But what if the feed does not update? … and we had a chance to experience this today as Feedburner feed would simply not sync, and not update. Here is what I did…

Feedburner Feeds Not Updating

1. Check original source feed –  has it updated? When you use caching plugins, there is a high chance your feed is cached and when pinged bots come by, they do not find an updated feed. Clear cache and confirm that the original feed has latest content.

2. Validate Feeds – check your feed with Feedvalidator to see for any RSS errors which prevent your feed from syncing correctly.

3. Ping Feedburner – use this form to ping your feed urls or site url (which should have feed autodiscovery links in the html), then your feed will be quickly updated (or it will point out feed errors). This did not fix our issue as well.

4. Resync Feedburner Feed - If your feed is valid, and even after pinging the feed does not update in an hour, then Feedburner recommends you go to the feed troubleshoot page (after logging into your feedburner account) and then you need to resync your feed and it will get updated instantly.

That worked and synced our feed with fresh content. Have you ever need to fix Feedburner feed issues?

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WP-Super Cache

However, since the release of the latest version, there were some buggy issues and we were unable to delete the cache. It was getting tedious to FTP inside the server and manually delete the cache. Then repeatedly reinstalling the plugin, some strange kind of 403 errors occured. It was time to try a new caching plugin…

Kindly note these are isolated issues affecting only our server and WP-Supercache is undoubtedly an excellent plugin, which is not only the most popular plugin, but also highly recommended.

WordPress Caching

A caching plugin is the single most important plugin to add to WordPress blogs, as it stores php pages as html files and minimizes server load. It will keep your site online even when the server is down, and will help your website survive unexpected traffic spikes even on shared hosting.

I wanted to use W3-Totalcache and combine it with a CDN service like MaxCDN (or Amazon Cloudfront which we already use to cache some static files), but since the plugin is so feature rich and so powerful, the controls and options in the plugin are too overwhelming. Meanwhile, the forums are filled with growing popularity of QuickCache. So I decided to give QuickCache a try…

Install Quick Cache

Firstly QuickCache works out of the box. Simply activate and turn on caching and you dont need to edit any setting unless you want to really customise caching options, which we didnt need, not will most other users. So basically it was simple to start and get working instantly.

At most you might want to increase the caching time from default 3600 (1 hour) to 36000 (10 hours) or higher if your content does not change too frequently. Also note that QuickCache does not cache pages for admin and known users by default, and also refreshes the pages after people post comments. So you need to actually logout to see it is working. Another good option is it will refresh only the single post after edits, and not the whole cache ( for which there is a quick clear cache button on top).

If you FTP inside the server, the files in the /cache folder are also stored differently. While Supercache used to replicate your entire site structure in the folder, Quick Cache stores them as MD5 hash files, which checks with your Salt in a complex interaction before serving cached files.

Quick Cache  Gzip Compression

Note that unlike Wp-Supercache, QuickCache has no option to enable gzip compression of your webpages. Gzip compression is a good idea as it helps to compress pages and deliver them to modern browsers, which helps to speed up you site load times and deliver a faster and better user experience.

Quickcache FAQ does suggest 2 ways to activate gzip compression manually. One is by editing your .htaccess file using mod_deflate, but that did not work for our site. The other alternative did work as Knownhost has installed zlib on our server. Simple create a blank notepad file, add zlib compression

zlib.output_compression = on

and save as php.ini and upload to your server root folder. It works and pages do get gzip compressed. Since it does not output ‘gzip on’ comment in the html code, you can test it using any HTTP compression test tool.

So basically we are very happy with QuickCache as of now and it is caching our WordPress blog error free and it is also highly recommended. Are you using Quick Cache and have some tips to share?

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What is Thin Content?

Simply put it is poor content, low quality content, few words of content which is classified as ‘low quality’ by search engines and fails to generate any significant search engine traffic. So basically it adds to the site bloat and reduces your link equity value. Note that low pageviews does not necessarily mean thin content, its possible the content is good, but not highly searched.

If you autogenerate or scrape content, it can lead to thousands of low quality web pages which get no traffic, so this thin content is what needs to be fixed or moved to different domain / subdomain to fix Google Panda penalty (e.g. we moved our job board to a different domain, as it synced data from a huge dataset).

How to Find  Thin Content?

Since our site was recently stuck by Google Panda update, we have witnessed very low traffic since then. This update especially affected sites with heavy ads above the fold, but then there are several reason Panda can strike. As we looked into the site archives, there indeed was lot of thin content which had accumulated over the years since 2004, when the site started.

So lets get started… Open up your Google Analytics statistics (Google Analytics is a must have site traffic tracking tool, and its free!). Go to Content > Site Content > Content Drilldown. Then choose to review traffic details of the last one year.

We use archives based on months in a path like /archives/year/month/,  we simply browse down to  Content Drilldown > Archives > Year > Month.

Now you can analyze in detail which articles are getting low traffic. Remember to sort by pageviews to get the data.

We tend to delete or unpublish all articles which have less than 10 pageviews in a year!

Depending on your site, you can instead choose 3-6 month data and decide on lower criteria like 5 pageviews. Either way you need to relook at all these pages and analyze why these pages are getting low traffic, fix the content, or move to drafts to fix later, or simply delete them. Since these articles never received any traffic over the year, removing them would not make a traffic drop anyway.

Remove Thin Content

Most articles affected with low traffic on our site were having large blockquoted text. The blogging styles were different in 2004-2007, and there was a tendency to repeatedly quote text from authoritative resources. After a threshold, this might have been viewed as copied / duplicate content from another site (especially since blockquotes are also linked back to the source).

Another important group was articles with broken links. Well WordPress has an excellent plugin to find broken links and nofollow them all in minutes! We are still working on removing broken links from our old archive pages, as over 10% links were broken!

We reviewed lots of old content month by month and  identified lots of low traffic content, removed quoted content, fixed articles which were useful, and yet deleted over 500 articles over the last week! … and plan to remove at least 200  more this week!

Warning: Remove content only if you clearly understand what you are doing. It might be a better idea to unpublish rather than delete posts, in case you need to restore content later. Many of these articles may have backlinks and may have had traffic further in the past, so if you created the content, you know what your past popular content was like nobody else. It is a good idea to edit / delete the content yourself, rather than outsourcing it to an intern.

Note: Low pageviews does not necessarily mean thin content, its possible the content is good, but not highly searched, and removing them can harm your site. So it is essential to check your content, identify why its ranking poorly, and if it is actually good original content, but with low searched terms and therefore low pageviews … keep it.  (Thanks @Sumesh)

It is essential for webmasters to find thin content today to fix Panda updates, or even better to prevent your site from getting penalized. Subscribe our blog as we continue to fight Google Panda and post tips that helped us.

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Highlight Tumblr Posts

I noticed a new option has appeared when you post a new article at the bottom right corner, titled “Highlight this post”. This gives you a choice of text across various categories and also allows you to choose from various logos (besides the default Bolt) and colors.

When you select the Highlight option and then click to publish, you get a popup credit card payment option or Paypal option which you can choose to pay $1. If you have a large number of Tumblr followers – this will make your highlighted post stand out above the clutter and drive extra site traffic your way for sure.  Check this out and share your experience.

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I have been using the amazing Broken Links Checker plugin for quite some time since Panda updates became famous and it has helped us find and fix all broken links on our website.

Check Broken Links

Few months back, the first time we used the plugin it took several hours as it scanned across our entire site and you could continue to refresh and see how many links were broken and how many were redirects. Since over last 7 years, this was the first time we checked broken links in such a comprehensive way, nearly 10% of outbound links were broken!

This was a huge exercise to fix all links in thousands of posts, but the interface integrates very well in the WordPress admin and easily allows you to Edit url, unlink text or mark the url not broken.

There are many options about to optimize as per your schedule, with many other custom options. But as I continued to fix these urls, I realized it would take many weeks to fix up the entire site. The plugin meanwhile also offered a quick and powerful way to nofollow all such links and even add a CSS strikethrough on all broken links so visitors would not click through these broken 404 links.

This is a highly recommended plugin for all WordPress bloggers. Broken links are very bad for SEO and this is a very powerful tool to fix all broken urls in few clicks. Try it out and tell us how many broken urls did you find on your WordPress blog?

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If you made minor changes, old cached CSS files might not make a difference. But what it you made substantial structural changes, or introduced new classes… your site would appear totally broken to regular visitors.  How many readers would think that refreshing the page will fix your site?

Force CSS Files Refresh

The answer is to force browsers to load the latest CSS file.

1. The way to do this is to change to a new CSS file name in the HEAD of the html, that will force the browser to load a new stylesheet file. But if you edit your CSS too frequently, its cumbersome to keep fixing new CSS files everytime and editing the source stylesheet name everytime.

I used to keep 3 CSS files like style1.css, style2.css, style3.css and keep cut pasting the latest code edits to the new one and updating the header.php file. An easier way is to add a so called version to your CSS file everytime like ?v=25122011, this will change the file name and force a refresh, but then again you have to change the file name everytime you edit WordPress stylesheets.

2. Then I came upon this nice trick suggested by WordPress developer Mark Jaquith, which suggests you use the function filetime which adds the server time the file was changed to the CSS url. Here is the code – cut and paste and try for yourself.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); echo '?' . filemtime( get_stylesheet_directory() . '/style.css'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />

So we used this code and now our stylesheet call code in the HEAD looks like this
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/wp-content/themes/qot/style.css?1324491378" type="text/css" media="screen, projection" />

You note that the new code has made our stylesheet style.css?1324491378 – This number will change whenever we save a new version of the style.css and will force site visitors to load the fresh copy of the CSS file.

A smart trick which makes web designing easy for bloggers who like to tweak their site design every day…

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Read our VaultPress review. We have been using Vaultpress for many months now as it quietly syncs our site database, themes, uploaded images and plugins in the background in real time providing a ready updated complete backup when needed.

VaultPress WordPress Database Restore

Previously you needed to download the files and restore them yourself, but the new feature of 1-click database restore makes it worth the money.

There are many WordPress backup services, but we chose Vaultpress, and the $15 per month spent on this service is worth the money should the database just crash one day. All plans include Realtime Backups, Downloadable Archives for Restoring, Vitality Statistics, and the Activity Log. Our Basic plan provides access to disaster recovery and support services also. More expensive plans also include  site migration assistance, automated security scanning, security consulting and performance auditing.

See the video how database recovery works

Previously we used to keep daily database backups, but now we add Vaultpress to the daily cpanel backup and full VPS backups by our amazing webhosting service Knownhost - it all helps to secure backup copies of the whole site for easy restoration (Remember when our site was hacked!). I am sure many more people will find Vaultpress useful now.

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Google Cloud Print button

Simply add the following code to your article pages on your website and allow users to easily print any page. Get the code for the Google Cloud Print element and its a simple cut and paste required. This code will put up a print button where you place the code. Clicking on the print button requires users to connect their printer to Google Cloud Print.

When users register their email for Google Cloud Print, it registers the available printers (including non cloud enabled printers too) and you can then start using this print facility. This is the popup you get when you click the print button after connecting.

See this video to learn more about Google Cloud Print.

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Companies are throwing money in our direction because mommy bloggers are influential powerhouses. Conferences are scheduled all over the world to help us write better, earn more, and establish social media platforms. We’re glowing! Nonetheless, I’ve discovered a secret that will make us all even happier.

(If you’re not a mommy blogger, I want you to stick with me here. You’re going to discover some application points for your own blog, because you are not just “a blogger”. You’re a political blogger, a daddy blogger, a book blogger, a craft blogger, or a something-else blogger and you don’t want to miss out on this secret to success.)

Mommy Blogging

For the purpose of keeping things real though, I’m going to write specifically about mommy blogging. We mommy bloggers have 3 big things in common:

1. We love the craft. Becoming mothers didn’t stifle our love for writing, but actually made it stronger. We have delightful subject matter now! It’s far more interesting and much cuter than some of the topics we slugged through in high school.

2. We love the opportunities. We can sit at home while babies nap, and befriend women all over the world with good will and support. We can make a buck or two with a few side-bar ads. We can review free products, entertainment, and vacations simply because others care what we think.

3. We love the diversion. I love being a mother, but I will be the first one to admit, that blogging is such a nice escape from the daily tasks of motherhood. A blog post is a finished product. Motherhood is not. Writing is quiet. Motherhood is not. Typing is neat and tidy. Motherhood is not. And, even on their best and worst behavior, readers can’t pull on your heart strings and fill you with concern the way your own dear children can. Sometimes it’s just nice to close the door and blog.

But, at the end of the day, we can get so wrapped up in the benefits of mommy blogging that we miss out on our priority – the mommy part. We become “blogging mommies”, and no one is happy with this flip-flop. I’m the first one to plead guilty on this account. For the sake of my blog, I write about topics that drag me down, cancel my daily run, forget about dinner preparations, shoo my children away, ignore my husband, and fail to plan memorable family times. I find myself wondering, “Why on earth do I let this go on for days and days as I transform into a zombie, and as my family and friends clamor for my attention?”

I’ll tell you why. Because I lose sight of the magnificence of life. I lose sight of my husband who works so hard, and saves the day over and over again. I lose sight of my children who giggle, and ride bikes, and crawl into our bed when the sun comes up. I lose sight of my friends who stick by me, swap child-raising tips, and share a PB&J while our kids run around in dress-ups. The truth is, my real life is worth infinitely more than my blog. Even the frustrating days that make me want to eat a pound of chocolate and watch a movie with my head shoved under a pillow, have a better return than tweeting my work, updating affiliate links, and writing a post about the peaceful home that doesn’t exist today. Regardless of circumstances, my real life is always sweeter than my blog.

So is yours. 

That’s the secret.

If you want to be a happy blogger, prioritize YOU. I’m not just being corny or sentimental. I really mean this, and I believe it is profoundly true. Invest your affection on the other side of the screen, and both you and your blog will thrive. Relentlessly protect the life-experiences, the family and friends, and the stuff you do that shapes your powerful messages, quirky jokes, and memorable snap-shots.

With a little meditation, we can all come up with strategies to do this well. The #1 thing that helps me to live authentically and blog happily is an Online Budget. I evaluate the hours in my day and all of the things that are worth my attention. If I only have one hour available for blogging, so be it. My blog will be a one-hour-a-day blog. It might not pay off the mortgage or catch the eye of thousands of readers, but it’ll be as top-notch as I can make it within that time frame. I’ll divide that hour up into portions so that I can write posts, respond to comments, solicit guest posts, and work on other projects. When the online stopwatch buzzes, my time is up. Sometimes the sacrifices sting and I wish I had more time to accomplish all of my online dreams, but I’m confident that I will not regret my choices in the long-run. To tell you the truth, I’ve found that when I am investing in the “mommy” part, I have much more to offer as a “mommy blogger”, even if I only have twenty minutes to think smart and type fast.

So, whether you are a mommy blogger or any other type of blogger, I’m sure you get my point. YOU matter. It’s not just the money, the readers, or the platform that require attention; it’s your life and the people in it, for better or worse. No matter how much we prosper from social media, we will be happiest – and our blogs will be of the highest quality – when we invest in the passion that drives us to the keyboard in the first place.

That’s my secret to happy blogging. What’s yours?

Guest author Laura Booz is the author of the new eBook Blogger Behave: Make your blog benefit your life so you can love both!. She lives on a farm with her husband, 3 children, 17 chickens, and a slew of strawberry plants. 

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There are tons of articles on the internet talking about the importance of quality backlinks. So, I’m going to assume you know the basics.

To start off, there are basically two methods of building links: The traditional way and the non-traditional way. My strategy falls somewhere in between. There are few tricks that have worked from me – and I am sure they would work for you as well.

The Tried and Tested “Lists”

I believe human psychology is tuned to click list based posts. There is something about these articles that makes users to click, share and link to them. These articles are a great way to build traffic, get noticed by other blogs and go viral on social media sites – and if you have a number (like “Top 10…”) in the headline, then your job is half done.

Personally, I do not like list based articles because there is too much of generic content and very little in-depth analysis. But having them once in a while on your blog won’t harm your reputation that much.

But do not overdo it.

List articles stuff too much information to be gulped down in a single read. That is why users save it, share it and above all link to it. One thing that separates a great List based article from a mediocre one is the amount of original content it has. I have seen text directly copied from the resource sites/ pages.

Rather, write your own thoughts and opinions about the product so that the users have a reason to believe what you have to say.

Spark Controversy

Last week I wrote two posts slamming Google+ and its ineffective management. The articles generated quite a lot of interest from people and ended up being linked by other blogs.

So why did I succeed in generating backlinks?

Simple, I challenged the status quo. There was a lot of buzz on the internet about the rise of Google+ and how it had reached 50 million users already.

I could have gone ahead and rehashed the same stuff, but I took a detour and wrote the opposite of what people believed. Well, I did get slammed by ardent Google+ fans, but then, they stood up and took notice of me.

That is how things work in real world and trust me, that is how things work online too.

Write about startups and companies

This strategy was discovered accidently. On my blog, I write a lot about companies and startups and after writing for about couple of months, I noticed that these very companies were linking back to me — and these were no small ones.

Companies like Hootsuite generously linked to my articles that explained about their product. A quick glance at their PageRank will reveal you that they have a healthy PageRank 6! I now have about a dozen top-notched companies linking to my blog and the effect of this strategy: Page Rank jumped from PR0 to a more respectable PR3.

While some might argue PageRank is no longer relevant, but believe me, it feels great to be linked by a reputable source.

These tips are just an addition to the traditional ways of building backlinks. It has been said over and over again that no matter what, quality of articles separates one blog from another. The three tips that I spoke about won’t work for you if you write poorly.

Spend some time, take breaks and write an awesome article that compels users to link to you. Hopefully you’ll find these tips useful. Do comment and let me know if you find these strategies worth trying.

Guest author Shashank Harwalkar is a social media enthusiast who runs the social media news blog Fastgush.com. He covers social networking news, social media marketing and social media startups. If you would like to reach him, send him an email at shashank@fastgush.com. You can also guestblog here. Image by ivanpw under CC license

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