What are your requirements?

Make sure to list all of your requirements from your new theme. Create a list in a spreadsheet or notepad file and include all the details like navigation options, drop-down menus, sidebar, header/footer, image slider, or any other utility in your Website. You can also list down the basic requirements like W3C Validated Markup, Markup type, cross-browser compatibility etc. Inform the selected service provider with all of your requirements in an email and keep a record of it for future concern.

Are you ordering to a company or freelancer?

You should know with whom you are placing the order. Is it a freelancer or a company? If it is a freelancer then is he/she working on part time or full time basis? We suggest you to place a big order of converting more than 5 pages to a company for quicker turnaround.

Tracing Online Presence

If you are provided with a URL of company’s Website then visit it and check all the details. In addition, few freelancers also pass on their profile URLs for authenticity. We suggest you to browse these URLs and have as much as information about the professionals with whom you’re going to make a deal.

Price Matters

Currently, the World Economy is changing at rapids speed so we suggest you to have the best competitive rates for your PSD to HTML/CSS Conversion order. You can create a list of selected providers and visit their Websites or profiles to know the offered rates, services etc. Now, compare the prices of all the providers at one place, say in a spreadsheet, and also list what they offer? You can also visit our latest comparison done by our Marketing team on top-notch PSD to HTML conversion providers. Match your requirements with the features offered by the selected providers and shortlist those who meet all of your requirements.

Features Offered & Any Add-ons

Now, visit the Websites of shortlisted PSD to HTML Service Providers and browse their Order Page. Almost every service provider mention the services included in their different orders along with the add-ons for which they charge separately. Select the package and add-ons, which fulfills your requirement and then calculate the total cost. Do this for all shortlisted service providers and mention the cost in the spreadsheet. This will let you know the average cost for your work. Now, it is up to you which one you select or leave. However, the selection also depends upon the quality of code, turnaround time, support and other factors. So, do not make a final decision just continue with us for next points.

While comparing the top-notch PSD to HTML service providers, we’ve observed that almost each company in our comparison, charge separately for

1. Commented Markup
2. HTML 5 & CSS 3 code
3. em-based layout
4. Flexible Layout
5. Header or Footer Stretch
6. Print Version CSS
7. JavaScript Implementation
8. Adding drop-down menus
9. Adding Image sliders

Click here to read more.

Work Process

Most of the good service provider companies or freelancers disclose their work process on their Website or profile. It’s quite essential how your selected provider work in order to know which type of design files (PSD, JPG, AI, PNG, BMP etc.) they accept, what they do after receiving the design and will they test the converted template as per standards or not. If it is not disclosed then contact them to have a glimpse of their work flow prior to place an order.

Checking with Previous Clients

Often PSD to HTML professional companies and individuals highlights big brands or reputed clients in their clientele. Browse the Client section at their Website and have a look on the mentioned brand names. If you’re going to place a high value or large order then we suggest you to contact any two or three mentioned clients but searching for their names on search engines. Do not forget that referred client is a third-party and it solely depends upon him/her whether he responds to your query or not.

Ask for Portfolio

If you are a technical personal and can measure the quality of code then it is recommended to check the Portfolio section on a provider’s Website. If this section is missing then contact the PSD to CSS/HTML provider to supply some sample page or demo. These samples clearly demonstrate how a company works, what its work process is, and how much experience in real they have. You can test this output at W3C Validation, Adobe Browser Lab, Broken Link Checker, Google Page Speed Online test etc. This will also help you to understand what you’ll get for them.

Non-Disclosure Agreement

Non-Disclosure Agreement is a quite essential legal documentation work while ordering a work to a service provider either online or offline. PSD to HTML providers also offer NDA to their clients and illustrate the same at their Website with a separate URL. This agreement protects your delivered design, data and other valuable information while ordering a work, during the work and even after the work. We suggest you to carefully read this agreement and contact the service provider in case of any doubt. In addition, you can also ask them to send you the written confirmation of accepting NDA through email while placing the order. Do not forget that you also have to confirm your acceptance for the terms & conditions mentioned in the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Is location a bar?

Today, the business is not bound with the boundaries of different countries. When you search for any service on a global search engine then you’ll get the results & references from all around the globe. If your opted service provider is giving 24*7 technical and customer care support then location is not a bar. Instead if you select a service provider offering time-bound support then it turns into a big problem. Remember that a PSD to HTML Service Provider starts its conversion work only as per their time zone and work timings. Suppose you’re residing in the U.S.A. and you’ve hired a professional working in Asia Pacific. Then, you may face problem in getting the work completion within promised hours, required technical support and other services because your time zone is quite different from that of service provider.

Team Strength & Availability

When you visit a company’s Website or interacts with a freelancer then make sure to check the disclosed team strength. Mostly the team strength is specified on Home page, About us, Our Team, How we work or other relevant sections. After getting the team strength, contact the service provider to know the available bandwidth for your order. This will help you to have a clear idea about the exact turnaround time and leverage you to negotiate the time consumption with them.

Turnaround Time

What is the minimum turnaround time offered? Turnaround time depends upon several factors like

1. quantity of pages to be converted,
2. time zone,
3. team strength,
4. bandwidth in the team for your order,
5. difficulty in the code,
6. any add-ons, etc.

Mostly the 8 hour delivery is promised only for first page or home page. Conversion of other pages need more turnaround time. You can check the order page carefully in order to know whether the turnaround time matches the launch date of your project or not. You can also interact directly with the service provider to know the exact turnaround time to complete your work.

Communication Channels

A good service provider should adopt multiple ways to establish the communication with visitors, readers and clients. You should have leverage to contact the service providers through different mediums. Nowadays, preferred medium of communications for HTML converters are email, contact form, live chat, Instant Messengers and phone numbers. Each medium has an advantage indeed still we prefer only those mediums that allow quick communication with the provider. Again, you should be aware about the availability timings of the support channels and in how much time will you get a response back from the company or freelancer. If you favoring Contact Form and Email communication then ask the service provider for the exact time within which you can expect a reply from them.

Support

Almost each PSD to HTML service provider offers free support of few days. You must be aware about this support period, day & time of support hours and time zone of service provider. These three things help you to have a good support from the selected service provider.

Reviews & Testimonials

During our work to compare the PSD to HTML providers, we noted that everyone have a separate section named Testimonials. Therefore, we suggest you to check out the reviews & ratings of the selected provider at Google Product Search page. Google brings out only the user generated content and ratings for your selected provider.

Testing the service providers’ Website

Mostly each service provider offers you W3C Validated code, cross-browser compatibility, SEO semantic code, commented markup, page loading speed optimization, WAI 2.0/Section 508 Compatibility etc. within the offered package or at more charges. It is the time to test the selected providers’ Website for the same requirements, which you’re looking for. You can

1. validate the code of home page at W3C Validation Services,
2. test its Website at Adobe Browser Lab for cross-browser compatibility, and
3. test page loading speed of home page at Google Page Speed online test.

This will help us to lets you know how good is the work of selected service provider.

Is there any guarantee?

Most of the PSD to HTML service providers offers guarantees like Money Back Guarantee, 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, Best Price Guarantee etc. If they’re offering a guarantee then read all of its terms & conditions carefully before placing the order. You can also contact the service provider for more details if you could not find the URLs of these guarantees or does not understand what they’ve illustrated. Have a clear clarification of offered guarantee, price and features before making an order. We suggest you to select a provider which at least offers Money Back Guarantee.

Is it safe to make a purchase?

Analyze the Website carefully where you are going to make an online payment. Read the documents like Refund Policy, Money Back Guarantee, Best Price Guarantee, Terms & Conditions & Disclaimer etc. Visit the Order Page and check all the conditions marked with asterisk, pound, numbers etc. on the services offered inside the package or add-ons.

It is you duty to decide whether it is safe to make an online purchase on the targeted Website or not. If you’re making purchases through your Credit/Debit Card, Online Banking or third-party service like PayPal or 2CO then make sure your selected payment medium support the filing of refund on your grounds.

Payment Options

Browse the order page of selected service provider and check how many payment options it supports. In today’s global world, a service provider can be located anywhere and can have online presence on WWW. However, their payment options are bounded with their native countries. Therefore, we suggest you to check out the payment options and check whether preferred Payment Medium is supported or not. You can also contact a PSD to CSS/HTML service provider to have more details about their preferred payment options.

Payment Terms

Well each online service provider asks for 100% in advance to provide a service. Still it is required to check the order page whether it has some surprise for you or not. We also find few service providers offering to pay partially or fully after the project delivery.

Are you thinking to get more from a converted theme and have a simple guarantee of it? Then go for the service providers who ask you to pay partially or fully after getting the work.

Any discounts or offers

Most of the service providers offer 50% discount on the conversion of additional pages. They also launch seasonal offers and discount coupons to all or to returning customers. Make sure to have knowledge of current discounts or offers from the selected service provider before placing the order.

Conclusion

We have mentioned all the points to consider prior to place a PSD to H TML conversion order. You are free to contact any service provider to have details about any term, condition, feature, offer or service. We request the readers who’ve recently placed a PSD to HTML order or got a converted theme to share their experience with us and other readers. Your experience can benefit us to know more about the points, which one can consider before selecting a PSD to HTML service provider.

Code Quality

The Code Quality of your Website plays an important role. May be the end users does not rate it while visiting your Website but search engine robots and browsers are crawling each line of its code. If the code is not written properly then the Website either may look scattered in browsers or search engines cannot crawl it properly for assigning good rank to the pages. In addition, the mediocre code quality can affect other parameters like page loading speed, navigation methods, integration of third-party features etc.

The code of a professional PSD to HTML service provider should be

1. clean and tidy,
2. W3C Validated (both Markup & CSS),
3. properly commented,
4. compatible with major browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera
5. compatible with major operating systems like Windows, Linux, Macintosh, Ubuntu,
6. optimized well for good page loading speed
7. compatible with both IE 6 and IE 9
8. compatible for mobile devices, if you’re offering mobile compatibility,

Unique, original & adequate Information

Again, we are iterating the same thing ‘Content is the King’. Yes, it is true even critical updates like Google Panda and Blekko Spam Watch also proves the same thing. A good PSD to HTML Service Provider should have original, non-spammy, less keyword targeted and unique content on its Website to have more business opportunities. In addition, the Website should only have adequate information only. For example, do not have banners of discounts or offers if you’re not offering any such thing. In addition, the Home Page should disclose only those features, which you’re including in your default packages. Additional features like Mobile Compatibility, iPad Compatibility, WCAG Compatibility, Commented Markup etc., for which you are charging extra, should be marked properly with conditional notations such as *, #, +, 1, 2 etc.

Communication Channels

Communication Channels like Phone Number, Live Chat, Email Address, Contact Form and Instant Messenger IDs should be placed properly on the Website. If you are providing a toll free number then mention it with the words “Toll Free” or use the location name to specify it like USA: “ “, India “  “ etc. In addition, it is advisable to mention the availability timings of communication channels like Live Chat, IMs and Phone Numbers. While providing email address and at Contact us page, mention the expected time duration in which a person can expect a reply from your side.

Request for Quote

Even if your Website has a nicely designed Order page with all the necessary features and options, still it is required to have a ‘Request for Quote’ section. Still some clients need a separate quote for their wok or bulk order. Allow the visitors to upload the files at such sections and contact you to get a customized quote. Make sure to disclose the time period within which you’ll reply them back with a price estimation of their work.

Making it a safe place for online payment

You should make your Website a safe place to receive online payments. While making a payment, a client specify critical information like Credit Card details, Personal Information, personal contact number etc. all these information should be kept at a secured place/server. You are also required to clarify the security of visitors/clients’ personal, technical and financial details in Privacy Policy. In addition, the Refund Policy should clearly specify the situations where you’ll give a partial or full refund of their payments. You can also make available the links of Refund Policy, Money Back Guarantee and other legal documentation on the order page itself.

Legal Documentation

The legal documents like Refund Policy, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Non-Disclosure Agreement, Money Back Guarantee, Best Price Guarantee, Satisfaction Guarantee etc. should be clearly stated on your Website in simple and easy-to-understand language. The links to these documents should not be broken at any cost and are placed adequately on Home Page, on Order page and in Footer. When a client browses these documents he/she should clearly understand all the things mentioned at very first place. This will help him to decide quickly whether he/she is going to buy your PSD to HTML Conversion service or not.

Turnaround Time

Each service provider have a different strategy and structure, thus has a different turnaround time. This turnaround time also depends upon several factors like clients’ requirement, design complexity, number of pages, and other factors. We suggest you to show a fix turnaround time at Home Page with a start (*) and mention turnaround time variations if a client’s requirement changes.

Accurate Pricing

The price of default packages should be clearly stated on the Home Page and Order page. IN addition, you should also specify the included features and markup format with the package price without requiring more clicks from the client side. The pricing at your order page should change adequately and notify the client with change in a large Pricing box when he/she add-ons any feature or choose less turnaround.

Keep Original Clientele

We advise you to only mention the clients with which you’ve actually worked. Who knows a recent visitor or client contact the companies mentioned in your clientele to take feedback of your services. You are also required to keep the proof of your interaction with the companies included in your clientele, even if you keep such proofs hidden.

Portfolio

Portfolio section contains the sample code and designs converted by you earlier. Few techie clients, persons with bulk orders, or your competitors often keep a track of the samples mentioned in this section. They are also free to view the code and test it on parameters like Cross-browser compatibility, page loading speed and other things. Therefore, we suggest you to keep only those sample codes, which pass all the famous tests like W3C Validation, Cross-browser Compatibility, page Loading Speed etc.

Declaring exact Location & Time Zone

Today, we are living in a Global World where location is not a bar. But it turns into a bar when it comes to provide support or communication within a bounded time. Suppose you are located in the Asia Pacific but have clients in the United States. You’ve promised them 8 hour delivery and they ordered a PSD to HTML Conversion at 11:00AM PST, which will be a night time in your location and your team is not present. If you are not offering 24*7 support and delivery, then it becomes quite necessary to disclose your time zone.

In addition, showing your location will add more credibility in the clientele, visitors and search engines. Suppose you’ve shown your office location in the United Kingdom so when someone searches on Google.co.uk then your Website will be preferred more than others as you are located in the same area where the person is searching.

Disclosing Correct Support Details

Almost each PSD to HTML service provider offer a free technical support for fix duration. You should disclose the support period, day & timing of the support, and communication channels for the support. It is also advised to mention the time zone while declaring the support timings.

Payment Modes

The clients to order PSD to HTML conversion are not coming from common places. Your Website will get orders from all around the globe. Therefore, you should support the common payment modes and declare them clearly at your Website, especially at order page.

Payment Terms

As a market trend, you can ask your client to pay 100% in advance. Still you are free to leverage the clients to pay partially or fully after getting the code. You should specify the payment term clearly on the order page. If it is not 100% in advance then you can declare how much a client has to pay in advance, how much after the delivery and is there any charge for this facility?

Easy-to-use Order Page

The order page should be self explanatory. The default packages should disclose what they offer and there should be the options to select the add-ons manually. Do not be clever to automatically add the add-ons in the order page.

Conclusion

No Website is perfect still one can follow above parameters to make its Website much better for more business opportunities. We invite our readers and PSD to HTML professionals to pass on their valuable feedback about this article and suggestion to make the Website more useful for clients.

Note:  we’ve tested the usage of WordPress in the following Websites with BuiltWith Chrome Extension.

Yahoo

Yahoo makes use of WordPress for its two famous blogging platforms. Let us have a look on them.

Yahoo Yodel Ancedotal Blog

Screenshot of Yahoo!’s Yodel Anecdotal Blog

Yahoo!’s Yodel Ancedotal Blog has a pixel-perfect design and employs horizontal tabs for navigation. It makes use of PHP, unidentified WordPress Plugins, Google Feedburner and other social sharing features.

Yahoo! Code: Flickr Developer Blog

Flickr is the most appreciated and used social image sharing Website. Even WordPress Plugin Repository offers several plugins to integrate the images stored at Flickr accounts and implementing Flickr APIs.

Screenshot of Flickr Developer Blog

This Flickr Developer blog features a simple but elegant style. Its development team has also integrated Flickr Badge, Flickr API and Flickr PhotoStream in this blog.

EBay Ink

Screenshot of EBay’s Official Ink Blog

Famous ecommerce company EBay also favors WordPress and runs its official blog on it. This blogging site makes use of jQuery, Typekit, Thickpad and Contact Form 7. EbayInk also have some common widgets like Twitter Stream (inked), Popular Posts (popular thoughts) and Tags (recent tags).

Samsung USA News

Preview of Samsung USA Newsroom Website

Samsung is one of the most famous corporations dealing in electronics, Life Insurance, and other fields. Its USA News Portal is built upon WordPress. With a simple design, this portal has J2EE, jQuery, Thickbox and Image Map.

The Mozilla Blog

Screenshot of The Mozilla Blog running on WordPress

Mozilla Community favors open-source applications. Its Firefox browser, Thunderbird email client, and other tools are quite famous today. It has selected WordPress as backed system for its official weblog – The Mozilla Blog. This blog includes frameworks like HTML5 Shiv, jQuery, Superfish, Passive Location etc.

American Express OPEN Forum

Preview of OPEN Forum American Express Website

American Express is one of the most renowned financial companies in this world. They’ve also selected WordPress to run their OPEN Forum Community portal. At this Website, one can register with its American Express Card.

NFL Blog

Preview of NFL Blog, which is using WordPress

National Football League (NFL) is the highest professional level American Football in the United States. Being highly professional, they’ve utilized the professional AMP-based CMS for their blog – WordPress. This site have integrated Facebook, jQuery and IE Pinning framework with different analytics tool.

People StyleWatch News

Preview of PeopleStyleWatch StyleNews Website

People StyleWatch is one of the famous fashion & style based blogging Website. Its StyleNews Portal use WordPress as backend system. This eye-catchy portal makes use of horizontal tabs as primary navigation method. It has integrated WordPress Grid, Brightcove, jQuery, Facebook, IE Pinning and other frameworks.

GE Reports

Screenshot of GE Reports Website

GE does not need any introduction here. This company also trusts WordPress for its GE Reports Website. Used platforms in this portal are jQuery, jQuery Validate, SWFObject, Typekit, Feedburner, and Google FeedProxy.

PlayStation Blog

PlayStation US Blog Website runs on WordPress.

PlayStation Gaming consoles are used mostly in several countries. Not only children but also skilled developers like to play games on this next-gen device. PlayStation also adopts the most used CMS, WordPress, for its US blog. This blog has a PageRank of 7 while writing this article. PlayStation Blog employs Twitter API, Facebook API, jQuery, Passive Localization and other frameworks.

MTV Newsroom

Preview of MTV Newsroom Portal

Conclusion

WordPress is one of the most common backend systems to create Websites. These are true inspiration for each Webmaster running his/her Website on WordPress. Do you know any other famous companies using WordPress then provide its name through comments? Also, we invite the creative WordPress developers to provide the URL of a masterpiece created on WordPress.

Why only WordPress Sites got hacked?

It is not so that only WordPress sites got hacked. The problem is not with the WordPress rather the mess is with its open-source nature. Being open-source, its source code is available to all. Anyone can download it and use it for their genuine or hacking modifications. The same problem is with other popular open-source CMSs like Drupal and Joomla.

Why only my Website?

There is a set of default options while installing WordPress and setting up cPanel, which are known to the WordPress hackers and experienced developers. These settings include default username for WordPress Login – admin and default table prefix – wp_.

In addition, most of the times we generate the passwords through automatic tools like we generate Authentication (Security) Keys for wp-config.php in WordPress Multisite through http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/. This situation rose again when you generate the password through Password Generator in cPanel while creating a database, database user, email account or any other thing.

If you are using default settings as-it-is and/or using Password Generator Tools then your WordPress Website is more prone to be hacked. Also, declaring or showing that your Website is powered with WordPress also makes your site insecure. In any case, you should not disclose that your Website is using any open-source CMS like WordPress.

Sometimes hacker target one specific Website rising above in the market and enters into its system as an intruder. Hackers also create the malware, viruses, SQL Injections and other malicious items. When you visit an unsecure URL then associated injections or malware, on it, downloads automatically to your computer. Afterwards, these malware spreads into your computer and get transferred to the Website through FTP client when you’re using it to access the Website File System.

NOTE: As a scope of this article, we may not discuss how to prevent your WordPress Website from hack and what precautionary steps to take after recovering the Website. We’ll discuss these things in a separate article.

How to know that your Website is hacked?

Following are the few symptoms to know that your Website has been hacked:

1. When you open your Website then it shows a horrible image saying ‘Your Website has been hacked’ or ‘Welcome to XXX Hacking Group’. You may or may not be able to see your Website entirely or partly.
2. The search engines likes Google and Bing may consider your Website as hacked and mail to you regarding the same. When someone visits your Website in Google Chrome or the browsers with McAfee Site Advisor, it gives warning, “This site may harm your computer”. Google sends the malware phishing and hacking detection emails at following email addresses of your Website:
   • abuse@
   • admin@
   • administrator@
   • contact@
   • info@
   • postmaster@
   • support@
   • webmaster@
3. When you or other visitors visit the Websites they’ll be redirected to other unknown URLs.
4. Visitors or you get viruses/malware in computers while browsing a hacked Website.
5. The Websites’ traffic either decreases or increases instantly.
6. Suddenly, Website and its pages will have the unidentified code, which you’ve not inserted into it.
7. You’ll detect few files like new index.html or any other file in your WordPress installation. Most of the people got modified index.html uploaded at their file system mostly in public_html.

What to do now when my WordPress-Website got hacked?

It is not the time to become restless or hyper active. Yes, I know your Website have a higher PageRank and getting high amount of visitors’ traffic. Still you should relax a minute and create a plan how you can recover your Website back. If you are a non-technical person and could not understand the geeky WordPress then straightaway contact your Website host. If you are technical, know WordPress and its working then you can perform following steps:

1. First of all, try to access your Website through every mean such as FTP and cPanel. Check whether you are able to upload the files or not. If you’re not able to access FTP or cPanel then contact your Web Hosting Provider to get change their passwords and access your Website.
2. Contact your Website Hosting Provider and raise a support ticket with them to check & remove all the infected/hacked code from your Website.
3. After accessing your cPanel, you should change the password of cPanel and FTP on the very first instance. Make sure to have a combination of lower case alphabets, upper case alphabets, numbers, punctuations and special characters. You should avoid the automatic Password Generator of cPanel or any other mean. Make a strong it yourself and save it a safe place.
4. Logout from cPanel and then login again.
5. Access your all email accounts and change their passwords as suggested above.
6. Visit MySQL Databases and change the database username and apply a strong password to it.
7. Assign the newly assigned user to the database and grant it full permission.
8. Now, it is the time to secure and reset your computer. Scan your computer with a trusted Antivirus and an AntiSpyware.
   1. You can rely upon McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Avira, FSecure, Panda, KasperSky, AVG and other popular brands. I advise you to also use Microsoft Security Essentials, if you are using Windows.
   2. Now, download an Antispyware like Windows Defender, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware and scan your computer with it.
   3. Run the OS Updates to have latest security patches. You can run Windows Updates to update Microsoft Windows.
   4. Clear the temporary files of your operating system.
   5. Clear the Browsing History, Downloading History, Auto-form cache etc. from your browser.
   6. Delete the saved profile from your FTP Client.
9. Configure the Website in the FTP Client but do not save the password. In Core FTP, you’ve to check the option ‘Do not save my password’. Connect with your Website.
10. Download the wp-config.php from public_html folder to safe location. Open it and perform below steps,
    1. Check whether it has all the default settings which you’ve created at the time of installation.
    2. Replace the fields of Database username and password with the new values, you’ve created.
    3. Note down the database name, username and password at safe place.
11. Check the files carefully and trace the newly modified or unidentified files. You can look for such files in the root folders of your Website File System such as public_ftp, public_html, temp and other folders. If you’re not using the modified HTML file for your WordPress then check whether public_html folder have index.html or not. Detect these unidentified files and remove them instantly.
12. Now, it is the time to browse your WordPress Theme files and check them for suspicious code. You can download the current theme from public_html/wp-content/themes folder and open the PHP files in a PHP editor like notepad or notepad++. If you do not know how to identify the culprit code then follow below steps.
    1. Download the default theme from the theme providers’ Website.
    2. Download WinMerge from http://winmerge.org/ and install it. WinMerge helps us to compare the PHP, HTML and other files. Read the documentation at http://manual.winmerge.org/ in order to know how to use WinMerge to compare files.
    3. Open the folder where you’ve downloaded the files from hacked Website.
    4. Right click a file, let us say, header.php and then compare it with the similar file (header.php in our case) stored in the folder where you’ve downloaded the default theme.
    5. Check for each line and compare both of the codes. If you detect any unidentified code lines then remove it immediately. Please do not delete the code which you’ve added to integrate any social plugin or search engine verification or for any other purpose.
    6. Save the corrected theme at a safe place named ‘SAFE THEME’.
13. After Steps 7 and 8, check your Website is opening up or showing some problem. You must check whether all the pages & posts of your Website are opening up correctly or not.
14. Check whether you’re able to login at http://yourwebsite.com/wp-login.php for single WordPress Website Setup or http://yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/network for WordPress Multisite.
15. Login to the cpanel at http://yourWebsite.com/cPanel, visit phpMyAdmin and browse wp_users table in the used database. If you’re using any other table prefix like tb_ then check tb_users table. Note down the usernames, passwords, and email addresses provided in this table. If these fields do not have your provided entries then click on Edit and change the values as per requirement. Try to change the password as well.
16. After this, check whether you’re able WordPress Login page or not. If not then click on Forgot Password and you’ll get an email at the provided email address in wp_users.
17. Now, login at the WordPress Dashboard and check which version of WordPress you have. If you do not have the latest version of WordPress then it is the right time to upgrade the WordPress Installation right now. Make sure to follow the WordPress Upgrade guidelines at http://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress. At the time of writing this post, the latest WordPress version is 3.2.1 and if you’re at WordPress 3.2 then you can update it from the WordPress Dashboard straightaway.
18. Now, check each section of your WordPress Dashboard like Posts, Pages, Widgets, Profile, Settings, Appearance, Plugins etc. Try to add new plugin, theme, post, page, widget, and user. Check whether you are getting any problem or not.
19. If you’ve a backup of your Website then restore it immediately after removing the infected code at Website File System. If you do not have a backup then continue with below-mentioned steps.
20. If you face any problem in the Dashboard or at the Website, then it is the time to replace the default WordPress files. You can download the latest version of WordPress from http://www.wordpress.org at your computer.
21. Use FTP to upload the WordPress installation files to the location where you’ve installed WordPress. Make sure not to delete following files/folders else you’ll lose content of your Website:
    1. Folders, which were at your Website file system in the first place like (stats, etc.)
    2. wp-content
    3. favicon.ico
    4. wp-config.php
    5. any html file for Search Engine Verification like Google Webmaster, Yahoo Search Verification, Norton SafeWeb file or McAfee Site Advisor HTML file.

NOTE: Make sure not to erase above files and delete other files.

1. Activate a WordPress default theme like Twenty Eleven or Twenty Ten.
2. Now, browser the Website and its all pages in the browser. Check whether they work file or still have any problem.
3. Upload the fresh copy of your selected theme, activate it and then check whether it works fine or not.
4. Now, remove the old theme present at the time of hacking and upload the corrected theme from ‘SAFE THEME’ location of Step 11.
5. Activate the corrected theme and check its working.
6. If corrected theme does not work then either switch to WordPress default theme (TwentyEleven/Twenty Ten) or fresh copy of your selected theme. You can also consider using any other theme from WordPress Theme repository.
7. Disable all the plugins from Dashboard and then install them again.
8. Check the plugins not in use and remove them out.
9. Check the working of your Website. If you still face any problem then you can consider the fresh installation of WordPress at your server. Make sure to backup the posts, pages, database, and images used in your Website.
10. If you still have any problem then it is the time to take help of experts to recover your Website.

Conclusion

We invite our readers to improve this article with their valuable comments, suggestions and feedback. You can also tell other readers about any hacking experience at your Website or doorstep.

A video retains more probability of achieving higher ranks in search engines than texts for time-bound users prefer the former over the latter. Persuasive, informative and target-oriented videos get noticed far more easily by users than long, tedious and useless content that clog the web. YouTube is a vast database of videos spanning verticals and domains; it’s like a colossal community of videos on each and every available topic around to serve the purpose of information.

With videos gradually overwhelming tedious articles in the popularity chart, YouTube has grown to become the source of information for users around the globe.  Like texts, videos too have the potential to fetch desired online visibility and as a result, marketers are tapping into the immense popularity of videos. Search Engines need texts to give SEO rankings and videos can easily be promoted with the help of supporting texts to generate higher rankings in major search engines.

With YouTube, videos are now a major source of visibility, online promotion, online marketing and business generation. Videos on YouTube are likely to attract more users, views, comments and feedbacks and thus, the chances of achieving relevant targets are easily met.

How videos are more helpful than texts for SEO?

With unparalleled growth and popularity of videos, one question instantly pops up in mind: do search engines really see videos for rankings and SERPs? Well that’s not the case as search engines never take videos into account to generate result; they rather use a specific algorithm that only supports texts. Videos are decoded through the texts around them to get the result; it’s the texts that ultimately help generate higher rankings, not the videos.

In other words, videos with relevant texts are used by search engines to fetch rankings and further analyses. Videos on YouTube are uploaded by inserting words in the title, description and tags for good results. More so, videos’ overall popularity, views, comments, feedbacks and ratings are considered by search engines to derive the result and rankings.

Thus, videos with relevant words, tags and description have better chance to fetch good rankings than long-drawn articles or texts. More so, videos score heavily over texts for their popularity quotient and informative nature. A short-span, funny and interesting video is likely to score more points that a deliberately stretched-out article.

In a nutshell, videos on YouTube are a good bet in today’s time to enhance visibility and attain higher SEO rankings in search engines.

How YouTube serves as a modern day SEO tool?

YouTube is now considered as the second largest search engine after Google; its billions of hours of videos on every imaginable topic are proving to be quite a rage among the users and marketers alike. A growing number of people, say marketers and businesses are uploading videos to share information with the target market. And in turn, a vast collection of information, attractive and target-oriented videos have been getting added to YouTube on a daily basis.

Unlike texts, videos have always proven to be far more attractive, informative and useful source of information and entertainment. Millions of users from all across the globe are watching these videos and that’s where marketers have a golden opportunity to score point and reach to the intended result.

Users prefer videos over text for information in a lucid way and that’s why videos often generate more interest and visits than texts. If you have any vital information to share with the target market, YouTube offers an opportunity to add relevant keywords, title tags and description in the video to avail of the advantages as texts do.

A compelling, short, informative video on YouTube gets instant clicks & views and spread like a fire in the forest. Thus your target market gets served in the best possible way. So pick the video route to lend your business the modern day edge for the majority is following the same route.

Common practices of SEO rankings for YouTube

Videos are a rage these days for SEO, marketing and online promotion; the majority is posting videos on YouTube to get a relevant pie of this vastly growing segment. Users have been following some common practices to get more clicks, views, comments and feedbacks for the videos.

Steps users should follow while uploading videos on YouTube:

• Add suitable keywords in the title of the video
• Don’t forget to include the word “video” for searches are done mostly using this word
• Having a unique keyword-rich description for each video would be a real game changer
• Include a URL in the description to let users find the link easily
• Take full advantage of social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter etc by placing the links onto them

Options to embed links to Facebook and Twitter

• Comments or feedbacks add value to a video and get importance by search engines to better SEO rankings and thus, make sure that your video meets that aspect
• Embedding is a significant aspect; allow your video to enjoy that feature
• Place a full transcript of your video in the description to allow search engines to completely comprehend the video
• YouTube’s captions and annotation features must be used
• Tag your videos with keywords

Latest practices of YouTube SEO rankings factors

YouTube is changing with the time and bringing in a new set of rules to fetch rankings and results. The aspects and practices that were earlier beneficial for higher rankings and visibility of videos don’t hold much of a value these days. Unlike the earlier times, title tags don’t enjoy the same privilege for being somewhat manipulative in nature.  At present, views and subscribers of a video are major factor now and thus, steps should be taken to score heavily on these vital aspects.

Steps to get more subscribers:

• Put “Subscribe to my videos” everywhere in the your site
• Connect and socialize with other YouTube users.
• Be gracious in your comments to videos on YouTube for that usually prompt users to revert back to subscribe to your video

Conclusion

YouTube is a buzzword these days for its immense video database and ability to serve as a beneficial social media platform. The number of videos has been growing on it with an exceptional pace and making it the second largest search engine in the world, right after Google. For SEO purposes, it’s serving like a god-send boon. Thus it would be a judicious move on your part to be an active part of this vastly growing community of videos to target the audience and users. So don’t be a minute late; come up with a persuasive, informative and short video to reach to the marketing target and reap intended rewards later on.

WAVE WebAIM

WebAIM is a non-profit organization working for the betterment of Accessibility of Web and software. You can use its online testing tool http://wave.webaim.org. One can either enter the URL to test, upload a HTML file or copy the code to test it against the WCAG Guidelines.

Showing up the WebAIM WAVE Tool to test WCAG Guideline Compatibility Online

WAVE Firefox Toolbar

In addition to the online testing, WebAIM also provide the WAVE Firefox Toolbar to test the Websites on-the-fly while browsing the Web. One can use this toolbar to know the Errors, Warnings and Features, according to WCAG, on a Web page.

Screenshot of WAVE Firefox Toolbar

Functional Accessibility Evaluator

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides this online tool to test your Website against WCAG 2.0 Guidelines. By default, this tool checks one URL at a time however you can register with it and check your complete Website to get a detailed report. You can also check ‘Include DHTML Content’ to parse the DHTML code as well. We used this tool to test our Website WordPressIntegration. It displayed the report for all 183 pages on the site and allows us to navigate each page one by one. FAE also allows you to download the whole report in XML format.

Screenshot of the FAE Tool from University of Illinois

Web Accessibility Toolbar

The Paciello Group provides the Web Accessibility Toolbars for Internet Explorer and Opera. You can use this toolbar to validate a Website or page against W3C HTML Validation, W3C CSS Validation, and W3C Broken Link Checker. In addition, WAT for IE provides following options:

1. resizing the Web page in different resolutions such as 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024
2. disabling CSS and inline styles
3. Image options such as list images, remove images, remove CSS images, show images, show image maps, active images, larger images, small images, and Long Descriptions
4. Color Options: Greyscale, Contrast Analyser and Juicy Studio luminosity analyser
5. Page Structure Options like Headings, List Items, Section Elements, ARIA Landmark Roles, Access Keys, etc.
6. Table Inspectors, Frame Structure Options, Doc Info, Accessibility Viewer and Reference Documents.

Screenshot of Web Accessibility Toolbar for IE

ACTF aDesigner

Eclipse as a part of its Technology Project has initiated the Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF), an incubation phase project. It offers a disability simulator named ACTF aDesigner. A person can use this tool to ensure that application or content is visible and accessible by visually impaired. This tool can help to validate the accessibility of HTML Documents, OpenDocument, Flash and GUI.

Testing the Website using HTML Website Accessibility in ACTF aDesigner

The HTML Accessibility option allows you to test the Website or pages against the WCAG and Section 508. aDesigner also follows the accessibility information as per MSAA/IA2.

Fujitsu Accessibility Assistance

Fujitsu provides following tools helping us to make our Web products more accessible. These products are available for free. You can download them and use as per convenience.

1. Fujitsu Web Accessibility Inspector 5.1 – tests the Web pages according to the WCAG 1.0 and Fujitsu Web Accessibility Guidelines. We’ve used this tool test one of our new Website – DrupalJunction. We found that it provides the in-depth report of all the problems and point out how we can improve the site code to make it more accessible.

Testing the Website for accessibility using Fujitsu Web Accessibility Inspector

2. Fujitsu ColorSelector 5.1 – analyzes legibility of foreground and background colors on a Web page. It examines the color combination on the page and points whether they are legible for a color blind person or not. Usually ColorSelector marks the pages as Tritanopia (blue-blindness), Deuteranopia (green-blindness), Protanopia (red-blindness), Cataract (an eye disease) and Regular. After marking, it shows the judgment.
3. Fujitsu ColorDoctor 2.1 – provides real-time simulation of a Website or page in different color modes like Grayscale, Monochrome or with other colors. One can also check the real-time simulation of moving images like GIF files, presentations, and proposals.

Firefox Accessibility Extension

Illinois Center for Information Technology & Web Accessibility along with other branches of University of Illinois has prepared this Firefox Accessibility Extension. Just like other toolbars, you can use this Extension on Firefox to test your Website for accessibility. FAE has following options:

1. Reports – to show the Accessibility Testing Report.
2. Navigation – to show the different navigational elements in a list like Title, Headings, Image Maps etc.
3. Text Equivalents – to show the text-only alternative of non-text content.
4. Scripting – to demonstrate the list of ARIA Roles, Events, and Focus Inspector.
5. Style – to check the color contrast on the given Web page or site.
6. Validators – to validate your site HTML and CSS as per W3C. Also, checks the Website as per W3C Broken Link Checker and other tools.
7. Keyboard – allows users to enable the keyboard navigation for toolbar and assign shortcuts.

Adobe Dreamweaver Accessibility

Even Adobe knows the necessity of enabling Accessibility as per Section 508 or WCAG, that’s why it provide the inbuilt Accessibility Extension in its Dreamweaver CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5. In these versions, you can go to Edit > Preferences and customize the options in Accessibility.

Conclusion

Accessibility of a Website is an important factor to consider for Web designers and developers. You can use above tools to check whether your Website complies with the guidelines laid down in WCAG 1.0, 2.0 and Section 508. We invite our readers to provide their valuable comments and suggestions about the Website Accessibility Testing Tools and their benefits to us.

Doing it Manually

Schema.org has a complete list of semantic markup names. You can click here to see this list. Visit this online doc and click any item to view its sample implementation. Based on my experience, it is quite easy to add a Microdata class to an existing HTML document. Microdata have introduced following three new primarily used Attributes:

1. itemid
2. itemscope
3. itemname
4. itemprop
5. itemtype

Microdata will continue to use previous attributes like content, src, href, data, datetime, and others. Let us take two different examples – one of a Person and another Recipe. I’ll include both HTML without semantic markup and same HTML with Microdata.

Normal HTML about a Person

Sergey Mikhaylovich  Grin

<img src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SaXJbI77n-I/AAAAAAAAEeA/DeV-BvKsa0c/s288/sergey_brin.jpg” />

Co-Founder, Google Inc.

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

Mountain View, CA 94043

<a href=”mailto:sergey.brin@google.com”>sergey.brin@google.com</a>

Brin‘s home page:

<a href=”http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/”>http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/</a>

Colleagues:

Larry Page

Eric E. Schimdt

Same code with Microdata

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

<span itemprop=”name”>Sergey Brin</span>

<img itemprop=”image” src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SaXJbI77n-I/AAAAAAAAEeA/DeV-BvKsa0c/s288/sergey_brin.jpg” />

<span itemprop=”JobTitle”>Co-Founder</span>, <span itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Organization”>Google Inc. </span>

<div itemprop=”address” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/PostalAddress”>

<span itemprop=”streetAddress”>1600 Amphitheatre Parkway</span>

<span itemprop=”addressLocality”>Mountain View, CA</span> <span itemprop=”postalCode”>94043</span> </div>

<a itemprop=”email” href=”mailto:sergey.brin@google.com”>sergey.brin@google.com</a>

Brin’s home page:

<a itemprop=”url” href=”http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/”>http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/</a>

Colleagues:

<span itemprop=”colleagues” itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>Larry Page</span>

<span itemprop=”colleagues” itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>Eric E. Schimdt</span>

</div>

See, we have only specified that

1. Sergey Brin is a name
2. Co-Founder is his Job Title
3. Google Inc. is his company/organization
4. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 is his Postal Address, in which
   1. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway is street address
   2. Mountain View, CA is locality
   3. 94043 is Postal Code.
5. Surgery.brin@google.com is his email address.
6. Larry Page & Eric E. Schimdt are his colleagues.

HTML Format of a Recipe without Markup

Famous Pineapple Bread

From Chrish Paul, July 10, 2011

<img src=”bread.jpg” />

This classic pineapple bread recipe comes from me. You can add the walnuts to have good flavor to the bread.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

- 1 smashed Pineapple

- 2 eggs

- 2/4 cup of sugar

Nutrition facts:

120 calories, 5 grams fat

Same Recipe Code With Microdata

We’ll highlight the Microdata additions with red color.

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Recipe”>

<span itemprop=”name”>Famous Pineapple Bread</span>

From <span itemprop=”author”>Chrish Paul</span>

<meta itemprop=”publishDate” content=”2011-07-10″>May 8, 2009

<img itemprop=”image” src=”bread.jpg” />

<span itemprop=”description”>This classic pineapple bread recipe comes from me. You can add the walnuts to have good flavor to the bread.</span>

Preparation Time: <meta itemprop=”prepTime” content=”PT10M”>10 minutes

Cook time: <meta itemprop=”cookTime” content=”PT30M”>30 minutes

Yield: <span itemprop=”recipeYield”>1 loaf</span>

<div itemprop=”nutrition”

itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/NutritionInformation”>

Nutrition facts:

<span itemprop=”calories”>120 calories</span>,

<span itemprop=”fatContent”>5 grams fat</span>

</div>

Ingredients:

- <span itemprop=”ingredients”>1 pineapple, smashed</span>

- <span itemprop=”ingredients”>2 eggs</span>

- <span itemprop=”ingredients”>2/4 cup of sugar</span>

</div>

A simplified way

Thinking lost after seeing the full list of supported attributes and schemas at schema.org. Then, Schema-Creator.org is here to help you. Visit this site and select any one of the following schemas:

1. Person
2. Product
3. Event
4. Organization
5. Movie
6. Book
7. Review

After clicking, you’ll get few text fields. You can just fill them up to get the HTML code with Microdata. Following is an example of Movie illustrated below.

List of fields for the schema – Movie at Schema-Creator.org

I’ve just filled above fields and it give me the following code:

<div itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Movie”>

<a itemprop=”url” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aviator_(2004_film)”><div itemprop=”name”><strong>The Aviator</strong></div>

</a>

<div itemprop=”description”>The Aviator is a 2004 American biographical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by John Logan, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It is the story of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, drawn largely upon numerous sources including a biography by Charles Higham.</div>

<div itemprop=”director” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

Directed by: <span itemprop=”name”>Martin Scorsese</span></div>

<div>

Starring: <div itemprop=”actors” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

<span itemprop=”name”>Leonardo Di Caprio</span></div>

<div itemprop=”actors” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

<span itemprop=”name”>Cate Blanchett</span></div>

<div itemprop=”actors” itemscope itemtype=”http://schema.org/Person”>

<span itemprop=”name”>Kate Beckinsale</span></div>

</div>

</div>

It also shows how your code will look like in the browser. The code and the output changes on-the-fly as you edit the value of text fields.

Screenshot of the output of Movie Schema created at schema.org

Is not it easy?

WordPress Plugins

Schema for WordPress

SchemaforWordPress.com has created this plugin for WordPress. You can install this plugin and upload the provided SQL database through PHPMyAdmin. Let us have a look on the steps to use this plugin:

1. Go to ‘Add New’ option in ‘Plugins’ section at your WordPress Admin Dashboard.

Add New option in Plugins section at WordPress Admin Dashboard

2. Search for the plugin named ‘Schema for WordPress’ and install this plugin.

Screenshot of installing Schema for WordPress

3. Click on Install Now link. It will install the plugin and ask you to activate.
4. Click on ‘Activate Plugin’ link to activate this plugin.
5. Now, open the directory where this plugin got installed. Usually, it is http://your-url/wp-content/plugins/schema-for-wordpress
6. Open the folder schema-data at above path and you’ll find a file wp_sfwp.sql.
7. Now, open the cPanel of your domain by visiting http://your-url/cPanel and access the phpMyAdmin. I’m using WAMPServer on my computer so I have to open phpMyAdmin through http://localhost/phpMyAdmin
8. Here, you have to load your WordPress database and then load the table wp_sfwp.

Selecting wp_sfwp table in WordPress Installation Database in phpMyAdmin

The wp_sfwp table has following content by default:

Screenshot of default wp_sfwp table

9. Go to Import tab and click Browse button.

Screenshot of importing wp_sfwp.sql

10. Select the wp_sfwp.sql.zip and click Go button. This will load the schema.

Now, you will have the ‘s’ red color icon in the Posts Editor. You can use this icon to import schema.

Adding Microdata manually in WordPress

The best time to add Microdata markup in WordPress is when you’ve finished writing your post in the WordPress or going to publish your post. Switch to HTML view and add the code therein. Remember not to switch to visual mode to keep your code intact else the code will become cluttered.

Conclusion

Adding Microdata manually or through Schema-Creator or Schema for WordPress Plugin may not suite your daily routine of coding or writing posts. But once you become habitual then you’ll get ample amount of benefits from it. Google Recipe was once supporting Microformats only today it is considering Microdata more than other semantic formats. So, it depends up to you what you exactly wants from your Website or page. We invite our readers to provide their valuable feedback and suggestion about this post and about Microdata implementation.

Show Full Post in RSS

WordPress shows the full post on the home page and RSS by default. If you install any Excerpt plugin to show Posts with only its excerpts on the Home Page (index.php) then this plugin also works on RSS. Therefore, you will see only excerpts in the RSS Feeds. We recommend you to disable any such plugin in order to display full posts in the RSS Feeds. In addition, you can manually edit the index.php to show thumbnails and excerpts on home page instead of full posts.

Adding Thumbnails in RSS

Post Thumbnail support has been added in WordPress 2.9, since then each latest theme has this option by default. You can also show the thumbnails in RSS by adding following code in the functions.php. Follow below steps,

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Look for following lines:

add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Insert following code beneath above lines

function feedFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘feedContentFilter’);

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'feedFilter’);

 

function feedContentFilter($content) {

$thumbId = get_post_thumbnail_id();

 

if($thumbId) {

$img = wp_get_attachment_image_src($thumbId);

$image = ‘<img align=”left” src=”‘. $img[0] .’” alt=”" width=”‘. $img[1] .’” height=”‘. $img[2] .’” />’;

echo $image;

}

 

return $content;

}

4. Save the functions.php and check its view in a RSS reader like Google Reader or Bloglines or Netvibes.

Aligning the images correctly

Most of the times, RSS readers does not wrap the images with text correctly. You can fix this problem by just affixing a small attribute in the img tag to insert the images. This attribute is class=”center”, i.e. your code to insert an image should be:

<img src=”example.jpg” class=”center” />

Adding Advertisement or Common Finishing Message in RSS Feed

You can add advertisements to monetize the RSS feeds. In addition, you can also add a common finishing message in the feeds like a pitch to read featured posts. It helps you to boost the visitors’ traffic. Follow below steps;

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Look for following lines:

add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Insert following code beneath above lines

function feedContentFilter($content) {

$thumbId = get_post_thumbnail_id();

if($thumbId) {

$img = wp_get_attachment_image_src($thumbId);

$image = ‘<img align=”left” src=”‘. $img[0] .’” alt=”" width=”‘. $img[1] .’” height=”‘. $img[2] .’” />’;

echo $image;

}

$content .= ‘Write here the code to show advertisement or common finishing message’;

return $content;

}

Example Code:

function feedContentFilter($content) {

$thumbId = get_post_thumbnail_id();

if($thumbId) {

$img = wp_get_attachment_image_src($thumbId);

$image = ‘<img align=”left” src=”‘. $img[0] .’” alt=”" width=”‘. $img[1] .’” height=”‘. $img[2] .’” />’;

echo $image;

}

$content .= ‘<p>Thanks for reading, check out <a href=”‘. get_bloginfo(‘url’) .’”>’. get_bloginfo(‘name’) .’</a> for more WordPress news!</p><br /><hr /><a href=”http://www.wordpressintegration.com/order.php”>Buy a PSD to HTML Conversion today.</a><hr />’;

return $content;

}

Sample Output

Figure 1: Sample Output of adding Ads & Finishing Message in RSS Feeds

Link for Comments Feed

Most of the WordPress themes include the option to access feeds of comments at individual posts. If your theme does not have such option, then paste following code in the comments.php of your theme.

<?php comments_rss_link(‘» Comments RSS Feed’); ?>

Output

Figure 2: Screenshot of Comments RSS Link

Number of Posts to appear in Feeds

You can also set the number of posts to appear in the feeds. Follow below steps,

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress dashboard.
2. Check for following line:

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Now, add the following code beneath above line:

function feedFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

$query->set(‘posts_per_page’,’20′);

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'feedFilter’);

NOTE: Here we have replaced add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘feedContentFilter’); with $query->set(‘posts_per_page’,’20′);.

Excluding the Posts in RSS Feed

Do you need leverage to exclude posts from RSS Feeds? Then it is possible. You can mention tags or categories to exclude posts from them.

Excluding Posts through Tags

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress dashboard.
2. Check for following line:

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Now, add the following code beneath above line:

function feedFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

$tags = array(’29′);

$query->set(‘tag__not_in’, $tags);

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'feedFilter’);

Excluding the Categories

Add following code beneath set_post_thumbnail_size ( 100, 100, true);

function myFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

$query->set(‘cat’,'-5′); //Don’t forget to change the category ID =^o^=

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'myFilter’);

Stealth Publish Plugin

You can install this plugin to hide the post in both RSS Feeds and front page.

Showing Posts from only one Category

You can set the RSS feeds to display posts from one category only. Follow below steps:

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress dashboard.
2. Check for following line:

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Now, add the following code beneath above line:

function feedFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

$query->set(‘category_name’, ‘blog’); //Replace category_name with category and blog

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'feedFilter’);

Adding Pages in RSS

RSS Feeds does not include the pages created in WordPress, by default. You have to edit the RSS functions to include the pages in RSS feeds. This will increase the credibility of your Website and it is also good from SEO point of view. Follow below steps,

1. Open functions.php in Appearance > Editor at your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Look for following lines:

add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );

set_post_thumbnail_size( 100, 100, true );

3. Insert following code beneath above lines

function feedFilter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

$query->set(‘post_type’,'any’);

$query->set(‘post_parent’,’3′);

}

return $query;

}

add_filter(‘pre_get_posts’,'feedFilter’);

In (‘post parent’,’3’), you can specify levels to show the posts. Currently, it is setup to display pages up to Level 3. To show top level pages, just set 0 here.

Category-wise RSS Feed Widget

You can create a widget to display the Feeds from each category. Users can select the one with which they want to subscribe. You just have to place the following code in a text widget.

<?php wp_list_categories(‘feed_image=http://www.myblog.com/image.gif&feed=XML Feed&optioncount=1&children=0′); ?>

NOTE: Replace the path of image file with a RSS logo image stored at your server.

Dislcaimer

We advise you to take a backup of your functions.php before adding any code to it. In addition, you should use function feedFilter($query) or function feedContentFilter($content)only once in your functions.php as WordPress does not allow to declare two similar functions. You can mix two codes to create one after reading it.

Conclusion

RSS Feeds are not just a default document to ignore. Today, they are widely being used in smartphones, standard mobile phones, and tablets. The developers are creating more & more applications with RSS feeds for their clients. You can use above codes to tweak the RSS feeds manually and fulfill your requirements. We request our readers to provide their valuable feedback and suggestions through their comments.

Ways to collect user data for search results

Google collects the technical data, user behavioral data, and record user actions when you visit its Search Website or Website of any other services. The specific ways to collect the technical data are as following:

1. Google Search
2. Google Toolbar
3. Google Web History
4. Google Desktop
5. Google Vertical Search Companions

Types of Retrieved Data

Google collects:

1. Technical Data like IP Address, Cookies, Internet Service Provider or Network Operator
2. Personal Information like Geo-location data, Name, Google Account Information etc.

At a search engine result page (SERP), Google collects following data:

1. Keywords Typed
2. Mouse Over Preview Data
3. URLs
4. Date & Time
5. Cookies
6. Number of clicks
7. Mouse event
8. Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)
9. Number of results
10. Time taken in finding
11. Country Domain
12. Language
13. Additional Information, if provided: Street Address, City, State, and ZIP/Postal Code

Preferred User Data/Action

Social Sharing/Bookmarking

Last year Google accepts the effect of social signals generated from Facebook and Twitter on its search results. Whenever a user clicks on Facebook Like, Facebook Recommend, Facebook Send, Facebook Share, Twitter Tweet, Delicious Bookmark, LinkedIn Share, Share on MySpace, +1, Google Buzz, Yahoo Buzz or any other social bookmarking and sharing icon, a social signal is generated. More clicks on social sharing/bookmarking means more social signal. Google gives more preference to social signals than links built for a URL.

Social Activity Tracker Plugin

With the latest update on Google Analytics, now Google can track following social activities on your Website:

1. Number of visits generated through social actions
2. Comparison of social signals generated for each URL
3. Number of social signals and their frequency for each page

Activities on Google Toolbar

Google tracks following things from Google Toolbar

1. Searched Keywords
2. Visited URLs in SERPs and through Address Bar
3. Time spent on the Websites
4. Common Actions
5. Addition of Google Bookmarks
6. Sharing of URLs through Toolbar

Usage of Chrome Extensions

Google Chrome has following good extensions:

1. Personal Block List – allows users to block the appearance of selected URLs in SERPs.

Screenshot of Block option from Personal Block List Chrome Extension

2. QuickScroll – highlights the lines on the visited page (from SERP), which contains the searched keywords. Install this extension, search in Google, and visit any page from SERP. It show a pop-up notifying the lines containing the keyword.

Screenshot of QuickScroll Google Chrome Extension

3. Send from Gmail – allows users to send the URLs through Gmail. It benefits the users to share the URL and Google knows which one is being shared.

Email being sent through ‘Send from Gmail’ Google Chrome Extension (highlighted with red border)

Google tracks the usage of the above data consistently, especially data collected from Personal Block List. If a user blocks a URL in SERP then Google takes it seriously.

Usage of +1

Google have introduced +1 button in its SERPs to reply the option of Facebook Like in Blekko Search Result Pages. The users have to create a profile on Google Profiles and make it public to use it. After this, they can notice a +1 button appearing in the Google SERPs.

Screenshot of Google +1 in SERP (Courtesy: Official Google +1 Page)

The +1 will gather at a separate tab in the Google Profiles. Here, the friends can see the +1 URLs of a user. Indeed, this technique will divert the Webmasters to favor social media and user generated content. Google also made the +1 button public to give a rival to Facebook Like.

Data from Google Social Media Sites

Google has first owned Orkut then stepped to Google Wave, and Google Buzz. The search engine giant uses the data of all these three Websites. The main focus is given to the links shared through these resources. Currently, Google Team is working upon Google Plus – a new social media Website. It is being considered as the rival for both Facebook and Twitter. Currently, they are planning to incorporate the features of Google Plus like Hangouts, Sparks, and Circles into Google Realtime search.

Google provides following social sharing buttons for the Websites and their online content:

1. Google Buzz – The buzzed items are shown in a separate Buzz tab at Google Profiles
2. Google +1 – Its items are displayed in +1 tab at Google Profiles.
3. Google WaveThis – Socially shared items are displayed in the Wave profile.
4. Google Recommend It –is a button from Google FriendConnect. Shared items through Recommend It button are displayed in Google Recommended Items widget.

Google FriendConnect

Google FriendConnect is again a social networking Website. Unlink others Google social media sites, it provides a way to allows users to login at your Website with their existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, AOL, OpenID, MySpace and Twitter accounts. It also provides different gadgets like Featured Posts, Recommend it button & Box, Comments, Feedback, Newsletter Widget, Social Bar and so on. Google counts the usage of FriendConnect on different Websites and gathers the data shared through it.

User Generated Content

Usually the expert Writers writes the content for Websites, Pages, Blog Posts, News and other things posted on the Internet. They are expert of their theme and know how to write at their best. Whereas, the end-users or readers mostly write short stories like comments, reviews, feedbacks, and suggestions on already written articles. As these are user generated so Google gives them more preference.

Why Google consider User Behavioral Data & Action?

The incoming and outbound links for a Web page or site are not created by the end-users. Links are created by Web Developers, SEO professionals and Webmasters. From time to time, the question arises on the authenticity on such links. The search engine giant has to analyze millions of the Web pages and collect the links for each Website to measure its PageRank and popularity.

Both we and Google knows that general public on Internet does not know how to create links. However, the end users, visitors, and readers know how to

1. socially share your Website if it has an option.
2. how to +1 or block a Website in a Google SERP
3. how to write the comments in their own language
4. how to bookmark your page or Website

That’s why Google gives more preference to the user-generated social signals than links for a Web page or site. However, it regularly keeps check on the authenticity of social profiles from which posts or pages are shared, liked, or tweeted. If a social media Website has strong measures to create account and to protect it then Google gives more preference to it.

Any change in Google

Google started a Realtime Vertical Search, which displays results from following social resources:

1. Twitter Tweets (Twitter used to send a Public Tweet Stream to include in the search.)
2. Facebook Fan Page Updates
3. MySpace Updates
4. FriendFeed Updates
5. Identi.ca Updates
6. Jaiku Updates
7. TwitArmy Updates
8. Quora
9. Gowolla
10. Plixi
11. Twitgoo
12. Me2day
13. Google Blog Search links
14. Google News links
15. Newly Created or Freshly Updated Web Pages

Even if Google Reatime was getting results from above different resources, still Twitter was the most dominant source. However, Google have temporarily suspended Realtime Search on July 2, 2011 after the expiration of agreement with Twitter to supply the feed stream. The company informed Danny Sullivan Editor in Chief (SearchEngineLand), “Our vision is to have google.com/realtime include Google+ information along with other realtime data from a variety of sources.”

After the acceptance of Google regarding user data, the Webmasters, from around the globe, displayed keen interest in adding the social sharing and bookmarking options in their Websites. Observing the market scenario, Google have recently included Social Reports in its famous Web Analytics tool – Google Analytics. Now, it will show three social reports on Social Engagement, Social Pages, and Social Actions. This will help Webmasters to keep an eye on the social signals generated for their Website.

Conclusion

Soon the days of Directory Submission, Link Building, Link Exchange, Article Submission, Copywriting, and Article Syndication will over. Because Google is giving more preference to the user behavioral data, user actions, and user-generated content as compared to other SEO things. Focus on this and see a change because Google thinks:

“If it is user generated then it is truth, if it is truth it should spread out.”

Share your comments on this article and tell what you think about it.

The term Video Marketing must have appeared several times before us and those related to the internet industry must have realized its significance as well. Often it is just regarded as another form of promotion over the Web. However those who have understood its impact to promote the business are using it as is evident from the large number of videos available online.

There seems to be a divided opinion about the usage of Video Marketing for online business promotion. While some favor it for its numerous advantages some avoid for the additional cost and effort. Therefore, to provide some insights, we are going to cover certain important aspects of Video Marketing that might help our readers take a stand.

Video Marketing – What exactly does it mean?

Basically, video marketing implies utilizing the medium of video to publish or spread promotional messages among the target audience. However, it is not restricted to this definition and has a much wider scope. Videos can be effectively used to connect with the users in various forms including Product Demonstrations, Instructional videos, Videos showing Customers talking about the product/service or taking the users to a factory tour via videos. Each of these has its potential advantages which can be well used to promote a business or create a rapport among the users.

Why Video Marketing?

Here we are going to mention the points that favor the use of Video Marketing:

Videos attract more than text

Just as TV ads are more liked than print ads, similarly videos, by combining both the audio and visual elements have the potential to attract the viewers. A visitor my prefer to watch a video to understand the product rather than reading the content. This is because videos establish a quick connection.

Videos contracts the info to present only the meaningful

Videos present straight forward information and do away with any unnecessary details. It is the biggest advantage as the user gets what he/she actually wants to see. Unlike an article which starts with an introduction and then ends with a conclusion, a video only covers what is needed.

It helps increasing website’s visibility

A relevant, informative and well optimized video stands greater chances of attracting more traffic and thus can lead to increased visibility of a site. More visibility is an obvious advantage.

Videos help communicating better

It may happen sometimes that it becomes difficult to express precisely in words, herein comes the utility of a video where a marketer can express and convey freely to his audience. This way not only a personal touch can be established but you can effectively promote your business ideas.

Video Marketing – Why NOT?

Though above we highlighted the advantages of Video Marketing but it is also associated with some drawbacks listed below:

Requires Extra efforts and cost

Unlike writing article where you just need to create a word document, creating a video requires a whole lot of paraphernalia such as Camera, Editing tools, voice recorders, etc. All these cost a considerable amount which an online marketer may not like to bear.

Everybody is not a geek

Even if a video is created using some software, it does require sound technical knowledge to use it in the best way. Having a video just for the heck of it is not a great idea; it must be attractive and contain useful information. As everyone is not a geek, creating quality video may appear a problem for online marketers.

As it can be seen that Video marketing seems to have more benefits than disadvantages, it can be said that using it for online business promotion can be fruitful. Still the decision rests with the online marketer. It basically depends upon the requirement of the business. If it is the case that videos can enhance the branding of the business and can facilitate sales, one should go ahead with video marketing. On the other hand, if the nature of business doesn’t demand the presence of a video, there is no need to carry out video marketing.

We hope that the information helps our readers understand Video Marketing, its effectiveness as well as negatives. We invite our readers to provide their inputs and suggestions.