• Yoast’s Definitive Guide To Higher Rankings For WordPress Sites – If you only read one document on SEO practices, this is the one to read.
• Search Engine Optimization for WordPress (via the Codex)
• Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin feature list and overview
• Yoasts’s What is Local SEO?
• Submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
• SEO Techniques for WordPress from Graph Paper Press
• Tips on Page Titles
• 10 Most Important Functions of WordPress SEO by Yoast
• Canva – Canva is a web based drag-and-drop image creation tool that can be used to create correctly sized images for use in your WordPress posts and social media image options.
• Social Media Image Sizes – Updated for December 2014. / Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes (Google Doc)
• Facebook Open Graph/Meta Data Testing Tool/Debugger
• Twitter Card Validator
• Free WooRank SEO Site Testing Tool
• Five Great Sources of Public Domain/Free to Use Images

Many of these SEO techniques for WordPress can also be applied to non-WordPress sites because they are largely based on best practices.

This video on Page Titles is worth watching:

The post SEO Techniques for WordPress: Links appeared first on Techfun.

Facebook

Facebook’s recommended image sizes have increased over time. As of December 2014, these are the recommended image sizes for the various places your images are used within the system:

• Profile Photo — 180 x 180 pixels
• Cover Image — 851 x 315 pixels
• Shared Image — 1200 x 900 pixels
• Shared Link’s Image — 1200 x 627 pixels

Some of these image sizes are less important than others.  Profile images and Cover Images should be exact to ensure maximum visibility of all parts of the image, but shared images can appear in different sizes depending on how they are viewed by Facebook users.  Shared link images can be something other than 1200 x 627 pixels, but only the center of those images will show so if you use a larger size image, make sure the focus is within a 1200 x 627 rectangle in the center of the image.

Twitter (in Tweets and on Profile)

• Profile Photo — Recommended: 400px x 400px, Minimum: 200px x 200px
• Header Photo — 1500px x 500px
• Tweeted Photo — Recommended: 506px x 253px, Minimum: 440px x 220px, Maximum: 1024px x 512px

Twitter Cards

The Summary Card can be used for many kinds of web content, from blog posts and news articles, to products and restaurants. It is designed to give the reader a preview of the content before clicking through to your website. The image must be a minimum size of 120px by 120px and must be less than 1MB in file size. For an expanded tweet and its detail page, the image will be cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio and resized to be displayed at 120px by 90px. The image will also be cropped and resized to 120px by 120px for use in embedded tweets.

Example:

The Summary Card with Large Image features a large, full-width prominent image alongside a tweet. It is designed to give the reader a rich photo experience, and clicking on the image brings the user to your website. Images for this card should be at least 280px in width, and at least 150px in height.

Example:

Google+

• Profile Picture — 250px x 250px
• Cover Image — 1080px x 608px (Minimum: 480×270, Maximum: 2120×1192)
• Shared Image — Any size, but displays inline at 497px width until clicked to open larger
• Shared Link — Image will be resized/cropped to 426px x 214px

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To stay on top of these changes, bookmark Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes Google Doc.

The post Social Media Image Sizes – December 2014 appeared first on Techfun.

Two young girls of Chicago were recently sent to the House of Correction for smoking in the street. The question is, Why is it more of a crime for a girl to smoke in the street than for a boy, many of whom, not over six or eight years of age, can be found with stubs of old cigars in their mouths.

The imment of women for smoking in the streets, is a high-handed outrage upon the part of our tyrants who make and executes the laws for their own benefit. Commence with your own sex, gentlemen. You have no business to punish woman for any crime. We did not help make the laws; we execute none, abrogate none. You, who do, should amuse yourselves by inflicting these penalties upon man.

But we forget. There is no penalty for a male being’s smoking in the street or elsewhere, nor is there a law to punish women. The penalties recently inflicted in Providence and in Chicago upon women who have been found smoking in the street, were arbitrary exercise of power — a part of that policy which assumes that woman is a being to be controlled by man, and that he has a right to punish her for acts he considers justifiable in himself. It is the result of the caste feeling of sex, — it is one phase of class legislation.

Until woman is at liberty to indulge in petty vices, if she chooses, she will not be free, as man is free; and a virtue which is the result of force or constriction, is a mere sham. It is only in the enjoyment of the greatest freedom that any person, man or woman, can be truly himself or herself.

Source: National Citizen and Ballot Box 1881-05

The post Girls Smoking in the Street (1881) appeared first on Techfun.

These two tweets from the Eisenhower Library’s @IkeLibrary Twitter account are a great example to illustrate why I love #AskAnArchivist Day.  Seeing the more private (and in this case whimsical) side of public figures helps us better understand them as people.

The post #AskAnArchivist in Two Tweets appeared first on Techfun.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association.  The ten most challenged titles of 2013 can be seen here.

Here are some of the articles I have found interesting this year.

The 2014 Banned Books Week Reader

J.D. Thomas
Owner

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The 2014 Banned Books Week Reader

Listly by J.D. Thomas

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association.

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Banned Books Week to focus on graphic novels

The national Banned Books Week planning committee has also announced a new focus in the annual celebration of the freedom to read that will emphasize a thematic focus on comics and graphic novels. This year’s Banned Books Week will shine a light on this still misunderstood form of storytelling and celebrate the value of graphic novels to readers from all walks of life through the work performed by Banned Books Week sponsors and individual librarians, retailers and readers from all over the world.

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Will the Giver Movie Prompt More Schools to Ban the Book?

For The Giver just under one-third of all challenges (for which the outcome was reported) resulted in a removal. The state that has seen the most attempts to remove The Giver is Texas, but the book has also been challenged in Massachusetts, Washington, and many other states all over the country.

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Banned Books Week hopes chapter closes on literature bans

Through the various events at the libraries and Corvidae Collective, people are being encouraged to consider how what is deemed controversial or dangerous changes over time and environment — in other words, how what should be banned or restricted is subject to interpretation.

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Exhibit explores censorship and banned books

The Banned Books art show features works created especially for the exhibit by local artists. For inspiration, artists referred to favorite books that have been banned or their own experiences with censorship of freedom of expression.

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Pastors Want Youth Occult Books Removed from Library: ‘It’s Dangerous for Our Kids’

So far, public library officials have said they will not remove the provocative books from the shelves, even though Missick gave the Cleveland City Council a petition that urged the “occultic and demonic” books to “be purged from the shelves.”

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A Conservative Activist Slams Libraries for “Banning” Anti-Gay Books—Is She Right?

The Illinois Family Institute has long been listed as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, so news that their “cultural analyst” Laurie Higgins has said something incendiary about LGBTQ people is not a surprise. This time, however, the particular focus of her anti-gay rant is worth considering, if only because it partakes in the phenomenon of absurd conservative rhetoric sort of sounding good if you don’t think about it too hard.

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(Opinion) Do Librarians Really Care About Book-Banning?

Self-righteous, dissembling librarians are seeking once again to foment “book-banning” hysteria through their annual dishonest Banned Books Week campaign (Sept. 21-27) sponsored by the self-righteous, dissembling, and politically partisan American Library Association (ALA).

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Why your teen should read Wallflower and these other banned books

In honor of my grumpiness over yet another school board force-feeding their values to American teens, here is a roundup of books teens should be allowed to read, despite their questionable nature. They should be allowed to read these books in order to survive. I know I did.

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Banning Books In The 21st Century

You'd probably expect the Nazis to ban books, but did you know the threat still exists today? http://twitter.com/rocketboom https://www.facebook.com/rocketbo...

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Reading is right: Celebrate banned books week

I suppose it might be true that in general librarians eschew censoring books, but I don't think that's very important. For one thing, librarians aren't the only ones who think this kind of censorship is wrong. More importantly, I think this attitude comes not from being a librarian, but rather because I'm an American.

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Hartford Library To Mark Banned Books Week With Look At Comic-Book Scare

Hajdu, a journalism professor at Columbua University, said comic books had been viewed with suspicion since they popped on the scene in the 1930s. In the late '40s and early '50s, however, comic books had evolved to graphically dealing with sordid, violent or sexually suggestive subjects. At the same time, an atmosphere of paranoia over the spread of communism reigned, and spilled over to include comic books.

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Banned Books Week: Q&A with Bradbury expert Jonathan Eller

The head of IUPUI's Center for Bradbury Studies talks about Banned Books Week, the latest installment in his three-part Bradbury biography and efforts to censor Fahrenheit 451.

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Banned Books Week Warm Up: School Board in Oregon fighting over “Persepolis”

Why wait until Banned Books Week starts next week to start celebrating the madness. This time we go to Murphy, Oregon where things got a little heated at the Three Rivers School Board meeting. 

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Banned Books That Shaped America

The Library of Congress created an exhibit, 'Books that Shaped America,' that explores books that 'have had a profound effect on American life.' Below is a list of books from that exhibit that have been banned/challenged.(To learn more about challenges to books since the inception of Banned Books Week, check out the timeline created by ALA.)

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Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin and 'Weird Al' Yankovic Read Banned Comics

It's that time of year, that everyone starts talking about banned books -- and in the comics industry, where we've been saddled with the stereotype that the whole art form is "for kids" for about three quarters of a century now, that means a lot of talk about banned comic books.

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Whoops! BANNED Book Week

I humbly compose this retraction. As many of you probably realize, this is not Band Book Week but rather Banned Book...

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Washington States's Banned Books

Earlier this year, parents in Prosser tried to have a book that featured a child with gay fathers pulled from middle school shelves. That effort failed, as have most in Washington – the state hasn't been a hotbed for bans. In the past two decades, just 14 titles have been pulled from shelves in Washington.

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The implications of Banned Books Week

I’ve long had complicated feelings about Banned Books Week . It’s not that I’m in favor of banning books, just the opposite. For me, “free expression” is among the clearest phrases in the English language, and I believe we have the right to say and publish anything — even, or especially, work whose “redeeming social importance” is not clear.

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Too Graphic? 2014 Banned Books Week Celebrates Challenged Comics

Captain Underpants has once again topped the list of most-challenged books. Author Dav Pilkey says his tighty-whities-clad hero teaches kids a healthy lesson about questioning authority.

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Comics Censorship, from ‘Gay’ Batman to Sendak’s Mickey |

Since the 1940s, critics have claimed that comic books and graphic novels corrupt youth by breeding immorality, sexual deviance, and violence. 

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Young Readers Need Humor

As grown-ups, we need to respect our children's rights to choose what they want to read. Kids who have fun reading are making a connection in their brains that reading is valuable and rewarding. 

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Censorship. It’s More Than Just Books! |

We keep saying “Libraries are more than just books” yet we cling to a book-centric discussion for Intellectual Freedom, which is what this is all about, really.  And there really aren’t many actual ‘banned books’ here.  Mostly challenged., so that in itself is a misnomer.

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The post The Banned Books Reader 2014 appeared first on Techfun.

A New Version of the National Song

Oh, say do you hear, at the dawn’s early light,
The shrieks of those bondmen, whose blood is now streaming
From the merciless lash, while our banner in sight
With its stars, mocking freedom, is fitfully gleaming?
Do you see the backs bare? do you mark every score
Of the whip of the driver trace channels of gore?
And say, doth our star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where Afric’s race in false safety reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it heedlessly sweeps, half conceals, half discloses?
‘Tis a slave ship that’s seen, by the morning’s first beam,
And its tarnished reflection pollutes now the stream:
‘Tis our star-spangled banner ! Oh! when shall it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is the band, who so valiantly bore
The havoc of war, and the battle’s confusion,
For Liberty’s sweets? We shall know them no more:
Their fame is eclipsed by foul Slavery’s pollution.
No refuge is found on our unhallowed ground,
For the wretched in Slavery’s manacles bound;
While our star-spangled banner in vain boasts to wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

Shall we ne’er hail the day when as freemen shall stand
The millions who groan under matchless oppression?
Shall Liberty’s shouts, in our heaven-rescued land,
Ne’er be shared by the slave in our blood-guilty nation?
Oh, let us be just, ere in God we dare trust;
Else the day will o’ertake us when perish we must;
And our star-spangled banner at half mast shall wave
O’er the death-bed of Freedom— the home of the slave.

Source

Publication: The Liberator
Date: September 13, 1844
Title: From the Signal of Liberty. New version of the National Song
Location: Boston, Massachusetts

The Liberator was a weekly newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, Massachusetts. William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts in December, 1805. At thirteen years of age he began his newspaper career with the Newburyport Herald, where he acquired great skills in both accuracy and speed in the art of setting type. He also wrote anonymous articles, and at the age of twenty-one began publishing his own newspaper.

On January 1, 1831 the first issue of The Liberator appeared with the motto: “Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind.”

The post An Abolitionist National Song appeared first on Techfun.

Last night I tweeted:

because I remember last year, and prior years when many companies, with no malicious intent, tried to insert themselves into a day of national remembrance.  It has become obvious that statements of sympathy and solidarity from an individual person can be wonderful while the identical statement, made from behind a company name or social media presence, is seen as insensitive or insincere.

On Facebook I followed up on that tweet with an addition saying “just don’t do it.”   Nobody I know would have gone beyond a simple statement of solidarity and respect and when I wrote it, I was not thinking about people actually using 9/11 to build a marketing plan.  I underestimated the stupidity of some people.

Today an Arlington, Virginia  yoga company decided that using the tragic loss of life that reverberated across the nation thirteen years ago was a good way to market their services in the form of a one day 20% off sale.  In case their customers needed more incentive to buy, they made it clear that  9+11 = 20 and that simple addition defined the sale.  (Just think of the savings they could have offered if the towers had fallen on New Years Eve.)

The sale page is currently up here but I expect it to come down soon, so here is a screenshot:

They promoted it with this tweet – now deleted:

The fact that people did not respond well to the sale is an understatement.  This small business serving a specific geographic area is now nationally known in a way that no business would ever want.

They are apologizing  on Facebook:

but if you click through to those comments you can see it is not going well.  People have become excellent spotters of faux apologies on social media.  Whoever is doing their posting and Tweeting should check out CASE.org’s How to Nail the Social Media Apology.  The apologies on Twitter came fast and furious at Bikram Arlington – @bikramarlington until the responses to the apologies appeared to overwhelm them.

Note that the oldest apology is where they went off track.  As CASE points out, if you are going to apologize, make sure you are apologizing for what YOU did and not how other people reacted to what you did.

This is not a new problem and the answer is not new either.  Bryan Joiner nailed it last year with:

The Washington Post wrote just wrote about this marketing mistake at Arlington yoga studio offers 9/11 discount, then a Ray Rice comparison

Note:  I’d like to thank Chelsea Corken for bringing this to my attention today.

The post September 11th is for People appeared first on Techfun.

It was originally intended that the day would begin with a street parade to allow the public to appreciate the work of the trade and labor organizations. Following the parade, festivals were to be held to amuse local workers and their families. In later years, prominent men and women held speeches on economic and labor issues.  The first Monday in September was selected for the holiday to add a holiday to the long gap between Independence Day on July 4th and Thanksgiving in late November.

Labor Day parade, marchers, New York 1909

Like on many American holidays, there are businesses and individuals who want to join in the celebration and recognition of the holiday, but they make the message so generic and inoffensive that there is nothing about the greeting or message that says anything about the holiday being referenced.  There is a common trend for social media and marketing people to just find an image that includes the American flag and add some text and post it to all their social media profiles.

But some organizations did a great job.

The post Muddled Messages: Labor Day Tweets appeared first on Techfun.

One of the main reasons I recommend WordPress so often is that the sheer volume of help available online is astounding.  There are both written and video tutorials galore but many are not very useful because the trainer assumes the learner knows too much or the tutorial is specifically about features in older versions of WordPress that have changed or disappeared entirely.

Today I watched a bunch of WordPress tutorial videos and put together this list of  tutorials that I plan to keep up to date and add to as things change and I am asked more questions.  Please feel free to use the Add to List feature to add your own favorites.  Please make sure your addition is a video.

Useful WordPress Video Tutorials

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Craig Chamberlin: Introduction To Installing Wordpress

WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

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Craig Chamberlin: Introduction To Wordpress Pages And Multimedia

In general, Pages are very similar to Posts in that they both have Titles and Content and can use your WordPress Theme templates files to maintain a consistent look throughout your site. Pages, though, have several key distinctions that make them quite different from Posts.

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Craig Chamberlin: Introduction To Wordpress Comments And Spam

Comments allow your website's visitors to have a discussion with you and each other. When you activate comments on a Page or post, WordPress inserts several text boxes after your content where users can submit their comments. Once you approve a comment, it appears underneath your content. Whether you want to customize how your receive comments or tweak how your site displays comments, WordPress provides a thorough set of options to build a community from the visitors to your site.

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Craig Chamberlin: Introduction To Wordpress Plugins

The core of WordPress is designed to be lean and lightweight, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat. Plugins then offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs.

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Tyler Moore: Understanding WordPress Themes

This is Tyler Moore's  detailed overview on how to understand and control WordPress themes. This video should give you the tools and information you need to understand any WordPress theme.

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Steven Wright: Advanced Image Editing using WordPress 3.9

In this video you will learn how to add borders and margins to your image using WordPress 3.9. Featuring the Advanced Image Styles plugin.

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Steven Wright: Adding New Users to WordPress

In this session you will learn how to add new users to your site and the rolls and permissions.

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Overview of WordPress 3.9 'Smith' New Features and Improvements

In this video we will learn about WordPress 3.9 "Smith" new features and improvements.  Released on April 16, 2014, WordPress Version 3.9 has some great new updates that improve usability and just make things easier.

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How to Edit and Format a Page in WordPress 3.9 (Very Basic)

The updated visual editor has improved speed, accessibility, and mobile support. You can paste into the visual editor from your word processor without wasting time to clean up messy styling. (Yeah, we’re talking about you, Microsoft Word.)

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How to Easily Embed Videos in WordPress Blog Posts

Wonder how people embed YouTube and other videos to their blog posts and pages? In this video, we will show you how to easily embed videos in WordPress blog ...

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How to Add Google Maps in WordPress

Do you want to embed Google Maps in WordPress? Maybe you want to add an interactive display of your location or it is to add directions for your visitors. In...

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WordPress: Jetpack Site Stats

Created as a training video for the Nebraska Libraries on the Web project hosted by the Nebraska Library Commission.

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John LeMasney: WordPress for Beginners (Que Video)

The perfect introduction to WordPress! WordPress can be daunting to a new user and this video teaches you the basics with a simple, step-by-step approach. You'll quickly become a well-versed user who understands the process, structure, and logic of WordPress.

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Video tutorial: How to create a beautiful hero concept in WooThemes Canvas - Pootlepress

Please share this tutorial: Tweet On one of our recent WordPress Xpress days we were challenged by a really creative design concept (specifically how to create a header, navigation and main image all to look like one stunning hero area). Luckily we know a thing or two about Canvas, so we were able to create ...

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Image Source: Skeezix1000 on Wikimedia Commons

The post Useful WordPress Video Tutorials appeared first on Techfun.

An Everlasting List of Women in WordPress

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andrea_r (@andrea_r)

Canadian, unschooler & quilter. StudioPress support rep. Grandma of 3, wife of @sillygrampy.

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Siobhan McKeown (@siobhanpmckeown)

WordPress, documentation, writing, @audreycapital, @smashingmag

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Lisa Sabin-Wilson (@lisasabinwilson)

Partner: @WebDevStudios / Co-founder: @AppPresser / Author: WordPress For Dummies /
Produced in TX, Aged in WI - GO PACKERS!

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Dee Teal (@thewebprincess)

Master of Digital Communication and Culture (USYD), Web Developer, Freelancer, WordPress Trainer & Genesis Junkie, Copyright Issue observer - wears a tiara

Added by Stefanie A. Newton on Mar 11, 2014

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Sit_With_It

the musing of a faculty member (by @SitWithIt)

Added by Sarah Schoper on Aug 30, 2014

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Jeni Elliott (@theblogmaven)

blog designer + growth strategist. I convert readers to believers. #blogging #webdesign

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Rachael Butts (@rachaelbutts)

I'm a self-made WordPress gal who loves running my own shop and God not in that order.

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Susan Nelson (@ohhellodesigns)

I love making websites for small businesses and bloggers & I do it with #WordPress + #GenesisWP.

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ipstenu (Mika E.) (@ipstenu)

WordPress Half-Elf Support Rogue. SCAdian, comic book & gamer geek. There are dice in my purse.

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Lorelle VanFossen (@lorelle)

The Lorelle of http://t.co/v1TanzFEaw, http://t.co/ICUSAoKzy1, Clark College, Portland Community College, WordPress ...I'm everywhere.

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Photo by Alex Harris – WCMIA 2013 Wordcamp Miami — alexdesigns.com

The post Women Working With WordPress appeared first on Techfun.