.mp3";}s:7:"summary";s:326:"This week we decided to dedicate the entire show to helping you bootstrap your blog! Just because something is free doesn’t mean people are going to want it, so we delve into some of the top tactics and tools for &#8230; <a href="http://wp-community.org/2011/01/31/blog-engagement/">Continue reading <span>&#8594;</span></a>";s:12:"atom_content";s:3770:"<p>This week we decided to dedicate the entire show to helping you bootstrap your blog! Just because something is free doesn’t mean people are going to want it, so we delve into some of the top tactics and tools for drawing in those readers, and get to the bottom of what <em>really</em> matters.</p><p>The big issues:</p><ol><li>How to boost subscribers to your blog</li><li>How to increase the number of comments on your posts</li><li>How to turn your blog into a real community</li></ol><ul><li>Who do we recognise as <em>subscribers</em>? There is a huge array of subscribers, from those that use RSS feeds, to newsletter subscribers, commenters, regular site visitors, and not least those who ‘like’ your Facebook fan page or follow your brand profile.</li><li>Two vital ways of pulling return visitors to your site: RSS and email</li><li>In terms of cultivating subscribers and followers to your content, what are the key steps you need to go through?</li><li>We talk about how your blog post could act like as forum for great discussions by making the most of threaded comments.</li><li>Facebook plugins: The pros and cons of using plugins such as <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/">Disqus</a>, <a href="http://intensedebate.com/wordpress">Intense Debate</a> &amp; <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments-for-wordpress/">Facebook Comments</a>. We analyse the SEO issues they come with and debate their value in terms of providing leverage for your blog.</li><li>So, what are the high profile bloggers doing? We debate the increasingly popular <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lightbox-2/">Lightbox</a> popups, and plugins such as <a href="http://www.popupdomination.com/?hop%3Dhishaman">Popup Domination</a>. Do they add value?</li><li>To grow your reach and subscribers you should be commenting elsewhere too. We talk through how, where and why you should be doing so.</li><li>Create evergreen content with great comments! We get to the bottom of how to master producing content like this and reap all the benefits.</li><li>If you are not so hot with creating great content, there are some useful tools you can use to pull in the subscribers</li><li>Once you have built momentum and amassed a handful of subscribers, what are the next steps and how can you make money?</li><li>WordPress 3.1 is around the corner, but what should you be looking out for? Check out all the updates on <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.1">codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.1</a></li></ul><p>We want to hear your ideas on what topics you would like us to talk about, and which guests you would love to hear from! Leave a comment with your suggestions below.</p><p>Useful links:</p><ul><li>Great blog post by Rand Fishkin on seomoz.org &#8211; <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/recommendations-blog-commenting-marketing-strategy">Recommendations For Blog Commenting As  A Marketing strategy</a></li><li>Yoast.com – Joost de Valk’s <a href="http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/">WordPress SEO post</a></li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cathedral-Bazaar-Musings-Accidental-Revolutionary/dp/1565927249">The Cathedral and the Bazaar</a> – an interesting read if you have some time to kill</li><li>This is a true example of evergreen content. A top notch post written by Avinash Kaushik – <a href="http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/11/blog-metrics-six-recommendations-for-measuring-your-success.html">Blog Metrics, 6 Recommendations For Measuring Your Success</a>.</li><li>Check out <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/">W3 Total Cache</a> by Frederick Townes</li></ul><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/FhW_QwGTRZA" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:2;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:40:"Video: Making sure your content is found";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/pfjZdlcaGFs/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3800";s:8:"comments";s:149:"http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=video-making-sure-your-content-is-found#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:145:"http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=video-making-sure-your-content-is-foundfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"1";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:14:13 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:44:"SEOConferencesVideoWordCampWordPress Plugins";s:11:"description";s:766:"<p>So as you might now, I was in Sofia in October 2010 for WordCamp Bulgaria, last week the presentation I gave there was put on WordPress.tv, so now all of you can enjoy it. It covers SEO and how being remarkable is important for proper SEO. The presentation is titled: Making sure your content is [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">Video: Making sure your content is found</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:1221:"<p>So as you might now, I was in Sofia in October 2010 for <a href="http://yoast.com/wordcamp-bulgaria-my-presentation-more/">WordCamp Bulgaria</a>, last week the presentation I gave there was <a href="http://wordpress.tv/2010/10/02/joost-de-valk-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">put on WordPress.tv</a>, so now all of you can enjoy it. It covers SEO and how being remarkable is important for proper SEO. The presentation is titled: Making sure your content is found! Check it out:</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/"><em>Click here to view the embedded video.</em></a></p>
<p>And you might want to have the slides as well: </p>

<p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">Video: Making sure your content is found</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/pfjZdlcaGFs" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:140:"http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=video-making-sure-your-content-is-found";}s:7:"summary";s:766:"<p>So as you might now, I was in Sofia in October 2010 for WordCamp Bulgaria, last week the presentation I gave there was put on WordPress.tv, so now all of you can enjoy it. It covers SEO and how being remarkable is important for proper SEO. The presentation is titled: Making sure your content is [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">Video: Making sure your content is found</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:1221:"<p>So as you might now, I was in Sofia in October 2010 for <a href="http://yoast.com/wordcamp-bulgaria-my-presentation-more/">WordCamp Bulgaria</a>, last week the presentation I gave there was <a href="http://wordpress.tv/2010/10/02/joost-de-valk-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">put on WordPress.tv</a>, so now all of you can enjoy it. It covers SEO and how being remarkable is important for proper SEO. The presentation is titled: Making sure your content is found! Check it out:</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/"><em>Click here to view the embedded video.</em></a></p>
<p>And you might want to have the slides as well: </p>

<p><a href="http://yoast.com/video-making-sure-your-content-is-found/">Video: Making sure your content is found</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/pfjZdlcaGFs" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:3;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:43:"SEO Royale: conference + party in Amsterdam";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/eb8eCpZMt0k/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3787";s:8:"comments";s:91:"http://yoast.com/seo-royale/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seo-royale#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:87:"http://yoast.com/seo-royale/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seo-royalefeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"9";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:35:38 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:27:"SEOConferencesseoktoberfest";s:11:"description";s:758:"<p>There's nothing like a small conference and party with a bunch of SEO rockstars, with so few people around that you'll get the chance to really go in-depth on your topic. I've learned this myself while attending the fabulous SEOktoberfest, by far the most valuable conference I go to each year. It's small and has [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/seo-royale/">SEO Royale: conference + party in Amsterdam</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:2824:"<p><a href="http://seoroyale.com"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-3788" title="SEO Royale" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/seo-royale.png" alt="SEO Royale" width="254" height="254" /></a>There's nothing like a small conference and party with a bunch of SEO rockstars, with so few people around that you'll get the chance to really go in-depth on your topic. I've learned this myself while attending the fabulous SEOktoberfest, by far the most valuable conference I go to each year. It's small and has only a few spots, exactly the kind of intimacy that gets the top dog SEO's and online marketers to give out their latest and best tricks.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.chapter42.com/">Roy</a>, <a href="http://www.merchandise.nl/">Richard</a> &amp; his wife <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/sharon1971">Sharon</a> and myself decided it was time to do something together, and get a good SEO conference going in Holland, we looked at that model and decided that we'd be sincere in our flattery and copy them. We've got a few assets of our own: the conference will be held in Amsterdam, one of the best party cities in the world, during <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninginnedag">Koninginnedag</a>, the best party in that city, held in honor of our queen.</p>
<p>We've also attracted some top dog speakers. So far, we've got a few names:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/aussiewebmaster">Frank Watson</a>, aka Aussiewebmaster, forum editor at SearchEngineWatch and one of the original PPC experts.</li>
<li><a href="http://mediadonis.net">Marcus Tandler</a>, aka Mediadonis, German super affiliate and all round online marketing hero.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.youcanjustcallmebob.com/">Bob Rains</a>, what to say about Bob... He worked in high-profile leadership roles for Everest Poker, Betfair, Karmaloop.com, PUMA, and many other top-tier organizations, and is a global super affiliate.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thenextcorner.com">Dennis Goedegebuure</a>, the Director of SEO at eBay.</li>
<li>Me and my buddy Roy will speak as well, but we'll be joined by a couple more industry luminaries, names to follow soon :)</li>
</ul>
<p>Want more info or can't wait to sign up? Go to the site, <a href="http://seoroyale.com/">seoroyale.com</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/seo-royale/">SEO Royale: conference + party in Amsterdam</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/eb8eCpZMt0k" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:82:"http://yoast.com/seo-royale/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seo-royale";}s:7:"summary";s:758:"<p>There's nothing like a small conference and party with a bunch of SEO rockstars, with so few people around that you'll get the chance to really go in-depth on your topic. I've learned this myself while attending the fabulous SEOktoberfest, by far the most valuable conference I go to each year. It's small and has [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/seo-royale/">SEO Royale: conference + party in Amsterdam</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:2824:"<p><a href="http://seoroyale.com"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-3788" title="SEO Royale" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/seo-royale.png" alt="SEO Royale" width="254" height="254" /></a>There's nothing like a small conference and party with a bunch of SEO rockstars, with so few people around that you'll get the chance to really go in-depth on your topic. I've learned this myself while attending the fabulous SEOktoberfest, by far the most valuable conference I go to each year. It's small and has only a few spots, exactly the kind of intimacy that gets the top dog SEO's and online marketers to give out their latest and best tricks.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.chapter42.com/">Roy</a>, <a href="http://www.merchandise.nl/">Richard</a> &amp; his wife <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/sharon1971">Sharon</a> and myself decided it was time to do something together, and get a good SEO conference going in Holland, we looked at that model and decided that we'd be sincere in our flattery and copy them. We've got a few assets of our own: the conference will be held in Amsterdam, one of the best party cities in the world, during <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koninginnedag">Koninginnedag</a>, the best party in that city, held in honor of our queen.</p>
<p>We've also attracted some top dog speakers. So far, we've got a few names:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/aussiewebmaster">Frank Watson</a>, aka Aussiewebmaster, forum editor at SearchEngineWatch and one of the original PPC experts.</li>
<li><a href="http://mediadonis.net">Marcus Tandler</a>, aka Mediadonis, German super affiliate and all round online marketing hero.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.youcanjustcallmebob.com/">Bob Rains</a>, what to say about Bob... He worked in high-profile leadership roles for Everest Poker, Betfair, Karmaloop.com, PUMA, and many other top-tier organizations, and is a global super affiliate.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thenextcorner.com">Dennis Goedegebuure</a>, the Director of SEO at eBay.</li>
<li>Me and my buddy Roy will speak as well, but we'll be joined by a couple more industry luminaries, names to follow soon :)</li>
</ul>
<p>Want more info or can't wait to sign up? Go to the site, <a href="http://seoroyale.com/">seoroyale.com</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/seo-royale/">SEO Royale: conference + party in Amsterdam</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/eb8eCpZMt0k" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:4;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:47:"Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/qyxtS-2c7Dk/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3761";s:8:"comments";s:115:"http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=online-marketing-tools#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:111:"http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=online-marketing-toolsfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"40";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:01:12 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:9:"WordPress";s:11:"description";s:749:"<p>I recently gave a presentation at the Bol.com partner event about tools I use every day for my online marketing campaigns and site analyses, and I thought it’d be cool to share them with you in a post as well, even though for some of you this list might be a bit basic. Google Analytics [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/">Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:16921:"<p>I recently gave a presentation at the <a href="http://www.bol.com/nl/m/service/mini-partnerevent2011/index.html">Bol.com partner event</a> about tools I use every day for my online marketing campaigns and <a href="http://yoast.com/hire-me/site-analysis/">site analyses</a>, and I thought it’d be cool to share them with you in a post as well, even though for some of you this list might be a bit basic.</p>
<h2>Google Analytics</h2>
<p>The heart of many a search engine optimization/search engine marketing campaign is <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics">Google Analytics</a>, used to track the clicks on your website and track the impact of the things you change over time.  For example, you can use it to track the efficacy of advertisements, email blasts, and SEO campaigns.</p>
<p>Installing Google Analytics on your site just requires you to put the Google tracking code on every page of your site.  If you use a CMS like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress to create your site, you should find this easy to do using one of the freely available extensions, of course I authored <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/">the one for WordPress</a>.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Analytics" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/googleanalytics.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/googleanalytics-300x141.png" alt="" title="googleanalytics" width="300" height="141" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3768" /></a></p>
<h2>Sitescan GA</h2>
<p><a href="http://sitescanga.com/">SitescanGA</a>, a tool that analyzes Google Analytics installation on your servers, can be very helpful in ensuring you’ve got all the right code on all the right pages.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="SiteScan GA" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sitescan-ga.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sitescan-ga-300x241.png" alt="" title="sitescan-ga" width="300" height="241" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3772" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger</h2>
<p>If you're going a bit more advanced with your Google Analytics tracking, the <a href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna">tracking code debugger</a> extension for Chrome is very helpful as it allows you to see just what Google Analytics tracks for the current page.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Google-Analytics-Tracking-Code-Debugger-Google-Chrome-extension-gallery.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Google-Analytics-Tracking-Code-Debugger-Google-Chrome-extension-gallery-300x261.png" alt="" title="Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger - Google Chrome extension gallery" width="300" height="261" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3776" /></a></p>
<h2>GetClicky</h2>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/out/clicky/">Get Clicky</a> is another great tool for analyzing the traffic on your site, especially if you're one of those people wearing a tinfoil hat that don't want to use Google Analytics. It's got one nifty feature that GA doesn't have: you can watch users navigate your site in real time.  This means you can see what pages they land on, what they click on, one they download, when they leave. Using the Spy tool you can even follow a given IP address through your site in real time to see what information on your site is attractive to people, and what information they never seem to look at.</p>
<p>Tip: There’s a free <a href="http://yoast.com/clicky-tracking-wordpress/">WordPress plugin for Clicky</a> that makes it easy to install on every page, authored by yours truly.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="GetClicky" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/getclicky.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/getclicky-300x173.png" alt="" title="getclicky" width="300" height="173" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3765" /></a></p>
<h2>Clicktale</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.clicktale.com/">Clicktale </a> goes a bit further than Google Analytics or Clicky: it will actually record your customers surf and then allow you to watch video’s of them surfing on your site. It can show you where your customers click on your page using colors to highlight click activity.  This kind of visual analysis is critical for identifying “hot spots” and “cold spots” for a given web page, and for comparing web page designs.</p>
<p>Most of us know that the upper left corner of the screen is better than the lower right corner of the screen, and that what’s most important about your site should often be in the top half of the page, but every web design has its “flaws”.  You may love the big graphic of a tarantula on your hope page, but Clicktale will prove to you that the second many people see it they click the back button. It will also show you when a particularly good graphic or piece of copy has earned an even better position on the page than it has.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Clicktale" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Heatmaps-Visitor-Movies-Web-Analytics-Customer-Experience-Analytics-by-ClickTale.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Heatmaps-Visitor-Movies-Web-Analytics-Customer-Experience-Analytics-by-ClickTale-300x231.png" alt="" title="Heatmaps, Visitor Movies, Web Analytics | Customer Experience Analytics by ClickTale" width="300" height="231" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3773" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Website Optimizer</h2>
<p>On a related note, Google provides a great tool for testing multiple versions of a page quickly: <a href="http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer">Google Website Optimizer</a>.  Using it, you can create two versions of a landing page and then use this tool to present both to customers for a period of time.  You’ll then be able to see which page pulls more clicks and which one closes more sales.  You do have to add codes to your pages for Google to monitor, but the process is quick. You can actually test several pages simultaneously, and you can generate reports which you can provide to others that communicate what the testing has demonstrated.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Website Optimizer" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Website-Optimizer.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Website-Optimizer-300x268.png" alt="" title="Website Optimizer" width="300" height="268" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3780" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Webmaster Tools</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl%3Den">Google Webmaster Tools</a> has many useful utilities for analyzing and evaluating your site’s performance, and it’s still under utilized by people all over the web. For example, the Crawler Access tool will ensure your robots.txt file is correctly configured to ensure only the pages you want indexed by Google appear in searches.</p>
<p>There are webmaster tools that will assist you in making a smooth transition of content and traffic from one domain name to another, tracking incoming links to your site, seeking out and destroying Malware, and in assessing the speed of page loads on a site.</p>
<p>Fetch as Googlebot is one of my most loved features, as it allows you to fetch a page exactly the way Googlebot would, and shows if there are any issues that prevent Googlebot from accessing your content.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Webmaster Tools" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Webmaster-Tools-Dashboard.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Webmaster-Tools-Dashboard-300x233.png" alt="" title="Webmaster Tools - Dashboard" width="300" height="233" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3779" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Cache (Text Only Version)</h2>
<p>Another way to see your site as Google sees it is to Search for your page then click the Cache link next to your search index listing.  This will show you a hopefully recent version previous version of your page. Click the Text-Only link, in the upper right corner of your page, to see the text on your page as Google sees it.  In indexing your site, google looks for keywords in the domain name, in the Title tag, in the Heading (H1, H2, H3...) tags, etc.</p>
<p>If your website is supposed to sell Motorcycles, but all the keywords are Sales, Training and Special Offers, Google won’t be sending you much traffic. Or if your content is buried beneath 10 paragraphs of bullshit about other stuff, it's not helping either.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Cache (Text Only Version)" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/yoast.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/yoast-300x223.png" alt="" title="yoast" width="300" height="223" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3771" /></a></p>
<h2>Wirify</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.volkside.com/2010/12/introducing-wirify-the-web-as-wireframes/">Wirify</a> gives you another way too see the relationship between text and graphics on a page.  This is handy when you are looking at complex pages and you want to see the relationship between the number of graphics and the amount of text on a site, and you want to see where these elements appear respective to one another in a schematic. Or if you just want to use the layout of another site to inspire you for your own site.</p>
<p>To use this tool, just visit the Wirify page, drag the  Wirify by Volkside link onto your bookmark toolbar. Visit any page and click the link to see a wireframe version of your site.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Wirify" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wirify.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wirify-300x206.png" alt="" title="wirify" width="300" height="206" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3770" /></a></p>
<h2>Open Site Explorer</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/">Open Site Explorer</a> lets you see all the people who link to your site. Incoming links from other relevant and well linked websites are critical for ensuring that your page will rank well in Google listings.  This tool is also useful for seeing who links to your competitors, which may give you new people to contact in your link building campaign.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Open Site Explorer" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/opensiteexplorer.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/opensiteexplorer-300x208.png" alt="" title="opensiteexplorer" width="300" height="208" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3769" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Insights for Search</h2>
<p>Some search terms are just better than others, and search term value changes over time.  <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/">Google Insights for Search</a> lets you rank keywords against one another and lets you see their performance over time.  The best thing, from a marketing perspective, it to have a website that sits on a keyword which is starting a meteoric rise.  For example, if you are the only cell phone accessory store with content about the iPhone the week the iPhone is announced, and your site is equipped to close sales, you’ll likely draw a lot of traffic and sell a lot of product.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Insights for Search" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-insights-for-search.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-insights-for-search-300x191.png" alt="" title="google-insights-for-search" width="300" height="191" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3767" /></a></p>
<h2>Google AdWords Keyword Tool</h2>
<p>Another critical solution for evaluating the usefulness of keywords is to examine the with <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal">Google Adwords Keyword Tool</a>.  You input a series of search terms and Google tells you how many people searched for those terms, and searched for related terms, both globally and locally.  Click on the headings at the top of the table to sort by keyword, number of searches or competition. Competition is a measurement of how many people are actively marketing on that term through Google Adwords. This gives you some idea of how hard it may be to rank for the term.</p>
<p>Be sure to play around with exact match and phrase match features here, as it might increase / decrease the search volume incredibly.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google AdWords Keyword Tool" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-adwords-keyword-search.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-adwords-keyword-search-300x180.png" alt="" title="google-adwords-keyword-search" width="300" height="180" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3766" /></a></p>
<h2>BrowserShots</h2>
<p>As time goes by the number of browsers people use to surf the Internet increases.  Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera . . . and for every browser a dozen or more versions.  <a href="http://www.browsershots.org/">BrowserShots </a> makes it easy to see how your page looks to all these browser, thus highlighting any issues that may make the site unusable. This free service can take up to an hour to load images for a selected website, but for a low monthly fee you can get priority processing.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="BrowserShots" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/browsershots.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/browsershots-297x300.png" alt="" title="browsershots" width="297" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3774" /></a></p>
<h2>Contrast Ratio Calculators</h2>
<p>For anyone who creates websites that must support people with disabilities, Contrast Ratio Calculators are critical.  They allow you to check colors, and indeed whole pages, for conformance with international standards.  One such test is the <a href="http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html">AccessKeys Color Report</a>. It will provide short reports which are handy for quick tests, and it will provide a tag by tag detailed report as well.</p>
<p>Remember when choosing colors for your website that a pretty big percentages of men around the world are at least partly color blind. Having good contrasting colors in your design is important for them.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Contrast Ratio Calculators" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/accesscolor.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/accesscolor-300x209.png" alt="" title="accesscolor" width="300" height="209" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3763" /></a></p>
<h2>Quix</h2>
<p><a href="http://quixapp.com/">Quix</a> is an extensible bookmarklet, developed by yours truly, that allows you to easily access all your bookmarks and bookmarklets, across all your browsers, while maintaining them in only one spot. All you have to do is remember the shortcut for the bookmarklet.  Basically it is a command line for your browser.  So you can type bitly, and bring up a tool to shorten with bit.ly, etc.  If, like most developers, you have fifty browser-based analysis and editing tools you used every day, Quix will save you many clicks and key strokes.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Quix" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Quix-Your-Bookmarklets-On-Steroids.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Quix-Your-Bookmarklets-On-Steroids-300x243.png" alt="" title="Quix - Your Bookmarklets, On Steroids" width="300" height="243" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3775" /></a></p>
<h2>Share <em>Your</em> Tools!</h2>
<p>The web is always coming up with new tools, new techniques and new utilities, but this list provides a quick overview of things I use and refer people to regularly. I hope it proves useful to you going forward. Please do share the tools you use in the comments, so other people here can benefit!</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/">Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/qyxtS-2c7Dk" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:106:"http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=online-marketing-tools";}s:7:"summary";s:749:"<p>I recently gave a presentation at the Bol.com partner event about tools I use every day for my online marketing campaigns and site analyses, and I thought it’d be cool to share them with you in a post as well, even though for some of you this list might be a bit basic. Google Analytics [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/">Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:16921:"<p>I recently gave a presentation at the <a href="http://www.bol.com/nl/m/service/mini-partnerevent2011/index.html">Bol.com partner event</a> about tools I use every day for my online marketing campaigns and <a href="http://yoast.com/hire-me/site-analysis/">site analyses</a>, and I thought it’d be cool to share them with you in a post as well, even though for some of you this list might be a bit basic.</p>
<h2>Google Analytics</h2>
<p>The heart of many a search engine optimization/search engine marketing campaign is <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics">Google Analytics</a>, used to track the clicks on your website and track the impact of the things you change over time.  For example, you can use it to track the efficacy of advertisements, email blasts, and SEO campaigns.</p>
<p>Installing Google Analytics on your site just requires you to put the Google tracking code on every page of your site.  If you use a CMS like Joomla, Drupal or WordPress to create your site, you should find this easy to do using one of the freely available extensions, of course I authored <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress/google-analytics/">the one for WordPress</a>.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Analytics" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/googleanalytics.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/googleanalytics-300x141.png" alt="" title="googleanalytics" width="300" height="141" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3768" /></a></p>
<h2>Sitescan GA</h2>
<p><a href="http://sitescanga.com/">SitescanGA</a>, a tool that analyzes Google Analytics installation on your servers, can be very helpful in ensuring you’ve got all the right code on all the right pages.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="SiteScan GA" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sitescan-ga.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/sitescan-ga-300x241.png" alt="" title="sitescan-ga" width="300" height="241" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3772" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger</h2>
<p>If you're going a bit more advanced with your Google Analytics tracking, the <a href="https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jnkmfdileelhofjcijamephohjechhna">tracking code debugger</a> extension for Chrome is very helpful as it allows you to see just what Google Analytics tracks for the current page.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Google-Analytics-Tracking-Code-Debugger-Google-Chrome-extension-gallery.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Google-Analytics-Tracking-Code-Debugger-Google-Chrome-extension-gallery-300x261.png" alt="" title="Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger - Google Chrome extension gallery" width="300" height="261" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3776" /></a></p>
<h2>GetClicky</h2>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/out/clicky/">Get Clicky</a> is another great tool for analyzing the traffic on your site, especially if you're one of those people wearing a tinfoil hat that don't want to use Google Analytics. It's got one nifty feature that GA doesn't have: you can watch users navigate your site in real time.  This means you can see what pages they land on, what they click on, one they download, when they leave. Using the Spy tool you can even follow a given IP address through your site in real time to see what information on your site is attractive to people, and what information they never seem to look at.</p>
<p>Tip: There’s a free <a href="http://yoast.com/clicky-tracking-wordpress/">WordPress plugin for Clicky</a> that makes it easy to install on every page, authored by yours truly.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="GetClicky" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/getclicky.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/getclicky-300x173.png" alt="" title="getclicky" width="300" height="173" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3765" /></a></p>
<h2>Clicktale</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.clicktale.com/">Clicktale </a> goes a bit further than Google Analytics or Clicky: it will actually record your customers surf and then allow you to watch video’s of them surfing on your site. It can show you where your customers click on your page using colors to highlight click activity.  This kind of visual analysis is critical for identifying “hot spots” and “cold spots” for a given web page, and for comparing web page designs.</p>
<p>Most of us know that the upper left corner of the screen is better than the lower right corner of the screen, and that what’s most important about your site should often be in the top half of the page, but every web design has its “flaws”.  You may love the big graphic of a tarantula on your hope page, but Clicktale will prove to you that the second many people see it they click the back button. It will also show you when a particularly good graphic or piece of copy has earned an even better position on the page than it has.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Clicktale" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Heatmaps-Visitor-Movies-Web-Analytics-Customer-Experience-Analytics-by-ClickTale.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Heatmaps-Visitor-Movies-Web-Analytics-Customer-Experience-Analytics-by-ClickTale-300x231.png" alt="" title="Heatmaps, Visitor Movies, Web Analytics | Customer Experience Analytics by ClickTale" width="300" height="231" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3773" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Website Optimizer</h2>
<p>On a related note, Google provides a great tool for testing multiple versions of a page quickly: <a href="http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer">Google Website Optimizer</a>.  Using it, you can create two versions of a landing page and then use this tool to present both to customers for a period of time.  You’ll then be able to see which page pulls more clicks and which one closes more sales.  You do have to add codes to your pages for Google to monitor, but the process is quick. You can actually test several pages simultaneously, and you can generate reports which you can provide to others that communicate what the testing has demonstrated.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Website Optimizer" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Website-Optimizer.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Website-Optimizer-300x268.png" alt="" title="Website Optimizer" width="300" height="268" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3780" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Webmaster Tools</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl%3Den">Google Webmaster Tools</a> has many useful utilities for analyzing and evaluating your site’s performance, and it’s still under utilized by people all over the web. For example, the Crawler Access tool will ensure your robots.txt file is correctly configured to ensure only the pages you want indexed by Google appear in searches.</p>
<p>There are webmaster tools that will assist you in making a smooth transition of content and traffic from one domain name to another, tracking incoming links to your site, seeking out and destroying Malware, and in assessing the speed of page loads on a site.</p>
<p>Fetch as Googlebot is one of my most loved features, as it allows you to fetch a page exactly the way Googlebot would, and shows if there are any issues that prevent Googlebot from accessing your content.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Webmaster Tools" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Webmaster-Tools-Dashboard.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Webmaster-Tools-Dashboard-300x233.png" alt="" title="Webmaster Tools - Dashboard" width="300" height="233" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3779" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Cache (Text Only Version)</h2>
<p>Another way to see your site as Google sees it is to Search for your page then click the Cache link next to your search index listing.  This will show you a hopefully recent version previous version of your page. Click the Text-Only link, in the upper right corner of your page, to see the text on your page as Google sees it.  In indexing your site, google looks for keywords in the domain name, in the Title tag, in the Heading (H1, H2, H3...) tags, etc.</p>
<p>If your website is supposed to sell Motorcycles, but all the keywords are Sales, Training and Special Offers, Google won’t be sending you much traffic. Or if your content is buried beneath 10 paragraphs of bullshit about other stuff, it's not helping either.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Cache (Text Only Version)" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/yoast.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/yoast-300x223.png" alt="" title="yoast" width="300" height="223" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3771" /></a></p>
<h2>Wirify</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.volkside.com/2010/12/introducing-wirify-the-web-as-wireframes/">Wirify</a> gives you another way too see the relationship between text and graphics on a page.  This is handy when you are looking at complex pages and you want to see the relationship between the number of graphics and the amount of text on a site, and you want to see where these elements appear respective to one another in a schematic. Or if you just want to use the layout of another site to inspire you for your own site.</p>
<p>To use this tool, just visit the Wirify page, drag the  Wirify by Volkside link onto your bookmark toolbar. Visit any page and click the link to see a wireframe version of your site.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Wirify" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wirify.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wirify-300x206.png" alt="" title="wirify" width="300" height="206" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3770" /></a></p>
<h2>Open Site Explorer</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/">Open Site Explorer</a> lets you see all the people who link to your site. Incoming links from other relevant and well linked websites are critical for ensuring that your page will rank well in Google listings.  This tool is also useful for seeing who links to your competitors, which may give you new people to contact in your link building campaign.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Open Site Explorer" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/opensiteexplorer.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/opensiteexplorer-300x208.png" alt="" title="opensiteexplorer" width="300" height="208" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3769" /></a></p>
<h2>Google Insights for Search</h2>
<p>Some search terms are just better than others, and search term value changes over time.  <a href="http://www.google.com/insights/search/">Google Insights for Search</a> lets you rank keywords against one another and lets you see their performance over time.  The best thing, from a marketing perspective, it to have a website that sits on a keyword which is starting a meteoric rise.  For example, if you are the only cell phone accessory store with content about the iPhone the week the iPhone is announced, and your site is equipped to close sales, you’ll likely draw a lot of traffic and sell a lot of product.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google Insights for Search" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-insights-for-search.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-insights-for-search-300x191.png" alt="" title="google-insights-for-search" width="300" height="191" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3767" /></a></p>
<h2>Google AdWords Keyword Tool</h2>
<p>Another critical solution for evaluating the usefulness of keywords is to examine the with <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal">Google Adwords Keyword Tool</a>.  You input a series of search terms and Google tells you how many people searched for those terms, and searched for related terms, both globally and locally.  Click on the headings at the top of the table to sort by keyword, number of searches or competition. Competition is a measurement of how many people are actively marketing on that term through Google Adwords. This gives you some idea of how hard it may be to rank for the term.</p>
<p>Be sure to play around with exact match and phrase match features here, as it might increase / decrease the search volume incredibly.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Google AdWords Keyword Tool" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-adwords-keyword-search.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/google-adwords-keyword-search-300x180.png" alt="" title="google-adwords-keyword-search" width="300" height="180" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3766" /></a></p>
<h2>BrowserShots</h2>
<p>As time goes by the number of browsers people use to surf the Internet increases.  Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera . . . and for every browser a dozen or more versions.  <a href="http://www.browsershots.org/">BrowserShots </a> makes it easy to see how your page looks to all these browser, thus highlighting any issues that may make the site unusable. This free service can take up to an hour to load images for a selected website, but for a low monthly fee you can get priority processing.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="BrowserShots" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/browsershots.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/browsershots-297x300.png" alt="" title="browsershots" width="297" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3774" /></a></p>
<h2>Contrast Ratio Calculators</h2>
<p>For anyone who creates websites that must support people with disabilities, Contrast Ratio Calculators are critical.  They allow you to check colors, and indeed whole pages, for conformance with international standards.  One such test is the <a href="http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html">AccessKeys Color Report</a>. It will provide short reports which are handy for quick tests, and it will provide a tag by tag detailed report as well.</p>
<p>Remember when choosing colors for your website that a pretty big percentages of men around the world are at least partly color blind. Having good contrasting colors in your design is important for them.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Contrast Ratio Calculators" href="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/accesscolor.png"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/accesscolor-300x209.png" alt="" title="accesscolor" width="300" height="209" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3763" /></a></p>
<h2>Quix</h2>
<p><a href="http://quixapp.com/">Quix</a> is an extensible bookmarklet, developed by yours truly, that allows you to easily access all your bookmarks and bookmarklets, across all your browsers, while maintaining them in only one spot. All you have to do is remember the shortcut for the bookmarklet.  Basically it is a command line for your browser.  So you can type bitly, and bring up a tool to shorten with bit.ly, etc.  If, like most developers, you have fifty browser-based analysis and editing tools you used every day, Quix will save you many clicks and key strokes.</p>
<p><a rel="online-marketing-tools" title="Quix" href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Quix-Your-Bookmarklets-On-Steroids.png"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Quix-Your-Bookmarklets-On-Steroids-300x243.png" alt="" title="Quix - Your Bookmarklets, On Steroids" width="300" height="243" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3775" /></a></p>
<h2>Share <em>Your</em> Tools!</h2>
<p>The web is always coming up with new tools, new techniques and new utilities, but this list provides a quick overview of things I use and refer people to regularly. I hope it proves useful to you going forward. Please do share the tools you use in the comments, so other people here can benefit!</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/online-marketing-tools/">Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/qyxtS-2c7Dk" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:5;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:32:"The anatomy of a WordPress theme";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/TnijqGrKhq0/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3742";s:8:"comments";s:117:"http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-theme-anatomy#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:113:"http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-theme-anatomyfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:3:"109";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:07:16 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:25:"WordPressWordPress Themes";s:11:"description";s:790:"<p>With all the WordPress theme frameworks that arose over the past few years, you'd almost forget what a normal WordPress theme looks like. Almost, because Yoast has got your back and we're about to remind you! Check out our anatomy of a WordPress theme infographic: This infographic was created in collaboration with the artists of CreditLoan.com.</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/">The anatomy of a WordPress theme</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:1184:"<p>With all the WordPress theme frameworks that arose over the past few years, you'd almost forget what a normal WordPress theme looks like. Almost, because Yoast has got your back and we're about to remind you! Check out our anatomy of a WordPress theme infographic: </p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3743" title="Anatomy of a WordPress theme - Yoast" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/anatomy-wordpress-yoast.png" alt="Anatomy of WordPress theme - Yoast" width="570" height="3045" /></p>
<p>This infographic was created in collaboration with the artists of <a href="http://www.creditloan.com">CreditLoan.com</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/">The anatomy of a WordPress theme</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/TnijqGrKhq0" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:108:"http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-theme-anatomy";}s:7:"summary";s:790:"<p>With all the WordPress theme frameworks that arose over the past few years, you'd almost forget what a normal WordPress theme looks like. Almost, because Yoast has got your back and we're about to remind you! Check out our anatomy of a WordPress theme infographic: This infographic was created in collaboration with the artists of CreditLoan.com.</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/">The anatomy of a WordPress theme</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:1184:"<p>With all the WordPress theme frameworks that arose over the past few years, you'd almost forget what a normal WordPress theme looks like. Almost, because Yoast has got your back and we're about to remind you! Check out our anatomy of a WordPress theme infographic: </p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3743" title="Anatomy of a WordPress theme - Yoast" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/anatomy-wordpress-yoast.png" alt="Anatomy of WordPress theme - Yoast" width="570" height="3045" /></p>
<p>This infographic was created in collaboration with the artists of <a href="http://www.creditloan.com">CreditLoan.com</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/">The anatomy of a WordPress theme</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/TnijqGrKhq0" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:6;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:48:"Quality Time with WP Power User Christina Warren";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/3Wp5cZ-mnOI/";s:4:"guid";s:30:"http://wp-community.org/?p=838";s:8:"comments";s:93:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/10/quality-time-with-wp-power-user-christina-warren/#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:89:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/10/quality-time-with-wp-power-user-christina-warren/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"9";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:13:13 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:7:"Podcast";s:11:"description";s:417:"We are kicking things off this year with Christina Warren, a writer, podcaster, blogger, twitterer (@film_girl) and all round gadget-junkie. Christina is a full time writer for mashable.com and you can find her blog at www.christinawarren.com. She also co-hosts ‘Briefly &#8230; <a href="http://wp-community.org/2011/01/10/quality-time-with-wp-power-user-christina-warren/">Continue reading <span>&#8594;</span></a>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3827:"<div><a href="http://wp-community.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Christina-Warren.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-845" title="Christina Warren" src="http://wp-community.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Christina-Warren.jpg" alt="Christina Warren" width="200" height="200" /></a><p>Christina Warren</p></div><p>We are kicking things off this year with Christina Warren, a writer, podcaster, blogger, twitterer (<a href="http://twitter.com/film_girl">@film_girl</a>) and all round gadget-junkie. Christina is a full time writer for <a href="http://www.mashable.com/">mashable.com</a> and you can find her blog at <a href="http://www.christinawarren.com/">www.christinawarren.com</a>. She also co-hosts <a href="http://5by5.tv/brieflyawesome">‘Briefly Awesome’ on 5by5.tv</a></p><p>We start this week’s show off with Christina as she fills us in on what she is up to at the moment, including heading to Las Vagas this week for the <a href="http://mashable.com/awards/pages/about">Fourth Annual Mashable Awards</a>, and coverage of the <a href="http://www.cesweb.org/">2011 International CES Convention</a>.</p><p>WordPress 3.1 release candidate 2 has just come out, and in line with this we get down to the nitty-gritty of custom post formats. Christina explains what they are, and how it all works.</p><p>The admin bar is a new addition to WordPress 3.0.1 rc2 and is already the source of much discussion. We find out who likes it, who doesn’t, and debate whether it should be an option rather than a default.</p><p>Christina lets us in on some great tips when it comes to writing and blogging. Considering she writes an average of 1.5 <em>million</em> words a year, we highly recommend taking her advice! One of the tools she uses is <a href="http://macromates.com/">TextMate</a>, a Mac text editor. She explains its bundle system and how easy it makes her life when writing blogs and articles.</p><p>Christina tells us all about the Mashable Awards, its nominees and who to look out for.</p><p>She lets us in on some of the more unusual companies she will be looking out for in 2011 including the <a href="http://www.quora.com/">Quora.com</a> Q&amp;A service and <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter.com</a>, a crowd funding platform.</p><p>Christina gives her top tips for WordPress, talking about Markdown Quicktags, reducing the number of plugins on your site, jQuery and using spiderbug, and some fantastic advice on becoming mobile friendly (essential if you have a business based on offering a service).</p><p>We talk about the WordPress apps that are out there for the iPad and iPhone. Improvements are inevitable, and we discuss what is really needed, and our opinions on some of the changes that should be made.</p><p><strong>Christina’s plugin picks and plugins she mentioned:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-admin-bar-removal/">WP Admin Bar Removal</a></li><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-admin-bar-removal/"></a><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-admin-bar/">Disable Admin Bar</a></li><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-admin-bar/"></a><a href="http://brettterpstra.com/code/?did%3D25">Blogsmith Bundle</a> – Has a lot of useful tools for blogging, including IOS linking and a built in thesaurus, word count tools and much more!</li><li><a href="http://brettterpstra.com/markdown-quicktags-wordpress-plugin/">Markdown Quicktags</a></li></ul><p><strong>Joost’s plugin picks of the week:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-email-verify/">Comment Email Verify</a> – This plugin forces people to verify their email address when they post a comment</li></ul><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/3Wp5cZ-mnOI" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:2:{s:8:"origlink";s:84:"http://wp-community.org/2011/01/10/quality-time-with-wp-power-user-christina-warren/";s:17:"origenclosurelink";s:133:"http://media.blubrry.com/wordpresspodcast/media.rawvoice.com/seorockstars/www2.webmasterradio.fm/mp3/wordpresspodcast/11/WP010411.mp3";}s:7:"summary";s:417:"We are kicking things off this year with Christina Warren, a writer, podcaster, blogger, twitterer (@film_girl) and all round gadget-junkie. Christina is a full time writer for mashable.com and you can find her blog at www.christinawarren.com. She also co-hosts ‘Briefly &#8230; <a href="http://wp-community.org/2011/01/10/quality-time-with-wp-power-user-christina-warren/">Continue reading <span>&#8594;</span></a>";s:12:"atom_content";s:3827:"<div><a href="http://wp-community.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Christina-Warren.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-845" title="Christina Warren" src="http://wp-community.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Christina-Warren.jpg" alt="Christina Warren" width="200" height="200" /></a><p>Christina Warren</p></div><p>We are kicking things off this year with Christina Warren, a writer, podcaster, blogger, twitterer (<a href="http://twitter.com/film_girl">@film_girl</a>) and all round gadget-junkie. Christina is a full time writer for <a href="http://www.mashable.com/">mashable.com</a> and you can find her blog at <a href="http://www.christinawarren.com/">www.christinawarren.com</a>. She also co-hosts <a href="http://5by5.tv/brieflyawesome">‘Briefly Awesome’ on 5by5.tv</a></p><p>We start this week’s show off with Christina as she fills us in on what she is up to at the moment, including heading to Las Vagas this week for the <a href="http://mashable.com/awards/pages/about">Fourth Annual Mashable Awards</a>, and coverage of the <a href="http://www.cesweb.org/">2011 International CES Convention</a>.</p><p>WordPress 3.1 release candidate 2 has just come out, and in line with this we get down to the nitty-gritty of custom post formats. Christina explains what they are, and how it all works.</p><p>The admin bar is a new addition to WordPress 3.0.1 rc2 and is already the source of much discussion. We find out who likes it, who doesn’t, and debate whether it should be an option rather than a default.</p><p>Christina lets us in on some great tips when it comes to writing and blogging. Considering she writes an average of 1.5 <em>million</em> words a year, we highly recommend taking her advice! One of the tools she uses is <a href="http://macromates.com/">TextMate</a>, a Mac text editor. She explains its bundle system and how easy it makes her life when writing blogs and articles.</p><p>Christina tells us all about the Mashable Awards, its nominees and who to look out for.</p><p>She lets us in on some of the more unusual companies she will be looking out for in 2011 including the <a href="http://www.quora.com/">Quora.com</a> Q&amp;A service and <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter.com</a>, a crowd funding platform.</p><p>Christina gives her top tips for WordPress, talking about Markdown Quicktags, reducing the number of plugins on your site, jQuery and using spiderbug, and some fantastic advice on becoming mobile friendly (essential if you have a business based on offering a service).</p><p>We talk about the WordPress apps that are out there for the iPad and iPhone. Improvements are inevitable, and we discuss what is really needed, and our opinions on some of the changes that should be made.</p><p><strong>Christina’s plugin picks and plugins she mentioned:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-admin-bar-removal/">WP Admin Bar Removal</a></li><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-admin-bar-removal/"></a><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-admin-bar/">Disable Admin Bar</a></li><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disable-admin-bar/"></a><a href="http://brettterpstra.com/code/?did%3D25">Blogsmith Bundle</a> – Has a lot of useful tools for blogging, including IOS linking and a built in thesaurus, word count tools and much more!</li><li><a href="http://brettterpstra.com/markdown-quicktags-wordpress-plugin/">Markdown Quicktags</a></li></ul><p><strong>Joost’s plugin picks of the week:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-email-verify/">Comment Email Verify</a> – This plugin forces people to verify their email address when they post a comment</li></ul><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/3Wp5cZ-mnOI" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:7;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:49:"The magical wand to better web design performance";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/cZXFpiXYkqs/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3737";s:8:"comments";s:113:"http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=web-design-magic-wand#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:109:"http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=web-design-magic-wandfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"43";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:02:43 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:16:"Online Marketing";s:11:"description";s:762:"<p>James Chartrand - a friend of mine who does small business web design - and myself were having a chat today about a mutual acquaintance of ours. We were both “done” with him because his site sucks and he keeps complaining he’s getting no clients. The literal quote he gave is the beginning of a [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/">The magical wand to better web design performance</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4217:"<p>James Chartrand - a friend of mine who does <a href="http://menwithpens.ca/services/website-design-services/">small business web design</a> - and myself were having a chat today about a mutual acquaintance of ours. We were both “done” with him because his site sucks and he keeps complaining he’s getting no clients.  The literal quote he gave is the beginning of a guest post I inivited James to write. It’s a rant, but it’s also very, very true in my opinion. We’d love to hear yours in the comments!<div><img class="size-full wp-image-3747" title="magic wand" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/magic-wand.jpg" alt="magic wand" width="250" height="166" /><p>Picture from Shutterstock</p></div></p>
<blockquote><p>"I know I need a better web design to get more clients... but until I get more clients, it'll have to wait."</p></blockquote>
<p>I know. It's circular, right? Someone want more clients, and then they say until they get more clients they'll wait to get more clients.</p>
<p>Let's all say it together: <em>Huh?</em></p>
<p>It's nonsensical. It's puzzling. It's sadly self-defeating and a little ridiculous too. It's putting the cart before the horse and expecting to get somewhere.</p>
<p>In fact, saying you want more clients but that you won't take the steps to actually get more clients is exactly the same as saying <em>you don't want more clients.</em></p>
<p>So if that's the case... what <em>do</em> you want?</p>
<p>Most people faced with this question sort of stumble around. They mumble they were really looking for some "tweaks" to their poorly-designed site. Or some "ideas" for their terrible usability. Or a few "suggestions" for something that has no hope in hell.</p>
<p>What these people really mean is, "Could you please hand me the magic wand to sudden profitability and success without my spending a penny?"</p>
<p>The cold, hard truth is that there is no magic wand. Most business websites out there aren't converting well because they're simply downright ugly and completely ineffective. It isn't the SEO. It isn't the business idea. It isn't the traffic or product or service.</p>
<p>It's the damned ugly design. And the only magic wand that'll help turn things around is a major overhaul and rebuilding that website from scratch.</p>
<p>I know a new web design is a big investment, and it takes money. I also know that it's a risk – it's scary to spend money on something that isn't making a penny right now. What if it doesn't work? What if the investment doesn't pay off?</p>
<p>Here's a thought: What if it does?</p>
<p>Take a deep breath and give up on that old, cheap, ugly website that isn't making you money. You know it's not working. Why limp along? Put that horse in front of your cart so that you can finally get moving. Hire people who can give you a credible, professional website that <em>gets you results</em>.</p>
<p>In fact, most web experts refuse to tweak a bad website. They know tweaking is far more expensive than starting over. It's costly. It never ends. It's a money pit that sucks in every bit of available cash. And these people will tell you exactly what's wrong with your website:</p>
<p>The whole thing.</p>
<p>So if you've ever thought, "I know I need a better web design... but until I get more clients, it'll have to wait," then think about this:</p>
<p>If you want more clients, you need a site that's client-worthy. If you want more sales, you need a site that makes people want to give you money. If you want better results, performance and success, you need to invest in creating it.</p>
<p>And if you want to succeed, you need to stop wishing for a magic wand.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/">The magical wand to better web design performance</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/cZXFpiXYkqs" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:104:"http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=web-design-magic-wand";}s:7:"summary";s:762:"<p>James Chartrand - a friend of mine who does small business web design - and myself were having a chat today about a mutual acquaintance of ours. We were both “done” with him because his site sucks and he keeps complaining he’s getting no clients. The literal quote he gave is the beginning of a [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/">The magical wand to better web design performance</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:4217:"<p>James Chartrand - a friend of mine who does <a href="http://menwithpens.ca/services/website-design-services/">small business web design</a> - and myself were having a chat today about a mutual acquaintance of ours. We were both “done” with him because his site sucks and he keeps complaining he’s getting no clients.  The literal quote he gave is the beginning of a guest post I inivited James to write. It’s a rant, but it’s also very, very true in my opinion. We’d love to hear yours in the comments!<div><img class="size-full wp-image-3747" title="magic wand" src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/magic-wand.jpg" alt="magic wand" width="250" height="166" /><p>Picture from Shutterstock</p></div></p>
<blockquote><p>"I know I need a better web design to get more clients... but until I get more clients, it'll have to wait."</p></blockquote>
<p>I know. It's circular, right? Someone want more clients, and then they say until they get more clients they'll wait to get more clients.</p>
<p>Let's all say it together: <em>Huh?</em></p>
<p>It's nonsensical. It's puzzling. It's sadly self-defeating and a little ridiculous too. It's putting the cart before the horse and expecting to get somewhere.</p>
<p>In fact, saying you want more clients but that you won't take the steps to actually get more clients is exactly the same as saying <em>you don't want more clients.</em></p>
<p>So if that's the case... what <em>do</em> you want?</p>
<p>Most people faced with this question sort of stumble around. They mumble they were really looking for some "tweaks" to their poorly-designed site. Or some "ideas" for their terrible usability. Or a few "suggestions" for something that has no hope in hell.</p>
<p>What these people really mean is, "Could you please hand me the magic wand to sudden profitability and success without my spending a penny?"</p>
<p>The cold, hard truth is that there is no magic wand. Most business websites out there aren't converting well because they're simply downright ugly and completely ineffective. It isn't the SEO. It isn't the business idea. It isn't the traffic or product or service.</p>
<p>It's the damned ugly design. And the only magic wand that'll help turn things around is a major overhaul and rebuilding that website from scratch.</p>
<p>I know a new web design is a big investment, and it takes money. I also know that it's a risk – it's scary to spend money on something that isn't making a penny right now. What if it doesn't work? What if the investment doesn't pay off?</p>
<p>Here's a thought: What if it does?</p>
<p>Take a deep breath and give up on that old, cheap, ugly website that isn't making you money. You know it's not working. Why limp along? Put that horse in front of your cart so that you can finally get moving. Hire people who can give you a credible, professional website that <em>gets you results</em>.</p>
<p>In fact, most web experts refuse to tweak a bad website. They know tweaking is far more expensive than starting over. It's costly. It never ends. It's a money pit that sucks in every bit of available cash. And these people will tell you exactly what's wrong with your website:</p>
<p>The whole thing.</p>
<p>So if you've ever thought, "I know I need a better web design... but until I get more clients, it'll have to wait," then think about this:</p>
<p>If you want more clients, you need a site that's client-worthy. If you want more sales, you need a site that makes people want to give you money. If you want better results, performance and success, you need to invest in creating it.</p>
<p>And if you want to succeed, you need to stop wishing for a magic wand.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/web-design-magic-wand/">The magical wand to better web design performance</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/cZXFpiXYkqs" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:8;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:38:"Bit.ly Links for WordPress, made easy.";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/LWTSv8RACdg/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3719";s:8:"comments";s:99:"http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitly-links-wp#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:95:"http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitly-links-wpfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"25";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:20:55 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:26:"WordPressWordPress Plugins";s:11:"description";s:742:"<p>WordPress recently added shortlinks for posts to everything, you get a Shortlink button in the backend on published posts, there's a Shortlink menu in the admin bar etc. But most of us don't want to use that shortlink. We use Bit.ly, or in my case, Bit.ly Pro and we have no need for that Shortlink [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/">Bit.ly Links for WordPress, made easy.</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:1445:"<p>WordPress recently added shortlinks for posts to everything, you get a Shortlink button in the backend on published posts, there's a Shortlink menu in the admin bar etc. But most of us don't want to use that shortlink. We use Bit.ly, or in my case, Bit.ly Pro and we have no need for that Shortlink menu.</p>
<p>So I decided to do what any WordPress plugin developer does at that point: fix it. I came up with a plugin called <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress/bitly-shortlinks/">Bit.ly Shortlinks</a>. Check it out, and let me know what you think of it :)</p>
<p>A screenshot to get the basic idea:<br />
<a href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bitly-adminbar-item.jpg"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bitly-adminbar-item-300x103.jpg" alt="Bit.ly adminbar item" title="Bit.ly adminbar item" width="300" height="103" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3693" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/">Bit.ly Links for WordPress, made easy.</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/LWTSv8RACdg" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:90:"http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bitly-links-wp";}s:7:"summary";s:742:"<p>WordPress recently added shortlinks for posts to everything, you get a Shortlink button in the backend on published posts, there's a Shortlink menu in the admin bar etc. But most of us don't want to use that shortlink. We use Bit.ly, or in my case, Bit.ly Pro and we have no need for that Shortlink [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/">Bit.ly Links for WordPress, made easy.</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:1445:"<p>WordPress recently added shortlinks for posts to everything, you get a Shortlink button in the backend on published posts, there's a Shortlink menu in the admin bar etc. But most of us don't want to use that shortlink. We use Bit.ly, or in my case, Bit.ly Pro and we have no need for that Shortlink menu.</p>
<p>So I decided to do what any WordPress plugin developer does at that point: fix it. I came up with a plugin called <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress/bitly-shortlinks/">Bit.ly Shortlinks</a>. Check it out, and let me know what you think of it :)</p>
<p>A screenshot to get the basic idea:<br />
<a href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bitly-adminbar-item.jpg"><img src="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/bitly-adminbar-item-300x103.jpg" alt="Bit.ly adminbar item" title="Bit.ly adminbar item" width="300" height="103" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3693" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/bitly-links-wp/">Bit.ly Links for WordPress, made easy.</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/LWTSv8RACdg" height="1" width="1"/>";}i:9;a:14:{s:5:"title";s:38:"How to disable the WordPress Admin Bar";s:4:"link";s:58:"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/joostdevalk/~3/2y29wYhUJG4/";s:4:"guid";s:24:"http://yoast.com/?p=3716";s:8:"comments";s:111:"http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disable-wp-admin-bar#comments";s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:107:"http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disable-wp-admin-barfeed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"27";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 04 Jan 2011 23:20:53 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Joost de Valk";}s:8:"category";s:9:"WordPress";s:11:"description";s:745:"<p>WordPress 3.1 introduces a new feature called the Admin bar. A lot of people will be wanting to disable this when WordPress 3.1 comes out. Since release candiate 2 you can disable it on a per user basis like this: But since some people might want to disable the admin bar for everyone, I thought [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/">How to disable the WordPress Admin Bar</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6344:"<p>WordPress 3.1 introduces a new feature called the Admin bar. A lot of people will be wanting to disable this when WordPress 3.1 comes out. Since release candiate 2 you can disable it on a per user basis like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/disable-admin-bar.jpg" alt="Disable Admin Bar in user preferences" title="Disable Admin Bar in user preferences" width="378" height="58" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3728" /></p>
<p>But since some people might want to disable the admin bar for everyone, I thought I'd show you a couple of ways to quickly disable the WordPress admin bar, either entirely, or just for you, or just for everyone else.</p>
<p>If you haven't seen it yet, the WP admin bar looks like this, and is added on top of all pages, on both the frontend and backend of your site, when you're logged in:</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wp-admin-bar.jpg"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wp-admin-bar-300x8.jpg" alt="WordPress admin bar" title="WordPress admin bar" width="300" height="8" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3717" /></a></p>
<h2>Disable Admin Bar for everyone</h2>
<p>This one is simple, to disable the WordPress Admin Bar for everyone, add the following to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>/* Disable the Admin Bar. */</span>
add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>/* Remove the Admin Bar preference in user profile */</span>
remove_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'personal_options'</span><span>,</span> <span>'_admin_bar_preferences'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Disable WordPress Admin Bar for specific requests</h2>
<p>You might want to do this for specific requests only, so you can more easily take screenshots, for instance, then you add this to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>isset</span><span>&#40;</span><span>$_GET</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'bar'</span><span>&#93;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&amp;&amp;</span> <span>'no'</span> <span>==</span> <span>$_GET</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'bar'</span><span>&#93;</span> <span>&#41;</span>
   add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>This would allow you to disable the WordPress admin bar by going to <code>example.com/?bar=no</code>, you can of course change those values.</p>
<h2>Disable WP Admin Bar for specific users</h2>
<p>To disable the WP Admin Bar, and the Admin Bar preference on his/her profile page for a specific user, add the following to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>&lt;?php</span> <span>function</span> yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
<span>?&gt;</span>
	&lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&gt;
		.show-admin-bar {
			display: none;
		}
	&lt;/style&gt;
<span>&lt;?php</span>	
<span>&#125;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>function</span> yoast_disable_admin_bar<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
   <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>2</span> <span>==</span> get_current_user_id<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
      add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
      add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'admin_head'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
   <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'init'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_disable_admin_bar'</span> <span>,</span> <span>9</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>Or you could do the reverse, and enable the WordPress Admin Bar just for one user, by disabling it for everyone else:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>&lt;?php</span> <span>function</span> yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
<span>?&gt;</span>
	&lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&gt;
		.show-admin-bar {
			display: none;
		}
	&lt;/style&gt;
<span>&lt;?php</span>	
<span>&#125;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>function</span> yoast_disable_admin_bar<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
   <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>2</span> <span>!=</span> get_current_user_id<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
      add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
      add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'admin_head'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
   <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'init'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_disable_admin_bar'</span> <span>,</span> <span>9</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p><strong>Update 7-1-2011:</strong> post updated after some remarks about current_user not being set yet at the point I was calling it, switched to using the proper <code>__return_false</code> helper function too, using the helpful comment from <a href="http://24design.net/">Cor van Noorloos</a> in the comments.</p>
<p><strong>Update 7-1-2011 - 2:</strong> post updated after an API change was <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16004">decided upon</a> and <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/17234">then</a> <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/17235">implemented</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/">How to disable the WordPress Admin Bar</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/2y29wYhUJG4" height="1" width="1"/>";}s:10:"feedburner";a:1:{s:8:"origlink";s:102:"http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disable-wp-admin-bar";}s:7:"summary";s:745:"<p>WordPress 3.1 introduces a new feature called the Admin bar. A lot of people will be wanting to disable this when WordPress 3.1 comes out. Since release candiate 2 you can disable it on a per user basis like this: But since some people might want to disable the admin bar for everyone, I thought [...]</p><p><a href="http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/">How to disable the WordPress Admin Bar</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p>";s:12:"atom_content";s:6344:"<p>WordPress 3.1 introduces a new feature called the Admin bar. A lot of people will be wanting to disable this when WordPress 3.1 comes out. Since release candiate 2 you can disable it on a per user basis like this:</p>
<p><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/disable-admin-bar.jpg" alt="Disable Admin Bar in user preferences" title="Disable Admin Bar in user preferences" width="378" height="58" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3728" /></p>
<p>But since some people might want to disable the admin bar for everyone, I thought I'd show you a couple of ways to quickly disable the WordPress admin bar, either entirely, or just for you, or just for everyone else.</p>
<p>If you haven't seen it yet, the WP admin bar looks like this, and is added on top of all pages, on both the frontend and backend of your site, when you're logged in:</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn2.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wp-admin-bar.jpg"><img src="http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/wp-admin-bar-300x8.jpg" alt="WordPress admin bar" title="WordPress admin bar" width="300" height="8" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3717" /></a></p>
<h2>Disable Admin Bar for everyone</h2>
<p>This one is simple, to disable the WordPress Admin Bar for everyone, add the following to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>/* Disable the Admin Bar. */</span>
add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>/* Remove the Admin Bar preference in user profile */</span>
remove_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'personal_options'</span><span>,</span> <span>'_admin_bar_preferences'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<h2>Disable WordPress Admin Bar for specific requests</h2>
<p>You might want to do this for specific requests only, so you can more easily take screenshots, for instance, then you add this to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>isset</span><span>&#40;</span><span>$_GET</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'bar'</span><span>&#93;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&amp;&amp;</span> <span>'no'</span> <span>==</span> <span>$_GET</span><span>&#91;</span><span>'bar'</span><span>&#93;</span> <span>&#41;</span>
   add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>This would allow you to disable the WordPress admin bar by going to <code>example.com/?bar=no</code>, you can of course change those values.</p>
<h2>Disable WP Admin Bar for specific users</h2>
<p>To disable the WP Admin Bar, and the Admin Bar preference on his/her profile page for a specific user, add the following to your theme's <em>functions.php</em> file:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>&lt;?php</span> <span>function</span> yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
<span>?&gt;</span>
	&lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&gt;
		.show-admin-bar {
			display: none;
		}
	&lt;/style&gt;
<span>&lt;?php</span>	
<span>&#125;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>function</span> yoast_disable_admin_bar<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
   <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>2</span> <span>==</span> get_current_user_id<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
      add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
      add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'admin_head'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
   <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'init'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_disable_admin_bar'</span> <span>,</span> <span>9</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p>Or you could do the reverse, and enable the WordPress Admin Bar just for one user, by disabling it for everyone else:</p>

<div><div><pre><span>&lt;?php</span> <span>function</span> yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
<span>?&gt;</span>
	&lt;style type=&quot;text/css&quot;&gt;
		.show-admin-bar {
			display: none;
		}
	&lt;/style&gt;
<span>&lt;?php</span>	
<span>&#125;</span>
&nbsp;
<span>function</span> yoast_disable_admin_bar<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
   <span>if</span> <span>&#40;</span> <span>2</span> <span>!=</span> get_current_user_id<span>&#40;</span><span>&#41;</span> <span>&#41;</span> <span>&#123;</span>
      add_filter<span>&#40;</span> <span>'show_admin_bar'</span><span>,</span> <span>'__return_false'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
      add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'admin_head'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_hide_admin_bar_settings'</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span>
   <span>&#125;</span>
<span>&#125;</span>
add_action<span>&#40;</span> <span>'init'</span><span>,</span> <span>'yoast_disable_admin_bar'</span> <span>,</span> <span>9</span> <span>&#41;</span><span>;</span></pre></div></div>

<p><strong>Update 7-1-2011:</strong> post updated after some remarks about current_user not being set yet at the point I was calling it, switched to using the proper <code>__return_false</code> helper function too, using the helpful comment from <a href="http://24design.net/">Cor van Noorloos</a> in the comments.</p>
<p><strong>Update 7-1-2011 - 2:</strong> post updated after an API change was <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16004">decided upon</a> and <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/17234">then</a> <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/17235">implemented</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://yoast.com/disable-wp-admin-bar/">How to disable the WordPress Admin Bar</a> is a post from <a href="http://yoast.com/about-me/">Joost de Valk</a>&#39;s <a href="http://yoast.com">Yoast - Tweaking Websites</a>. 

A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on <a href="http://yoast.com/wordpress-hosting/">WordPress hosting</a>!</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/joostdevalk/~4/2y29wYhUJG4" height="1" width="1"/>";}}s:7:"channel";a:8:{s:5:"title";s:29:"Yoast & The WordPress Podcast";s:11:"description";s:64:"This is the combined feed of Yoast.com and the WordPress Podcast";s:4:"link";s:22:"http://yoast.com/feed/";s:8:"language";s:5:"en-us";s:9:"generator";s:29:"http://wordpress.org/?v=yoast";s:2:"sy";a:2:{s:12:"updateperiod";s:6:"hourly";s:15:"updatefrequency";s:1:"1";}s:10:"feedburner";a:4:{s:14:"emailserviceid";s:11:"joostdevalk";s:18:"feedburnerhostname";s:28:"http://feedburner.google.com";s:9:"feedflare";s:158:"Subscribe with PodnovaSubscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with ODEOSubscribe with Google";s:15:"browserfriendly";s:195:"This is the combined feed for Yoast.com and the WordPress podcast. Subscribe now to get WordPress & Magento tips & tricks, helping you optimize your site for speed, search engines and conversion!";}s:7:"tagline";s:64:"This is the combined feed of Yoast.com and the WordPress Podcast";}s:9:"textinput";a:0:{}s:5:"image";a:6:{s:5:"title";s:29:"Yoast & The WordPress Podcast";s:3:"url";s:73:"http://cdn.yoast.com/wp-content/themes/yoast-v2/images/yoast-logo-rss.png";s:4:"link";s:22:"http://yoast.com/feed/";s:5:"width";s:3:"144";s:6:"height";s:3:"103";s:11:"description";s:17:"Tweaking Websites";}s:9:"feed_type";s:3:"RSS";s:12:"feed_version";s:3:"2.0";s:5:"stack";a:0:{}s:9:"inchannel";b:0;s:6:"initem";b:0;s:9:"incontent";b:0;s:11:"intextinput";b:0;s:7:"inimage";b:0;s:13:"current_field";s:0:"";s:17:"current_namespace";b:0;s:19:"_CONTENT_CONSTRUCTS";a:6:{i:0;s:7:"content";i:1;s:7:"summary";i:2;s:4:"info";i:3;s:5:"title";i:4;s:7:"tagline";i:5;s:9:"copyright";}s:4:"etag";s:27:"uV9SvL5snd/PUzgc1ChDSm4BhXU";s:13:"last_modified";s:29:"Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:20:36 GMT";}