Now, I’m not a spell or grammar expert but I like to think that I can hold my own. I hope there aren’t many grammar mistakes within this post. Chrome has an interesting feature that helps with my fast typing and occasional grammar mistake. Through Chrome, I am able to utilize the same engine that Google Search uses to correct mistakes when searches are being performed. So in real time, Google Chrome is proofreading my grammar in a way that will help prevent me from making 4th grade level mistakes. *hopefully

If you’re interested in using this amazing feature, you first need to be using Google Chrome as your browser. I hope you aren’t using Internet Explorer.

1. Download Chrome
2. Right click into a text field
3. Select Spell-checker options
4. Select Ask Google for suggestions

Next time Chrome spots a possible mistake, it will offer some suggestions.

The post Google Chrome’s Spell Checker appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

You will need ImageMagick installed. You can check if you have it installed and compiled with PHP by checking your phpinfo() function.

<?php

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set text */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$text = $_GET['text'];

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set width */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$width = '256';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set height */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$height = '133';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set size */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$size = $width.'x'.$height;

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set font */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$font = 'BebasNeue.otf';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set background */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$background = 'bg.jpg';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set quality */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$quality = '100';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set position */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$position = 'center';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set x window color */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$xc = 'transparent';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set font size */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$pointsize = '28';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set image path */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$path = 'images/video-thumbs/';

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set filename */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$filename = str_replace(array(' ', '&', '\n'), '', strtolower($text));

/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
/* Set file */
/*-----------------------------------------------------------*/
$file = $path.$filename.'.png';

exec('convert -size '.$size.' tile:'.$background.' -quality '.$quality.'  -gravity '.$position.' xc:'.$xc.' -font '.$font.' -pointsize '.$pointsize.' \
           -fill white        -annotate +2+2 "'.$text.'" \
           -fill gray         -annotate +0+0 "'.$text.'" \
           -fill transparent  -annotate +1+1 "'.$text.'" \
           -composite '.escapeshellarg($file));

?>

The post Creating an Image with ImageMagick appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post If You’re Blogging to Sell Products Then You Will Fail, I Promise appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Each Amazon S3 Bucket has a long url that can be difficult to remember . Here is how I used the Amazon S3 account as a CDN to distribute my plugins.

cPanel & Simple DNS Zone Editor

Login into your hosting account’s cPanel and click on Simple DNS Zone Editor.

CNAME Record

Next, create a CNAME record by typing the CDN URL (e.g cdn.example.com) into the name field and the Amazon S3 bucket URL into the CNAME field. Click Add CNAME Record button. The new record should be instant.

The post Amazon S3 CDN URL Mask appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Let me know if you have any problems. I just rewrote most of this on the fly, so there may be errors. …but hopefully not. :)

jQuery / Javascript

Add this to your plugin’s javascript file between the

jQuery(function($){
    $('#video-code').bind('paste', function(){
        var field = $(this);
        setInterval(function(){
            var vall = $(field).val();
            var html = encodeURIComponent(val);
            $.post(ajaxurl, 'action=clp_resize_video&html='+html, function(response){
               $(field).val(response);
            });
        }, 150);
    });
});

PHP WordPress Function

This can be added to your plugin’s functions file.

add_action('wp_ajax_clp_size_video', 'clp_size_video');
function clp_size_video(){
    $new_width = 320;
    $video = stripslashes($_POST['html']);
    preg_match("/width=\"([^\"]*)\"/i",$video,$w);
    $w = (integer)$w[1];
    preg_match("/height=\"([^\"]*)\"/i",$video,$h);
    $h = (integer)$h[1];
    if(!$new_width)
        $new_width = $w;
    $w2 = $new_width;
    $ratio = (float)($w2/$w);
    $h2 = (integer)($h * $ratio);
    $video = str_replace("width=\"$w\"","width=\"$w2\"",$video);
    $video = str_replace("height=\"$h\"","height=\"$h2\"",$video);
    echo $video;
    die();
}

The post Resize Video Function ‘on the fly’ with PHP appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Normally, shortcodes are ignored if you try putting them in a sidebar Text widget — all that’s displayed is the shortcode itself.  But there is a one-line tweak you can add to your theme that will enable you to put any shortcode you like in a sidebar Text widget. Here are some steps to get you started:

1. Login to your blog’s administration pages and go to the Theme Editor — i.e. select Appearance > Editor from the admin menu.
2. Look in the list of Template Files on the right of the page for one called Theme Functions or functions.php and click on it to load it into the editor.
3. Find a place between the <?php and ?> tags which is not in the middle one of the functions that may already be in the file (the very top or bottom of the file are both good places) and add the following line:
   add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
4. Click on the Update File button to save the modified file.

Assuming you didn’t mess anything up, go to your Appearance > Widgets page. Drag a Text widget to the sidebar area. Add your shortcode into the widget and save. The shortcode will now be displayed in the sidebar of your blog.

Well done.

The post Add Shortcodes to Text Widgets appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Recent Changes

Before uploading the plugin to the WordPress Plugin Directory, I made some changes and notched the version to 2.3.

1. Added the option to hide the already discreet link in the lightbox footer.
2. I removed the support Talk Fusion videos.
3. I removed the update script that used my servers as a resource for updating the plugin.

Installation

You now have two ways of installing Clifton’s Lightbox.

1. You can either download the zip file and upload it to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Or you can search for it from your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New. Keywords: Clifton’s Lightbox

I’m excited about this move and I hope that the plugin will serve many well.

The post Clifton’s Lightbox added to WordPress Directory appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Like I said, there are many ways to do this, here is one…

Execute a PHP 301 Permanent Redirect

1. Create an empty PHP file. e.g. redirect.php
2. Copy the code below and paste it within the file.
3. Make sure there are no spaces or other characers before the first
4. Save. & upload.

[php]

<?
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("location: http://www.domain.com");
exit();
?>

[/php]

The post Quick PHP Permanent Redirect appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Demo

CSS

[css]

#toggle .toggle {display:none;font-size:13px;background-color:#EEE;color:#666;text-shadow:1px 1px rgba(255,255,255,0.9)}
#toggle .toggler {cursor:pointer;font-size:18px;background-color:#B10000;color:#FFF;text-shadow:1px 1px rgba(0,0,0,0.9);}
#toggle div {margin:0;padding:8px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;}

[/css]

jQuery

[code lang="js"]
jQuery(function($){
$('#toggle .toggler').click(function(){
$(this).next().toggle();
});
});
[/code]

HTML

[code lang="html"]
<div id="toggle">
<div class="toggler">Toggle 1</div>
<div class="toggle">Show for toggle one</div>
<div class="toggler">Toggle 2</div>
<div class="toggle">Show for toggle two</div>
</div>
[/code]

The post jQuery Toggle / Accordion Markup appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

However, not all themes are created equal. Many outdated themes don’t support custom menus. If you are married to your theme and it doesn’t support custom WordPress menus, then you can add them yourself. Here is how to add custom menus to your WordPress blog.

Register new menu in functions.php between the <?php and ?>

[php]register_nav_menu( ‘secondary’, ‘Secondary Menu’ );[/php]

Then go to header.php and add the new custom menu. Review the options for $args array in the reference below.

[php]<?php
$args = array(‘theme_location’=>’secondary’);
wp_nav_menu($args);
?>[/php]

Additional Resources:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_nav_menu
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_nav_menu

The post Register New Menus in WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Example
<input type=”text” name=”first_name” value=”" placeholder=”First Name” />

The field above will display the words First Name within the input field without changing the value attribute. The placeholder attribute is already supported in new versions of Firefox and Chrome but my plugin adds support for Internet Explorer (of course).

This can be useful for contact forms, optin forms, ..heck..any form.

Only download my plugin if you understand what it does and you actually need it.

Download it @ http://clftn.co/ba259

The post WordPress Placeholder Plugin appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Maybe one day I’ll get around to writing up a WordPress Plugin for this. :)

Demo

jQuery

jQuery(function($){
        /*Loop through thumbnails*/
	var loop = '';
	$('.list-item').mouseover(function(){
		var e = $(this);
		loop = setInterval(function(){
			$('span', e).filter(function(){
				var match = '1';
				return ($(this).css('opacity') == match);
			}).animate({'opacity':'0'}).nextFirst().animate({'opacity':'1'}, 300);
		}, 1000);
	}).mouseout(function(){
		clearInterval(loop);
	});
});

/*Get next sibling if it exists. If not, get first sibling. Round & a round we go.*/
jQuery.fn.nextFirst = function(e){
    var next = this.next(e);
    return (next.length) ? next : this.prevAll(e).last();
}

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Loop Thumbnails</title>
<style type="text/css">
	.list-item {width:206px;height:206px;list-style-type:none;position:relative;}
	.thumbnail {position:absolute;top:0;left:0;display:inline-block;width:206px;height:206px;background-position:center center;background-repeat:no-repeat;opacity:0;}
	.thumbnail:first-child {opacity:1;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul id="list">
	<li class="list-item">
    	<span style="background-image:url(http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s320x320/229959_10151042752614553_278263841_n.jpg);" class="thumbnail"></span>
    	<span style="background-image:url(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s320x320/36166_494075809552_4158755_n.jpg);" class="thumbnail"></span>
    	<span style="background-image:url(http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s320x320/65935_494075464552_6738693_n.jpg);" class="thumbnail"></span>
    </li>
</ul>
<!-- Load the jQuery Library -->
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<!-- Load the looping script -->
<script src="js.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
</body>
</html>

The post Looping Images with jQuery/Javascript on Hover appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

[css]/* Smartphones (portrait and landscape) ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-device-width : 320px)
and (max-device-width : 480px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* Smartphones (landscape) ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-width : 321px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* Smartphones (portrait) ———– */
@media only screen
and (max-width : 320px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* iPads (portrait and landscape) ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-device-width : 768px)
and (max-device-width : 1024px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* iPads (landscape) ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-device-width : 768px)
and (max-device-width : 1024px)
and (orientation : landscape) {
/* Styles */
}

/* iPads (portrait) ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-device-width : 768px)
and (max-device-width : 1024px)
and (orientation : portrait) {
/* Styles */
}

/* Desktops and laptops ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-width : 1224px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* Large screens ———– */
@media only screen
and (min-width : 1824px) {
/* Styles */
}

/* iPhone 4 ———– */
@media
only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio : 1.5),
only screen and (min-device-pixel-ratio : 1.5) {
/* Styles */
}[/css]

The post CSS3 Media Queries / Mobile / iPhone appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

1. We are going to post the form to the page it is currently on.
2. Then we are going to add a block of code to the theme’s functions.php file
3. When the page refreshes, this code will check if the form was submitted.

Example Form code
[php]<form action="<?php echo get_permalink( $post->ID ); ?>" method="POST" id="namespace-form">
<label>First &amp; Last Name</label>
<input type="text" name="username" id="name" value="" placeholder="First & Last Name" />
<input type="hidden" name="user_id" value="123" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" name="submit_namespace_form" id="submit_namespace_form" />
</form>[/php]

Code block for functions.php
[php]add_action(‘init’, ‘namespace_form’);
function namespace_form(){
if($_POST['submit_namespace_form'])
{
$user['username'] = sanitize_user(stripslashes($_POST['username']));
$user['user_id'] = (is_number($_POST['user_id']) ? $_POST['user_id'] : 0;
update_option(‘namespace_user’, $user);
}
}[/php]

I wrote this on-the-fly so it’s untested. Be sure to edit it to fit your needs.

The post Posting a form in WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

function woo_post_meta(){do_action('woo_post_meta');}

add_action('woo_post_meta', 'woo_post_meta_under');
function woo_post_meta_under() {
if ( is_page() ) { return; }
$post_info = '<span class="small">' . __( 'By', 'woothemes' ) . '</span> [post_author_posts_link] <span class="small">' . _x( 'on', 'post datetime', 'woothemes' ) . '</span> [post_date] <span class="small">' . __( 'in', 'woothemes' ) . '</span> [post_categories before=""] ' . ' [post_edit]';
$meta = apply_filters( 'woo_filter_post_meta', $post_info );
$content .= '<div class="post-meta">'.$meta.'</div>' . "n";
$content .= 'HTML OR WHATEVER';
echo $content;
}

The post Woo Canvas Hook After Post Meta appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Command Line Vi Editor – Show Line Numbers appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

General Docs

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/ 

Setting up auth process

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/concepts/login/

Requesting Permissions

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/login/basic-info/

Requesting Page Permissions

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/login/page-permissions/

Graph API

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/

e.g These can all be accessed outside the Facebook environment / logged out

https://graph.facebook.com/cliftonhatfield.page/photos

https://graph.facebook.com/cliftonhatfield

https://graph.facebook.com/cliftonhatfield/picture?type=large

Open Graph Permissions

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/login/open-graph-permissions/

Facebook SDK / code examples

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/php/

https://github.com/facebook/facebook-php-sdk

Enjoy. 

The post Facebook Login / Permissions / Graph Resources appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The function below loops through the multidimsensional $options array trying to match $value['name']. If match is TRUE, insert the new field into the $options array. As you can see, I’m generating new keys too. If you know a better way to do this, please share. Also, check out my support group at http://fb.com/groups/internet.questions/

You can see in the image below that this function inserts a couple checkbox fields into the Options Panel.

function woo_options_add($options){
	$i = 0;
	while(list($key, $value) = each($options))
	{
		if($value['name'] == 'Header Padding Left/Right')
		{
			$array[$i] = $value;
			$i++;
			$array[$i] = array( "name" => __( 'Site Title Visibility', 'woothemes' ),
					"desc" => __( 'Hide the site title within the header.', 'woothemes' ),
					"id" => $shortname."_title_visibility",
					"std" => '',
					"type" => "checkbox");
		}
		elseif($value['name'] == 'Site Title Font Style')
		{
			$array[$i] = $value;
			$i++;
			$array[$i] = array( "name" => __( 'Site Description Visibility', 'woothemes' ),
					"desc" => __( 'Hide the site description within the header.', 'woothemes' ),
					"id" => $shortname."_description_visibility",
					"std" => '',
					"type" => "checkbox");
		}
		else
		{
			$array[$i] = $value;
		}		
		$i++;
	}
   
    return $array;
}

The post Customizing WooThemes Options Panel appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

20% of all of YouTube’s global traffic comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Yet surprisingly, the Google-owned video streaming service never offered a way to monetize mobile video views. Recently, the company announced that it was finally going to start offering ads in mobile videos. The ads will be viewed as TrueView Ads, meaning users can skip them after 5 second. TrueView ads are the most popular ad type on YouTube.

The post Mobile Ads Arrive on YouTube appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

A study released by mobile app marketing platform Trademob, analyzed 6 million-plus mobile advertising clicks on 10 of the biggest mobile ad networks and found that 22 percent of mobile ad clicks were “mistakes,” or accidental clicks, and 18 percent were defined as “fraudulent.” Both of which had a conversion rate of less than 0.1 percent.

To read more about this issue, Download the whitepaper on click fraud and accidental clicks for free!

The post The Truth About Mobile Ads appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Simply search the Apple App Store for ‘Facebook Pages Manager’ to download and install. I didn’t need to enter my login information for the app as I assume it used the details from the user Facebook app.

Also, I received a notification on the Facebook Page itself that I now have the ability to manage my Pages directly from my iOS device. Awesome.

The post Facebook Pages in iOS (iPhone) appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

FUN HISTORY: On this day in 1966, “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” sounded from television sets and the first episode of Star Trek aired.

The post On this Day in 1966 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

When an affiliate is just getting started with blogging, it can seem like they’re wandering aimlessly trying to find the best ways to create compelling content that will help them successfully lure in merchants and consumers. However, in the mad rush to just get anything out there, many affiliates are willingly sacrificing quality for quantity.

Here are some simple tips to keep in mind every time you sit down to start blogging:

Get to the Point & Avoid tl;dr

One of the biggest turn-offs for many Web users is clicking on a link only to be met with a giant wall of text. Unless they’re super interested in what you have to say, chances are they’re only going to skim your article, at best, or just leave the page immediately (in other words, “tl;dr”). It’s not that what you have to say isn’t worthwhile, but most Web readers prefer their content in bite-sized, easy to manage doses so they can just read it and be on their way. Say what you have to say and get out of there.

It’s also important to consider your headline, since most users won’t read any more than that. If you want to get eyes on your site, you have to write good, informative titles that will encourage users to click-through and see what it’s all about.

Make it Timeless

Evergreen content, information that is always useful and never goes out of date, is a great way to keep users coming to your blog. Anything that will always be relevant to your industry makes for an excellent topic, as it can ensure consistent traffic for an extended period of time, both from first time visitors looking for the information and regulars using it as a refresher. Not all of your content needs to be as timeless, but the more you have on your site, the better off you’ll be in the long run.

Be Creative with “Content”

Too often, bloggers fall into the trap of thinking of content in a bubble – a horribly boring text bubble. Don’t get me wrong; text content can be great, and offers a solid foundation upon which to establish your blog, but you shouldn’t stop there. Believe it or not, not everyone likes to read or has time to read or can spend all of their time at work reading your content instead of actually working. Ever heard of “Aim. Aim. Aim…but never fire”? Thankfully, the solution is simple; just produce and publish other types of content that supplement your regular blog posts. Other popular and practical choices are videos.

Outsource

Sometimes, you may be too busy to consistently sit down and churn out a high volume of good content. And sometimes, you may just have writer’s block (it happens – trust me). In these cases, it’s good to have contacts that allow you to find guests to write posts and produce content for your blog. The best part is, you literally have to do no work. I have featured guest writers within my own blog and my readers enjoy to change of pace.

The post Tips for Your Moneymaking Content appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Finding the right balance between too much and too little space around text is one of the essential aspects of a readable website. Remember that your chunks of text content need room to breathe so that your visitors can view them more easily. Adjusting the line-height of your post’s paragraphs can make it easier for the eye reading left-to-right.

.post p {line-height:18px;}

Spacing Around the Images

Your text shouldn’t be adhered to other elements, particularly images. When the text is ‘touching’ the images, it can look confusing to the reader and clutter your layout.

.post img {padding:8px;}

Spend a few minutes during your morning coffee looking over your website to make sure it’s optimized for readability, and if you see any problems, try increasing your padding and margins, adjusting font color and size, or content and background contrast.

The post Improving Your Post Readability appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

If you’re using a web host that no one has ever heard about and offers unlimited band width for $1.99 a year you many want to start looking else where. I know of some well known companies that do offer “unlimited bandwidth” for $6.99 a year but the fact of the matter is that if you read the fine print it is only unlimited so long as your website does not use up more than 10% of the CPU of that particular server. As far as I am concerned it is false advertising. If your website is making you money you want to look for a quality, reliable secure host. Research the company by doing a Google search such as “company name hacked” and see what turns up. Ask them about their server uptime percentage, that is, if their servers have ever gone done and what contingencies they have in place should power go out (my hosting company has back up generators that will last them up to 30 days) You may also want to ask about building security such as who has access to the server room and how often passwords are changed, etc. I would also ask about firewall security for their servers. If you can, get a VPS serving environment over a shared host. Not only will your site be more secure but it will faster as well as you won’t be sharing resources with other website owners. I personally use www.stormondemand.com and am in the midst of building a Turn Key WordPress Hosting Solution.  Follow me on twitter to keep updated as to the launch.

2. Don’t Use the Default Admin Username

I think this goes without saying, but it’s worth saying anyway. Use a unique username and password.

For instance for your admin username, use something like this:

ASvfrb.S8_nCD-ZU9nV@3TSs-UM4UohD

WordPress does not allow any special characters in your username with the exception of a period, underscore and hyphen.

So use your favorite password management software such as www.roboform.com or www.keypass.com or www.lastpassword.com to generate and keep track of not only your passwords but also your usernames.

If you can remember it, someone can hack it.

Give this account admin privileges and set up a separate account with publisher rights and a more user friendly and keyword rich username.

Also, if you have an admin account, with the username “admin” change its permissions level to subscriber, this way if this account ever is hacked, hackers will be disappointed to discover that they wasted a lot of time to get the privilege to do nothing on your site and will probably move on.

One final note on this matter.  Use this account for admin functionality only.  Do not use it to publish content as, even though you can publicly display the hyper link as something such as your name, it will still be revealed when someone clicks on the author’s archives and then your username will be revealed for all the world to see.

Instead, create a second account using your real name and then grant publisher rights to that account for doing  all of your content publishing.

You can then use the other account for all of your admin functions such as WordPress updates, plugin updates etc.

3. Use a Difficult Password

This should go without saying but you’d be surprised at how many people use simple passwords thinking that it is only fellow human beings that they have to out smart.  This is not the case, as hackers use software to do brute force attacks on your blog in which they cycle through the alphabet to try to guess your password.  Therefore, you should use an alpha numeric special character password such as:

o&WjR8$fcFr5jX3HDBWVtta*H!!

I would use a minimum of 24 characters, however I do use more. And this length of password takes a lot longer for a hacker attempting a brute force attack to crack.

Just how long you ask?

A password like this, according to the Brute Force Calculator, would take 129 nonillion years to crack. That is much, much, much, much longer than the average person is alive. (The average person is alive for about 27, 375 days so I’ll let you do the math) but basically just having a password like this is going to make your site more secure. Again, use something like Keypass or Roboform to keep track of passwords. If you can remember it, it can be cracked/hacked more easily.

4. Install the Limit Login Attempts Plugin

The Limit Login Attempts plugin will limit the amount of failed login attempts, practically eliminating any possibility whatsoever of a brute force attack as you can set the number of failed attempts to whatever you want or leave it at the default of 5.  With this functionality you may be wondering why I mentioned using such complex passwords, well WordPress security is like creating a fortress with many different deter-ants to gain access.  Think of Limit Login Attempts as your draw bridge. Keep in mind that WordPress security is about a wholistic approach rather than just doing one thing.

5. Keep the WordPress Core & Plugins Up-to-Date

This is important and I’ll admit I had this bite me in the ass recently. A theme developer, and I won’t say which one, had a security “loophole” in one of the theme files and someone had inserted some code in there and was using my bandwidth. Luckily, my host caught it and locked down the site. I look for an update from the programmer via the membership site and saw that there was an update. I am frustrated that the theme author does not have built in auto updates for the theme and I am actually working towards having my own similar theme developed which will be under my control. But the point of the matter is to keep your plugins and themes up-to-date. Doing so will ensure that the latest security holes filled.

6. Use a Premium Theme

I know that there are 1450 Free themes in the WordPress Theme directory. However, I would highly encourage you to use a Premium WordPress theme. Reason being, Free themes don’t have as much support, I mean seriously, would you work for free. I think that some developers develop the free stuff as a lead generator. I know that’s what I would do. And they have other jobs/projects which they are involved with and won’t have the time to support you. Plus, a premium theme developer is more concerned about the little details such as ensuring that security loopholes are filled. That being said, Clifton who is also the owner of this blog, has a kick ass theme called the Empowered Theme that I would recommend to anyone.  I don’t use it myself but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it rocks.

7. Folder Permissions

This is something that you really need to be careful with as I have a friend on Facebook who had her WordPress website hacked because of a plugin file permission setting. The plugin author’s told her to set a folder setting to 777. Setting the file permission means that anyone can write to that folder and someone did as they inserted a script that was sending a virus to users upon visiting. The virus caused her site to be blocked by Google.

At a minimum, all of your files should be set to a permission setting of 644 and all of your folders should be set to 755. You can do this from your Cpanel or from an FTP client such as Filezilla. Contact your hosting provider if you have questions.

However, it also depends on your server environment. For instance, whether or not you are using a share or dedicated host.

That being said, I’m going to give credit where credit is due and suggest you read this blog post on how to configure your WordPress file permission settings.

8. Remove WordPress Version from the Header

Some hackers will look to see what version of WordPress you are using by viewing the source code of your website and looking to see which version of WordPress you are running in the header section of your website code.

I have to admit that this is not a huge issue but it is something that you should implement as hackers may be looking to see which version of WordPress you are on and if there are any security loop holes that they can exploit to get access to your site. This can be done by inserting this code in your functions.php file of your theme:

remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘wp_generator’);

or you can use the http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/remove-generator-tag-for-wordpress/ plugin from the WordPress Plugin repository.

You can also download and install the Better WordPress Security Plugin to assist you with this.

9. Use Secret Salt Keys

If you didn’t do this already when you installed WordPress (I highly discourage people from using auto install scripts as they don’t install WordPress securely) you should do this now.

Log in to your cpanel and go to your wp-config.php file and click on the code editor. You’ll want to scroll down to the part of your wp-config file that looks like this:

Then go here:

https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/

and copy and paste the keys that come up such as these (if you refresh the browser it will give you a new set of keys should you not like the first ones, although I don’t know why you wouldn’t):

define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘,%,K^]YG+YyL:geMq.s# ~ZCB5[=bd.6Z;k,b*0G(&-BdP~u3u cQn?]lZ-PNbAZ’);

define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘Zw4:%k})BUq]@^X,:E:$PsVOl-9s]Z5F4z&QG&3>kqVuA,HzPhl9)5$%5,/>atQl’);

define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘opp]gT6b#@_-IcV9wj]o^ET:o>jtceAq1 [PZ:L8-R[IxNVF^j910L=Y@o75sb|)');

define('NONCE_KEY', 'TX(1xY/C|&:(|c/zl;$#3=n?g9p.Nh~h|jY0ktavx.JtWXQy]cB|#pJ!+DF!M@9J’);

define(‘AUTH_SALT’, ‘j!_FSZTf|,7cSb=V_NGew+h~|rMv:.t~A7PHNwWmB,El`-&[7{K06_p?KQ+57f,i’);

define(‘SECURE_AUTH_SALT’, ‘dZ0zAh`1(UyEBYATziEnA=Ia%FF&VI;S1sAO~/mw.9my{XruOxq_d?xh,btCW;u7′);

define(‘LOGGED_IN_SALT’, ‘wX h@-R>tUKN&B-xzx$~NLm75K*vd;R~g-cxF?mQjbiR6q~; 9<<fO61 g;+HW9[‘);

define(‘NONCE_SALT’, ‘tr|e$|[Efe<v:RaqqRC2W$xC?8(2M/+Q-)!Kr{Z<=P&0%UlJ(P{ZC&%Yq{5lTv6N’);

The benefits of doing this is that it encrypts your users’ cookies.

This will make your site harder to hack as access to your blog via scripts and malicious people will be made all that more difficult.

10. Change your WordPress Table Prefix

Perhaps you used an auto install script to install WordPress or perhaps you did it manually but left the table prefix of your data base tables as wp_. This makes it very easy for would be hackers to attempt MYSQL injections into your website. So, how can we combat this? Well instead of leaving wp_ as default, instead, use roboform again and generate a 27 character alpha numeric string and then add it to your wp table prefix.

For instance use something like this:

wp_coKuBHck4FHNrXiMsPJcND9WGzL_

Make sure you add an underscore to the end of the string otherwise sorting out your tables later will be confusing.

Doing this will make it that much harder as well as take that much longer for hackers to crack.

11. Use .htaccess files to Lockdown the WordPress Admin Area

Perhaps at this moment you’re asking yourself, what the heck is an .htaccess file? (Seriously, when I first started on the web six years ago I ask the same question) Well according to Wikipedia:

“An .htaccess (hypertext access) file is a directory-level configuration file supported by several web servers, that allows for decentralized management of web server configuration.

The original purpose of .htaccess – reflected in its name – was to allow per-directory access control, by for example requiring a password to access the content. Nowadays however, the .htaccess files can override many other configuration settings including content type and character set, CGIhandlers, etc.

These files are placed inside the web tree, and are able to override a subset of the server’s global configuration for that directory, and all sub-directories.”

In laymans terms, this is a file that talks to your server and can be used to restrict access to certain files.

Now, one of the reasons why I love WordPress is because of the community involvement and support.

And Ed Alexander has developed an awesome WordPress plugin called Bullet Proof Security which automatically creates the .htaccess file and rules to protect your WordPress website.

While the plugin is available for free on the WordPress plugin repository, I highly recommend getting the pro version for $40 as you get lifetime updates and can use it on an unlimited amount of websites (and it helps out Ed, who also gives awesome support and is a great guy). I will tell you though that it takes a bit to figure out how to set it up which is why I included a lesson on it in my course on how to secure WordPress.

12. Restrict IP access to your website

This can be done by adding the following to your .htaccess file.

order deny,allow

#(replace with your IP address)

allow from 202.090.21.1

deny from all

Or you can simply use my Stealth Login Plus Plugin which will enable you to easily do this as well as trick would be hackers as to where the login url is for your site.  The plugin has been approved in the WordPress repository but frankly I’m having trouble figuring out how to set up an SVN (I’m not a total geek you know) so in the mean time you can download it from here. And watch the video below on how to configure it:

13. Move Your wp-config.php File Out of the Root Public HTML Folder of Your Server

This is a neat little trick that not a lot of people know about. But your wp-config file is hosted in your public access html folder on your server. That is that the general public can try to access it, but you can move it out of that folder and into the folder on your website and WordPress will still be able to read it and know that it is there.  However, you may loose functionality with some plugins so you have to weigh the costs of security over functionality.  Either talk to the Plugin Developer about modifying his code to work with this configuration, find a different plugin or leave your wp-config.php file where it is. (Bullet Proof Security properly configured will lock access to it anyways but it doesn’t hurt to move it as its another layer of security)  Check out the video below for detailed instructions on how to do this.

14. Hide Your wp-login.php URL

Now this is a little advanced and can be done by adding some .htaccess code to your .htaccess file but frankly you might as well simply use my Stealth Login Plus plugin.

Watch the Stealth Login video above to see how to configure it.

15. Use Cloudflare

Perhaps you may or may not have heard of Cloudflare.

Well they are an awesome company and branched off as a result of the Project Honey Pot Website Security Iniative (which is still going on I might add)

But the way that Cloudflare works is you host your site on their Content Delivery Network (CDN) by filtering your DNS settings through their servers and then anytime an attack is attempted on the network, Cloudflare blocks it and lets the rest of the network know about it. It’s kind of like neighborhood watch for the web on steroids. And because it is on a Content Delivery Network your site is that much faster as well.

That being said, I think that Cloudflare does a much better job of explaining what they do so head on over to their website to discover more.

16.  Use Internet Security Software for Your PC

Ok, so you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about using Software for your PC and not for WordPress.  (If you’re a mac user, you can skip this, contrary to popular belief Macs aren’t unhackable. It’s just there is not enough business market penetration by Apple to catch the attention of hackers and thieves, although that is changing). Besides the fact that you want to protect your PC you also want to stop keyloggers from getting into your computer and recording your keystrokes, such as your WordPress username and password (however if you use Roboform it automatically fills your username and password fields as well as presses the submit button) but  you still want to keep your PC secure.  Everyday some kid at home, or criminal in the mafia is thinking of ways to penetrate and hack your PC, to steal your identity or harness the power of your computer and for the small investment of what it takes to purchase an internet security suite it is more than worth it.  Don’t for one minute think that you can simply use AVG free and your computer is good to go, no my friend, you need to shell out some cash.  I won’t do an internet security suite review in this post but I personally use Comodo Internet Security Suite as they have a $500 virus guarantee and offer 24/7 remote tech support to boot. However, I also recommend Kaspersky (as maximum PC did a huge test on it and it passed with flying colors)

17. Install and Use Backup Buddy

Ok, so here is the thing. You need to back up your site and you need to do it often. The best way to do that is with Back Up Buddy.  Reason being is that if your site gets hacked, you will have a back up of it.  I know that I’ve mentioned previous things that you can do to protect your site but hey, anything can happen. (If the CIA website can be hacked, we need to think twice about the security of our WordPress websites) Now before you brand me as a complete liar (for implying that you can make WordPress impenetrable), if you implement the strategies that I have previously mentioned you will make it EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for someone to hack your site, and more than likely once they try a few things, they will move on. But there is always that small chance, and if it does happen, you’ll have a regular backup of your site using backup buddy.  Using Backup Buddy you can send the back ups to an Amazon S3 or a Drop Box Account (I would use both as it doesn’t hurt to have multiple instances of your site someone where). And not only that, but there are times when things go wrong such as a WordPress upgrade or the installation of a plugin that whacks out your site and it’s nice to know that you can go back and restore your site if you have to. While there are free backup solutions out there, none of them do what Backup Buddy does and it is well worth the investment.

So with that being said, once you’ve done all of this, how do you know if your WordPress site is secure? Well I’m glad you asked fellow WordPress fanatic as you can install the Ultimate WordPress Security Plugin and it will tell you what security holes are in your WordPress website and how to fix them. It will also score how secure your WordPress website is based on a points system, with 114 points being the highest (most of my WordPress sites get at least 100 points or higher, I don’t get a perfect score because I choose to ignore some of their recommendations)

And if you want to learn even more about WordPress security you can invest in my 4 hour Video Course “WordPress Security Lockdown” which includes 31 videos on how to secure WordPress (teaching you via some of what I have mentioned in this post as well as so much more) or you could also invest in the book WordPress 3.0 Ultimate Security by Olly Connelly from Pack Publishing. It’s a great book and I myself learned a lot (and had a lot confirmed) about what I have learned about WordPress security.  You can also follow me on twitter @mattsfraser

The post 17 Tips on How to Secure WordPress Like Fort Knox appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

SQL Injection

This type of activity is about attacking the database through a website input field and can result in data being accessed, edited, deleted, etc. To give you an idea of what this means:

1. Customer details and confidential information being stolen for fraudulent activities.
2. Stolen products from an e-commerce website such as recording orders with details of non-existing payments.
3. Altering or deleting of business critical data.
4. Embarrassing defacing of the website.

Cross-site Scripting (XSS)

This type of attack is about using user-generated content to make the website perform activities is should not. High-profile websites like Twitter.com have even been victims of cross-site scripting attacks in which Javascript has been injected into the website to redirect users to another destination. Cross-site scripting isn’t limited to redirecting user but can cause visitor snooping and cookie tracking.

1.  Visitors being redirected from your website to another often without you ever knowing this is happening.
2. Website users and admin having their login details stolen and website accounts abused.
3. Distribution of viruses among website visitors.

Avoid Being Hacked

As you can imagine, these issues can cause serious issues for you and your visitors. You don’t need to be a programmer to protect yourself against hacking attempts. If you use a publishing platform like WordPress, then keeping your WP version, themes, and plugins up-to-date is simple. It is important to make sure your third-party software is not only updated on your blog but also actively being developed. Plugins that are no longer being supported or developed may have vulnerabilities that will never be fixed. If installed on your website, this may leave holes in your security. It is also important to keep your inactive plugins and themes up-to-date. Although the may inactive, their files are still accessible to hackers.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is filled with goodies. When Google crawls your site and finds malware or believes you’ve been hacked, they will notify you within your Google Webmaster Tools account. The service is free and highly recommended.

Final Thought

It’s a cat and mouse game. Hackers find a vulnerability and developers do their best to patch up the hole…and around and around we go. Always have security in mind and never assume that your website is too small to be hacked, everyone is a target. Keep your software up-to-date and check your Google Webmaster Tools for malware warnings.

The post Hacking Methods appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Clifton’s Lightbox Plugin Gets a Face-Lift appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, & Happy Holidays! appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I am asked a lot of questions. So many in fact, that I had to start my own support group on Facebook. Now, I don’t know everything but I do enjoy helping people out. Everyday thousands of people join the blogosphere and they have a lot of questions. Their answers are on the internet but they don’t know exactly how to find them themselves, so they quickly turn to the first person they think may already know the answer. So, I’ve decided to publish this infographic, courtesy of HackCollege.com, that explains the techniques you can use to find exactly what you are looking for in a fraction of the time. Finding the answer yourself will greatly benefit you in the future.

The post Learn To Use Google Search appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Creating Content For Your WordPress Blog appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Those new to blogging often don’t know the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Although extremely similar, the biggest difference between the two is that WordPress.com is a hosted blogging service and WordPress.org is self-hosted.

What is a hosted blogging platform?

Using a hosted blogging platform like WordPress.com is a great place for beginners to start because it’s easy and free. It’s a hosted blogging platform because the service “hosts” the blog on their domain. For example, my hosted blog is http://cliftonhatfied.wordpress.com. You do have the option to change the domain to your own purchased domain by paying the host service a fee. If you are okay with the disadvantages of hosted blogs, explained later in this series, then you may want to consider using your own domain for your hosted blog. Although, I don’t recommend it for business professionals.

Advantages of Hosted Blog Platforms

Hosted & Self-Hosted blogs have their own advantages and disadvantages. Here, I will explain the advantages of having a hosted blog on a service like WordPress.com.

1. Fairly cheap or free to run – most hosted blogging platforms are free or have a small monthly fee to operate.
2. Quick & easy to setup – you can usually get started with your new hosted blog within a few clicks in a few minutes. You don’t need any knowledge of the technical side of setting up a blog platform.
3. Simple to operate – After setup, your biggest role in the operation of your blog is to publish content. Sometimes this is as easy as adding the content and clicking Publish.
4. Automatic updates – The blog host handles the updates for you so you know your blogging platform is never outdated. This can help protect you against hacker vulnerability and software bugs without you worrying about keeping your software up-to-date.
5. Search engine optimization – A nice advantage of using a hosted blog is that you may be sharing a domain with hundreds of thousands or even millions of other bloggers who are also writing content that is constantly being crawled and indexed by search engines like Google. This is in your favor because the hosted blog domain may have a higher Page Rank or hold more weight with search engines, thus giving your blog a boost.

Disadvantages of Hosted Blog Platforms

1. Less options – To help keep things simple for any user, the hosted blog service limits a blogger’s options and often makes the service less configurable. This may or may not bother you but it’s something to consider before going deep into your hosted blog.
2. Default design – This is similar to the disadvantage above. Most hosted blog platforms limit a blogger’s design options to keep things simple for them to use. The downside of this is that everyone’s blog often begin looking the same and have less “character”.
3. Less ownership – This is a HUGE disadvantage to online business professionals like Internet Marketers or Professional Bloggers. Imagine spending countless hours and money building up your business only to find out that it is at the mercy of someone else! Hosted blog platforms is the same thing. Although the blogger owns the content written on their blog, they don’t own the domain name and have limited branding capabilities. They have limited control of the service their blog is running on as well.
4. Generic URL – This one also affects those who expect to have a professional blog. Although there are many very successful blogs operating on the hosted generic domain (e.g. xxxxx.wordpress.com), having control over your domain name can really excel your online branding.
5. Out-growing hosted blogs – As I said before, hosted blogs is a great place to start for beginner bloggers but that is because it gives them an opportunity to learn about how to blog and using the platform. Once they have moved past that phase, it’s time to consider a self-hosted blog. The reason is because once you’ve established a solid audience and foundation in one location on the internet, it can be very difficult to move and expect your audience to follow. So moving from a hosted service to a self-hosted service may pose some challenges.

Does anyone really use Hosted Blogs?

The answer is Yes! Millions of people do use hosted blogs because of many advantages stated above but because of its simplicity mostly. And although the norm in the professional blogging world is to frown on hosted blogs, there have been many professionals who have grown enormous following using a hosted blogging platform, like Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/).

Stay tuned for Part Two where I talk about “What is a self-hosted blogging platform?” and its advantages & disadvantages.

[jetpack_optin]

The post WordPress.com vs WordPress.org appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Google Stream and The Bump appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Receive a higher ranking with Google

We all want to receive a higher rank on Google search results pages. Page One is the prize. With patience, practice, researching, and trial & error you will become an SEO machine.

What is On-Site SEO?

On-site SEO techniques are strategies you can do on your blog that will help build a higher ranking in Google’s search results. When it comes to search engine optimization, there are many different strategies and much speculation around what works and what doesn’t.

The first step is to decide on a few keywords for your article that you would like to be found in the search engines. Think about what visitors will type into the search field of Google if they want information on the topic in your article. When you identify what visitors search for, you will have a better idea of what keywords you should be using several times throughout your article.

You need to add these SEO keywords in various locations within the specific article. Featuring the keywords using HTML or the editor buttons of your Visual Editor tab will help you signify their importance. Here are a ways to feature those keywords in different levels of importance.

Keywords in the URL

When using the WordPress Platform, editing your permalinks to contain your article’s keywords is important. Be sure that you’ve adjusted your Permalinks Settings to reflect a canonical URL. Then, you can editing the article’s permalink just beneath where you set your post or page title.

Post Titles

Your post title holds a lot of weight when considering SEO. When choosing a WordPress post title, you need to make it catching but not deceiving. You also need to include your article’s keywords. It’s very tricky, but it can be done.

Internal Links

Many new bloggers get caught up in the importance off off-site linking, also known as backlinks, that they neglect the importance of on-site linking, or internal linking. Internal linking to increase the visibility of other articles in your blog has search engine optimization benefits too. Use your keywords within your anchor text (clickable text) when creating an internal link. You can see examples within this article linking to other articles on my blog.

Bold & Italic Format Text

Bold format on your keywords within your content can hold weight with search engines. Search engine algorithms use the bold text as a level of importance. Therefore, adding a bold or italic format to your keywords will be viewed as importance keywords in your article.

Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6)

Heading tags are ordered by their tag with H1 being the most important down to H6 being the least. Typically, your article’s title, which should already contain keywords, is marked as an H1 by your WordPress theme. Then, you have the flexibility to use the other heading tags (e.g. H2, H3, H4…) on other sections of your article. Splitting your article into sections is a wise move. Not only does it make things easier to read but it also gives you an opportunity to sub title each section. You can see that I have done this within this article. H1 tags should be the largest and higher on the page (as bots crawl webpages top to bottom assuming the most important is nearest to the top.) H2 tags should be slightly smaller font size and beneath the H1 tags on the page. Continue this trend for any use of your heading tags.

You can find your heading tags in the Format drop down menu of your post editor toolbar when in Visual Mode.

Image Alt Attribute

I see bloggers leaving this one out too often. When you’ve uploaded an image to your article, you need to add it’s alt attribute (means alternative text). This attribute helps text readers like bots determine what your image is representing because blots can’t “look” at the image so they rely on the alt attribute to tell them. You can easily add it to an image immediately after uploading the image. Inside of the media popup that appears when uploading an image, you can enter its Alternative Text before clicking the Insert into Post button.

Keywords in the First Paragraph

Some people believe that your keywords need to be in the first sentence of your article. If you can’t fit the keywords into your first sentence, at least make sure you have them in your first paragraph. The earlier a bot reads your keywords the better.

Most Important On-site SEO Technique

The most important on-site SEO technique is to always write your article for your readers and NOT for the search engine bots. If you litter your article with keywords so much that it becomes difficult for your readers to understand then the article looks spammy. These bots are smart. They can determine the difference between legit text designed to deliver information to the reader and the bad text that is only there to boost SEO results. Don’t let your hard SEO efforts send you in the wrong direction.

Final Thought

On-site SEO is just as important as off-site. The great thing about on-site is that you have complete control over it and you can monitor what’s working for you and what isn’t by using services like Google Webmaster Tools. Keep track of what keywords Google is indexing off your WordPress blog and your on-site Search engine optimization efforts will only get better.

If you have ANY additional tips, please feel free to add them within the comments!

The post On-Site SEO Techniques For Blogs appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Wayne Hatter here and before we get into the benefits of YouTube, I must say that it is an honor to be a guest blogger for Mr. Clifton Hatfield. He just had a brand new, baby boy… so if you would… Leave a comment and congratulate him on a job well done and Mrs. Ashley Hatfield as well.

Ok, now down to business.

YouTube Search: What Are People Looking For?

People search the web for many reasons.

One of the biggest reasons is because they are looking for help or to solve a problem. The first place that people usually go for information is Google. After all Google is the number one search engine in the world.

Now check this out! YouTube is the now the second largest search engines in the world (Google being #1). So What…?

Well, people are becoming more and more visual and they don’t want to read. Hence, YouTube is where they can see the solutions to their problems rather than read about it.

So what does all this mean for you? Basically, it comes down to this. If you have a business, then you have the power of YouTube!

The benefits are crazy amazing if you choose to use YouTube for one of your marketing vehicles.

Here are 7 POWERFUL benefits to the reason why you should consider using YouTube in your marketing campaigns:

YouTube Benefits

1. It’s Free – Think about how much you would be spending on yellow page ads, billboards, etc. Those advertising methods are not free. However, YouTube is.
2. Video Content Is Powerful – You have all heard that content is king. Well, video is content and some would consider it the king of kings (I personally agree). Like I said before, “people would rather watch their problems being solved rather that read about it”
3. Virality – There are 2 different types of virality that I have learned. General and Relative.
   General Virality is when a video has become popular by chance or if it is a celebrity.
   Relative Virality – Is when your video or videos are produced in a way to target your audience. For instance… Let’s say that you have created a course on YouTube SEO, then your target audience would be small businesses and online marketers.
   At any rate, YouTube had over 3 billion views a day, back in May of 2011. That means the potential for viewers is astronomical.
4. Global and Local Audience – This one is my favorite because depending on the keywords that you are targeting, you can target the same audience in different regions of the world. That means that you have the potential for customers buying your product from all over the world.
5. You Are Viewed As The Expert – When you are demonstrating your product or giving away some great valued tips and tricks. People begin to know that you are the guy or gal that they can trust.

1. YouTube Is Always Selling For You – 24 hours a day and 7 days a week; Your message, product or service is being broadcasted. Which means more potential traffic to your site and more cash in ‘yo’ pocket.

1. Video is SEO Friendly – This is the big kahuna. As you begin to learn how to optimize your YouTube videos. You will see the amount of views and traffic that you are getting to your site. However, there are some techniques that are ninja certified to get you more views. More views = More Traffic = More Cash In Yo Pocket.

With all of these benefits the question is, why wouldn’t you want to start using YouTube for your marketing?

Looking for YouTube Optimization Help? Visit “How To Increase YouTube Views”

The post YouTube Optimization: What’s In It For You? appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The latest update to my Testimonials Plugin for WordPress has received some serious love. In version 1.4, the plugin received an updated style for the testimonial submission form, YouTube video support, visitor URL, pagination, one-click updating, and more.

How it works

This plugin is extremely simple to use. Create a page on your WordPress blog and place the testimonials form within the page using the provided shortcode. Visitors can then submit a testimonial from your new page leaving their name, email address, testimonial, with a optional photo, YouTube video, and website URL. If they don’t leave a photo, then the plugin will try using their Gravatar, if available.

After the visitor submits their testimonial, you will receive an email notification, and the testimonial is placed into a Pending Status waiting for your review. Once you review the testimonial, you can publish it onto your Testimonials page that you’ve created.

Testimonials Plugin In Action

If you’d like to see the testimonials plugin in action, then leave me a testimonial.

The post New Testimonials Plugin For WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

This is obviously subjective but the ultimate goal of a post title is to get people to read the first sentence of your article. Using the post title to spark their interest leading them to read the first sentence is crucial.

Want me to read? Grab my attention.

Grabbing someone’s attention on the fast-moving internet can be a challenge. Sometimes it feels like putting a bigger, brighter, flashier signs on the strip in Las Vegas just so people will notice you so you can at least get them in the front door. Here are some techniques for grabbing a potential reader’s attention.

Grab Attention

Often time, blogs get filled with clutters…widgets….opt-in forms…share buttons…etc…are all clutter making it that much more difficult for your visitors’ attention to be grabbed by your post titles. First, ask a friend, preferably one that has never visited your blog, and have them evaluate your blog to see if they have any trouble ‘discovering’ or ‘understanding’ your post titles.

Keep It Simple

You may have heard of the KISS method. That applies here too. As bloggers, we have a lot to say right? Well, when it comes to post titles, keeping it short and sweet is the most effective. Short, simple, and easy to understand titles see the most action. The shorter post titles are great for SEO as well. If you keep the titles under 40 characters, the whole title will appear in Google search results.

Be Honest

I’ve seen bloggers using different tactics to grab someone’s attention and sometimes it’s not always the most honest either. Attention might be achieved using tactics of shock, big claims, controversy, or even confusion but these can often do more damage than good. Fooling people with deceptive titles will disappoint them when the article’s content falls short of their expectations. Don’t trick your readers into thinking you’ll provide them with something you can’t give them.

Use Keywords

Post titles can hold a lot of weight when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). If you want to take advantage of this opportunity, then you should be using your keywords or phrases inside of your post titles. When you are trying to keep titles simple and attention grabbing, this can be difficult but not impossible. Be creative. Just remember that it’s believed that words stating a post title hold more weight than words at the end of a title.

Descriptive Titles

There are those people who are tempted by brief titles that leave them hanging but majority of people want to have a good idea of what your article will be about before reading past the title. The title should describe what the readers will get when reading further so they have an idea what to expect.

Make a Need

An effective title draws people into reading your article because they may feel it’s something you need to read. I was able to prove this tactic with my article titled, Save Your Facebook Photos, Videos, & Life. People were drawn to this article because Facebook has becomes so important to people that they wanted to learn how to save it. How-to articles and tutorials are a great way to capture people’s attention by meeting their need to know.

The post Choosing Post Titles Successfully appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

One of the biggest appeal to having a blog is the opportunity to earn passive income. Passive income is income that you earn while not actively working. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t take any work to start earning passive income.

There are many ways, directly and indirectly, to monetize your blog. Nearly all of them earn you passive income. Building a passive income from blogging does require work though..at least to get things going. Then, regular maintenance and update to keep the passive income recurring.

Ever heard the phrase, “Make money while you sleep”?

It doesn’t happen overnight and you are required to develop ways to keep a constant follow of traffic to your blog. Regular updates and keeping your blog engaging are near fool-proof ways to keep your traffic levels high. With many new bloggers, the ideas for content come easily. However, as you being to run shy of new content to write about, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with new articles. In addition, there are many other aspects to keeping your blog ‘alive’, like comment management, software updates, search engine optimization, site backups, and more.

Final Thought

Making money blogging isn’t always fun. Like most things, if you do something for money, it usually because less and less fun and more like a chore or a job. Blogging is no different. New bloggers receive their first blog and they are pumped to start writing their articles but they usually fades. I suggest always treating your blog like a hobby and the passive income it earns as a perk. This might sound silly but getting burnt out on blogging is the #1 blog killer. When you treat your blog like a hobby or something that you love to do, then it stays fun and a way for you to express what’s on your mind, rather than just another paycheck for doing some work.

The post Blogging For Passive Income appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

In this article, I will talk about the two basic ways of making money with your blog. I won’t go into specifics but this will help you decide exactly the purpose of your blog and which method you plan to use to make money with it.

There are basically two categories for making money with a blog

Some people may want to get into detail and say there are more than two ways…and there are…but you can look at all the different ways and still categorize them into two broad categories. I’m here to talk about them.

Direct Monetization

The direct method is a strategy that allows bloggers to earn an income directly from their blog. This would include running advertisements, acquiring sponsorships, earning affiliate commissions, and even paid reviews. Basically, any way that you are making money as a direct connection to having your blog.

Indirect Monetization

The indirect method is very popular in which bloggers earn an income because  of their blog. They have used their blog as a tool to build authority, creditability, or edify their expertise. Because of this, they are able to earn an income from such things as freelance contracts, published books & ebooks, speaking engagements, consulting opportunities, running courses, and membership sites.

Whether your blog earns directly or indirectly, it is still considered passive income.

Final Thought

Many blogs fall into both categories using direct and indirect monetization methods. You do not need to stick with one or the other but I encourage you to experiment with all your options. The most important thing to remember is that blog with no activity, not maintained, actively updated, or obviously built on auto-pilot will see low traffic numbers which means you can’t make money blogging directly or indirectly. It’s all about the traffic.

The post How To Make Money Blogging appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Success Doesn’t Happen All At Once appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Your Circumstances appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

WordPress

It was first released on May 27, 2003, by Matt Mullenweg as a fork of b2/cafelog. As of February 2011, version 3.0 had been downloaded over 32.5 million times.

Features

WordPress has a web template system using a template processor.

Themes

WordPress users may install and switch between themes. Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website or installation without altering the informational content. Themes may be installed by using the WordPress “Dashboard” administration tool, cPanel or uploading theme folders via FTP.The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations.

Plugins

One very popular feature of WordPress is its rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install; WordPress has a database of over 17,000 plugins with purposes ranging from SEO to adding widgets.

Widgets

Widgets offer users drag-and-drop sidebar content placement and implementation of many plugins’ extended capabilities. Users can re-arrange widgets without editing PHP or HTML code.

Multi-user and multi-blogging

Prior to WordPress 3.0, WordPress supported one blog per installation, although multiple concurrent copies may be run from different directories if configured to use separate database tables. WordPress Multi-User (WordPress MU, or just WPMU) was a fork of WordPress created to allow multiple blogs to exist within one installation that is able to be administered by a centralized maintainer. WordPress MU makes it possible for those with a website to host their own blogging community, as well as control and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard. WordPress MU adds eight new data tables for each blog.

WordPress MU merged with WordPress as part of the 3.0 release.

Mobile

Native applications exist for Android,iPhone/iPod Touch,iPad,Windows Phone 7, and BlackBerry which provide access to some of the features in the WordPress Admin panel and work with WordPress.com and many WordPress.org blogs.

Other features of note

WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters are also included, providing standardized formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes). WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article.

Resource: Wikipedia

The post What is WordPress? appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

1. Vary different types of characters in your passwords; include numbers, letters and special characters when possible.
2. Choose passwords of eight characters or more. Separate short words with spaces or underscores.
3. Don’t use the same password and username combination for multiple websites. Use an online password manager to keep track of your different accounts.

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. gazwsx
24. michael
25. football

SplashData CEO Morgan Slain urges businesses and consumers using any password on the list to change them immediately.

“Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords,” Slain says. “Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.”

The post Secure WordPress Passwords appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

LMFAO comes in this week with the video of the week! This feel-good hip hop song makes me want to cut-a-rug right in front of my desk. This one gets my blood pumping and just listening to it give me energy to get closer to accomplishing my goals.

What about you, does Party Rock Anthem make you just wanna put your dancing shoes on and bust a move?!

The post Video of the Week : Party Rock Anthem appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Happy Veterans Day 2011 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve built hundreds of WordPress blogs and on occasion someone will ask me, “How do I choose the best photo for my header?” There are some things you must take into account when choosing your photo. I’ve listed those things here.

Personal Branding

Personal branding has become a very strong factor in successful blogging. Every popular blog that I can think has done this very well and proudly displays their visual brand in their header. So choosing a photo or logo in this area should reflect your brand and should be reflect throughout your branding network.

Your Best Photo

If your brand is centered around you, then using your own photo within your WordPress header is a no-brainer. Avoid logos, cartoons, or anything else that isn’t you. Once you’re ready to start picking which photo to use, reach for the best ones first. The best one isn’t always your favorite one either. That candid snap shot of you in some good light taken with a cell phone isn’t the best photo. You may think you look great and in the photo you may, but on a professional level it may end up looking silly in your header.

High Resolution

If you expect a graphic designer to do their magic, give them the quality they need. Don’t save your favorite Facebook photo because it’s low resolution. Unless you download the high resolution copy, if available. Don’t use the photo you captured on your cell phone because the lighting and quality is far too low. Choose a high resolution photo with good lighting.

Point & Shoot

Most of today’s over-the-counter point & shoot cameras will do a decent job capturing a good quality photo of you for your header. I’m not a photographer or camera expert but I would imagine a 5 megabit or higher camera would dot he job nicely.

What to Wear?

This really depends on your brand and target audience. It’s also common sense so I won’t spend much time on it. If you are presenting yourself as a professional, dress professional. If you are presenting yourself as someone who is professional but works 10-15 hours a week and spend the rest of your time enjoying the sun or with your family, then maybe you can get away with a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. My point is that your outfit should reflect your brand.

Hire a Photographer

Saving the best for last, hiring a credited photographer is going to give you the best results and options for you to choose from. You will be able to capture your image exactly in a way you want your brand seen across the web. If you want to take this opportunity serious, then you know how important this is.Talk with your photographer to discuss outfits, props, lighting, senses, etc. Tell them your ideas and what your plans are for your photos, blog, and business.

Check out this Great Headers

http://karyrogney.com

http://miadavies.com

http://brianfanale.com

http://ashleyhatfield.com

http://thenetworkdad.com

http://katiefreiling.com

http://jonathanbudd.com

http://whoisracheljackson.com

http://darrenspruyt.com

Final Thought

I realize not everyone has the time or the funds for hiring a professional photographer, but point & shoot cameras are widely popular now. Ask a friend, spouse, family members to take some shots of you wearing different outfits and start snapping. The header and your image are the first things to load on the page and the first thing most people will see when they land on your blog. Make that first impression impressive and deliver the imprint of your brand.

If you take note of my header and photo you will see that I’m not in a suit but wearing my favorite jacket and shirt. What’s on the black shirt? A man with a full beard, cut off jean shorts, no shirt, and holding a sign that says PARTY. My brand is The Blog Rockstar and that is exactly how I had to deliver it in my header.

What are some of your favorite blog headers? List them in the comments below.

The post Choosing a Photo For Your WordPress Blog appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve decided to make my blog even more personal by publishing videos of the week. My blog receives a lot of visitors but many of you don’t really know much about me or the things I am into. With my Video of the Week posts, I am giving you a glimpse into what music videos I jam. If you don’t care to know, don’t bother watching the videos, but if your curiosity grabs you, please leave your feedback in the comment area letting me know what you thought! Thanks :)
This week Toby Mac always brings me back to earth with his Lose My Soul title. This song really reminds me of the important things in life and love. What do you think about this video, how did it make you feel?

The post Video of the Week : Lose My Soul appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

We all deal with spammers infecting our precious comments and we try our best to block them using plugins like Akismet. But the truth is, some still get through. I don’t have the answer to block all of them completely or tell you that you can stop using your spam filter plugin, but I do have a tip using your .htaccess file. The fact is, those comments aren’t being left by people, they are being left by computers machines. Those machines aren’t posting a comment from your blog, they are posting the comment using simple spam scripts run on their server. You can tell your server to check if the comment is being left from your blog or from an external server (spammer). If it’s not being left from your blog, then block it.

Always backup your .htaccess file before making any changes.

1. Connect to your hosting account via FTP, secure is preferred.
2. Navigate to the directory WordPress is installed, where you will see the wp-config.php file. This is usually the root directory. Download the .htaccess file.
3. Open the .htaccess file using a text editor like Notepad.
4. Copy the code below and paste it within the .htaccess file.
5. Change the fourth line to your domain name.
6. Save the .htaccess file.
7. Upload the file back to the directory. Overwrite.
8. If you found this helpful, please share on Facebook & Twitter.
9. Done.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*yourblog.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) ^http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]

Source: WPRecipes.com

The post Use .htaccess File To Block Comment Spammers appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post New for WordPress 3.3 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Every Morning appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Actually, EB never went anywhere but it has received a face-lift! We’ve totally redesigned the website among other things but what we are most excited about is the release of version 2.0!

Empowered Theme Version 2.0

ETv2.0 was nearly rewritten from the ground up! New features were added while others were simplified but overall everything was improved. To make it even sweeter, you can get Your Empowered Blog for only $99. This price is very limited. Over the last 2 years, we’ve been selling the complete Empowered Blogs Package for $349 but we’ve decided to slash the price over 70% off to only $99. Crazy right?!

What is Empowered Blogs?

Empowered Blogs is not just a theme but a total blogging package. Don’t have a WordPress blog even set up yet? Don’t know how to setup the database? Don’t worry because we set it up for you on your hosting account. We have our web designer cook up some beautiful graphics for your header and background using a photo of your choice. We install & setup the Empowered Theme which is our proprietary premium theme built from the ground up by lead developer, Clifton Hatfield. Once the WordPress publishing platform and Empowered Theme are installed, we adjust your core settings so be most effective then upload and active our recommended plugins.

Every blogger is different and because of that, you have complete control over your WordPress blog as an administrator. This means you can create as many pages as you want, manage your plugins by adding new ones or adjusting the one we install for you. You can also add, reorder, and edit your widget areas like your side bar and footer. You also have full control on your menu areas in your blog’s header so that you can add your own links to the menus or pages you’ve created or even to other websites.

So What’s New with Empowered Theme v2.0?

Check out some screenshots or just a few of the new features.

We’ve listed only a few of the new or improved features of the Empowered Theme. The Empowered Theme is still packed with many of the same features as before, like the infamous popup Video Widget, welcome box, signature, and Google Analytics.

Video Tutorials & User Manual

Every blogger has a different experience level when it comes to being ‘web savvy’ but doesn’t mean blogging should only be for those who can wield the web with their eyes closed. We encourage everyone to blog because everyone has something important to share with the world. For this reason, we’ve add 35+ Professional Video Tutorials that cover how to use the tools and features that the WordPress publishing platform has to offer. Each video is shot in high definition and lets you pause and play making it easy to follow along. Watch a sample tutorial.

The User Manual is like that handbook where you can find anything you are looking for when it comes to using your WordPress Dashboard. It’s packed with screenshots and step-by-step instructions on how to use each little detail of the core features of WordPress.

Layout Options

Like most blogs, your sidebar is displayed on the right side of your blog’s content. However, with the Empowered Theme’s Layout Options, you can easily choose to move the sidebar to the left side of the content or hide it completely. Within the Layout Options, you can also choose to display full post content by selecting the Content option or to display just the first 55 words of a post and its first image by selecting the Excerpt option. The Excerpt option is great so a clean & organized homepage. Excerpts also have search engine optimization benefits.

Post Formats

Post formats are used in the Empowered Theme to display the proper format on your homepage for the specific post when using post excerpts on the homepage. e.g. When you publish a video post, you choose the Video post format so that the video will be displayed on the homepage properly. Or if you have something quick to share with the world you can publish it with the Aside post format to keep it short and sweet.

Typography

Not everyone likes the same things and this applied to fonts, colors, and styles on their blog too. We’ve added typography options so you can adjust font face, style, color, and size very easily from your Dashboard’s Design Options. Screenshots here Want to be festive for the holidays? Choose the font face ‘Mountains of Christmas’ for your Post Titles and help spread Christmas cheer!

All-New Contact Form

The contact form is built-in to the Empowered Theme as an added plugin giving you the flexibility to use a third-party contact form if you choose. Our new design makes the form easier to use for your visitors contacting you and is easy-on-the-eyes. It uses the built-in WordPress wp_mail function so you know that our contact form will alays be compatible with future upgrades and improve as WordPress improves.

Improved Slideshow

Our slideshow feature was completely rewritten. None of the old code was used because we wanted to make sure v2.0 got everything it deserved. The new slideshow feature uses WordPress custom post types to give you amazing control over your slides. Now you can add to your slides, images, videos, opt-in forms, and anything that you can add to your typical blog posts….but this time…it’s displayed in your slideshow! You have options to adjust the time between transitions, the type of transition, and what to do after the last slide has appeared, like start-over or hide the slideshow. Manage your slides like you do your posts, draft them, trash them, or publish them. It’s so flexible and still so simple. Screenshots here

Hot Styles & Designs

Using CSS3, we wanted to keep things clean & professional but will be universal enough to mesh with any blog design you wanted. We chose neutral colors for our fonts, widgets, lists, and layout. These colors will blend nicely with any color scheme you choose for your custom graphics and header.

Facebook & Twitter Share Buttons

Facebook is also changing and improving their platform and that includes the social plugins used outside of their site, that includes the Facebook Like button. We use the Facebook Open Graph protocol & javascript library to display the Like button on each of your Posts and Pages. This is the most effective way to share your blog’s content on the social networking giant, Facebook. Choose what image is displayed on Facebook by setting a Featured Image with each blog post. This gives you optimum control.

We use the native Twitter share button right from twitter.com so you know that the code works. Add your username into the settings and each time your post is shared on Twitter, you will be mentioned.

Both Facebook and Twitter share buttons are built right into the theme so you are guaranteed they will always fit nicely into the layout and never get in the way of your content. No need to install third-party Facebook or Twitter plugins because it’s all built-in for you.

Clifton Hatfield

This article was written by Clifton Hatfield who is the founder of Empowered Blogs and lead developer of the Empowered Theme. He works personally with as many client’s as possible to uphold the outstanding reputation held by Empowered Blogs. You can learn more about Clifton at Who is Clifton Hatfield?

The post Introducing Empowered Theme v2.0 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Trevor Hall has been a real inspiration for my wife and I over the last few years. His songs, words, and rhythm are also so positive and uplifting. He have seen him in concert 4 times and always grab tickets anytime he makes it around us. Check out one of his newer singles, Brand New Day, and be inspired to take advantage of this brand new day! Love is love.

The post Brand New Day – Video of the Week appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Happy Halloween 2011 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Interview with Clifton Hatfield appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

You might have asked yourself, “How do I save my Facebook Photos, Videos, and Messages?”. I’ve put together a tutorial to show you how to save everything you’ve put on Facebook and download it in one compressed file.

Facebook has some amazing changes rolling out next week and one of the biggest changes is the Timeline profile. I won’t cover any details about the Facebook Timeline because there are already some many posts available across the internet about that topic.

Start compressing your Facebook content

The first step is to initiate the compression of your Facebook content by going to your Account Settings page. Click on the down-arrow and select Account Settings. Click on the “Download a copy of your Facebook data” link.

Start the Download

You’ll be directed to the Start Download Archive page of your account where you’ll see information about the content that will be downloaded and what wont be downloaded. Review the details and click Start My Archive.

Download Archive Pending

The status is pending while the data is compressed. Depending on how much content, video, photos, etc you have on your account will determine the amount of time it takes to compress.

Archive Finished Compressing, Download

Once your Facebook data has been compressed you can click on the Download Archive button. Before you begin your download, make sure you have plenty of storage space on your hard drive. My archive was over 1GB.

Re-enter Your Password

Before you can start the download, you will be asked to re-enter your Facebook password. This is to protect your content from anyone how may have found access to your account, i.e. left logged in at the library.

Please click the Like button and share this information with your friends! This is important!

Additional information about downloading your Facebook data can be found here.

The post Save Your Facebook Photos, Videos, & Life appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Outside of having rockin’ post content and awesome free information, there are other ways to engage your visitors and help them stay on your blog longer. I’ve put together a list below with a short excerpt for each tip.

Video Library

Do you have a YouTube Channel? If you’re are blogger then you probably have an account on YouTube with some videos. If not, pick your favorite videos to share with your visitors by embedding the video within a post and add a brief summary of why you like the video. Then, encourage the viewers to leave their feedback in the comment area.

Photo Galleries are fun

Videos are fun too but photos sometimes capture the most amazing moments. Share those with your visitors. People love looking at photos. Have you personally engaged with your readers at an event or conference? Be sure to publish those photos in your photo galleries on your blog and let them know to check out their photo. People love seeing themselves. I’ve put together a video tutorial on how to set up the built-in WordPress photo gallery function. Check out this awesome free Facebook Photo Gallery Plugin that lets you display your Facebook Page Photo Albums right on your blog.

Quiz or Contest

Do you have a large following or high readership? Hosting a contest can really engage your fans and be a lot of fun. Remember to look into the legalities of it too. A quiz can be fun for those frequent readers and a fun informative activity.

Don’t just suggest related blog posts

Popular WordPress plugin like Linkwithin uses their algorithm to suggest related blog posts to the current reader. That is cool, but boring. Although it takes a little more time, you can manually suggest additional reading at the bottom of the post but instead of saying “Suggested Blog Posts”, try something more interesting like “Visitors who read this blog posts also read…” People want to know what other people are doing. If you let them know that someone who read this post also read another post, that visitor is likely to follow in their foot steps.

Internal Linking

If you are anything like me when writing a blog post, you don’t stop and think about linking to your other blog posts at the same time. So here is what I do. Once finished writing, I read through the post again before publishing it live. I look for keywords or keyphrases that I can convert to links to connect to my other blog posts. This is a great SEO tip and gives the reader a place to learn more about the content referenced within your post.

Final Thought

When you’re looking for ways to further engage your readers and have them spend more time on your blog, you must think “outside the box.” Guess what! The world has gone social and people spend more time on social media sites like Facebook and YouTube watching videos and looking at photos. They want to know what other people are doing and what they’ve already done. Use those same guidelines to entertain and engage with your visitors encapsulating them into your blog. Just have fun with it. If something doesn’t work so well…move on to the next idea. At least you tried it.

The post Help Them Spend More Time On Your Blog appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The morning of September 11th, 2001, I was sitting in a classroom at Fort Gordon, Georgia for my 31C(harlie) training. I was in phase 4 of basic training.

After graduating from Fort Knox just a week earlier, I was bused down to Georgia to continue my training in military communication. One morning in the middle of class, we were released on a 15 minute break down the hall. About 30 of us were in the break room doing push ups, not because we were in trouble but because we were pumped up on caffeine pills we had taken that morning before our physical training began at 3AM. Someone came down the hall to tell us that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Centers. My immediate thought was that a small single engine plane had mistakenly clipped the building and it made the news. I was wrong.

My World Turned Upside-Down

Before we were let out of that morning class, the entire world turned upside-down and I was in the middle of an Army Post…everything went into lockdown. Things went from bad to worse around us and we were left out of the stream of information. While the rest of the world was glued to the news, we were very limited in the exposure we were able to get about what had happened and what was happening to the world we lived in.

War on Terror

I enlisted into the military for several reasons but none of those reasons was to go to war. At the time, I was just out of high school and there really wasn’t much of any threat that I was aware of going on. Joining the military seemed like a new adventure, a way to learn new things, do something that no one around me was doing, and many other reasons.

After graduating from my final days at basic training, I was finally exposed to everything that was happening around me. At that time, I was still unaware of how much that morning on September 11th, 2001 changed my entire world. We were launching a War on Terrorism.

Iraq & Kosovo

President Bush began sending American Troops to the Middle East to take on those who jeopardize our future, our freedom, our home. I was ordered to Indiana to begin the first phase of training in preparation for this war. We spent several weeks unaware of what our role was going to be in this war but we knew one thing, that this was what we were trained to do. Within hours of getting on a plane, we did not know if we would heading to the sands of Iraq or the mountains of the Balkans. We were selected to fly into Kosovo and help to keep the peace within a nation NATO invaded in 1999. I served my time in Kosovo as did many others did before and after me but it all happened because of what happened that morning on 9-11.

My Tribute

I think about the 9-11 terror attacks often as I am sure most of us do. It’s a date that will be read about in history books, and told to our generations after us. We will talk about how it changed our lives, our country, and our freedom. Where we stood when we heard that news and the emotions that overcame our bodies. We will continue to hold tributes and ceremonies to remember those who we lost that day and everyday after as a result of the attacks.

The greatest tribute to that day which will survive in infamy forever will be to help the memory move through time and be passed through the minds of the generations below us.

The Falling Man

Why I chose the infamous The Falling Man photo to accompany this 9-11 tribute is because of what I see when I stare into the image. From the very first time I viewed this photo, I did not see a falling man. I saw a super hero. A super hero flying around the towers, up and down the structures, catching those that he could save. Maybe not physically but in spirit. He might as well have been an Angel. It’s a vision of courage, strength, and Faith. His arms tucked tightly to his sides with a radiance of calmness to his posture. Through the last few moments of his life, he knew everything was going to be alright.

Questions about the photo? Want to know more about The Falling Man? View the Wikipedia listing, The Falling Man.

The post September 11, 2001 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization” or “search engine optimizer.” Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation.

SEO-Theory.com

SEO-Theory.com Algorithm analysis, Web community relationship analysis, SEO practices and techniques, industry news, etc.

SEOMoz.org

SEOMoz.org SEOmoz PRO combines campaign-based monitoring, actionable recommendations, and premium access to the web’s largest SEO community.

What is SEO?

What is SEO? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

The post My SEO Resources appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The post Facebook For Business appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I work with new bloggers and internet marketers nearly everyday. I see them make many of the same mistakes over and over again. That is totally ok because I’m here to give them a helping hand. Unfortunately, they often pick up these bad habits from “seasoned” internet marketers. One of the most common bad habits I see happening is promoting your recommended products the wrong way.

What the problem is

You may have already fallen victim to this bad habit or you know someone who has. You’re told that you need to have a “Recommend Products” page where people will flock to it and buy everything you recommend and you make a small commission from each sale. Well in a perfect world that would be awesome. However, there are some things that must happen before that becomes a reality. The most important one is acquire Trust. You can’t successfully recommend a product or service to someone unless they trust you or acknowledge you as an expert. Now gaining their trust is outside the scope of this article but I will tell you what to do once you have their trust and the proper way to recommend those products to them.

List of Benefits

I always encourage people who choose to have a “recommend products/resources” type page to avoid doing such. Instead, make it a Category. First I will list the benefits then tell you how to set it up properly.

1. Additional content for blog post chronicle.
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. Better focus on a single product
4. Encourage more comments
5. Boost social media sharing of a specific product
6. Less of that “spammy” advertising feeling
7. Show it’s importance in article form
8. Many more….

How to properly recommend products from your blog

1. Go to Posts > Categories and make a new category called “Recommended Products”.
2. Go to Posts > Add New. Title your blog post with the product keywords e.g. “Why I Use My Leads System Pro”.
3.  Then, continue to write/list reasons why you use the service and why you recommend it to anyone.
4. Add your banner and any other videos, affiliate link, promo material to the post body.
5. At the bottom of that post, suggest your other recommended products with links to their post. So visitors can see what other products you recommend. e.g. My other recommend products are….
6. Add 4-5 keywords into the Tags box on the right hand side.
7. Check the “Recommended Products” checkbox in the Categories box on the right hand side.
8. Go to Appearance > Menus and add the “Recommend Products” category to your menu. When someone clicks on that link, they will see the excerpts of all the recommended products on a single page. From there, they can read more about the product on its individual page.

UPDATE 8-10-2011

I forgot to mention something. By making each product a blog post, you can organize that product into multiple categories. For example, a recommended product might be the SEOPressor WordPress Plugin that can be added to the categories Recommended Products, SEO, WordPress Plugins, and Blogging.

Final Thought

You want to show your visitors that each product is worthy of its own article. Be descriptive why you recommend that product and the success you’ve had using it. Share your experience with it. Simply listing it on a page with several other products is boring, disorganized, and too much of just an advertisement. When you recommend a restaurant to someone, you don’t play the commercial for them. Do you? No…You tell them how much you enjoy their food, service, and about their value in the price. Recommending products on your blog should be treated the same way.

What are your thoughts?

Have you noticed this on other blogs or have you fallen for this bad habit?

The post Got Recommend Products? Recommend Them Correctly appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Clifton’s Lightbox Plugin

A lightbox plugin lets your visitors opt into your email list through a popup or lightbox that appears after entering your blog. There many different available settings. Change how frequent the lightbox appears for your visitors. Delay its appearance in seconds after the page loads. Add an image or video (YouTube). Add a privacy message and more. You can download this plugin for free at http://lightbox.cliftonhatfield.com

Facebook Gallery for WordPress

Want a simple way to mange and add a photo gallery to your WordPress blog in just a few minutes? This plugin displays your Facebook Page (aka Fan Page) photo albums on any post or page. It’s very simple to setup and use. This plugin can be downloaded at http://cliftonhatfield.com/facebook-gallery-for-wordpress/

The post My WordPress Plugins appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Why did I start the group?

Well if you received my email last week about trying to free up more of my time from answering loads of questions every week then you already have the answer. I am quickly finding out that this has been a great way for me to answer questions open to a community of interested listeners. Previously, I was answering questions over and over again through email and often the same questions. I love to help but with the amount of support I was providing it has become very inefficient.

How to request to join

So, if you are interested in learning more about WordPress, SEO, or the Internet in general then I invite you to submit a request to join by clicking on the link below. Once joined, you can ask and answer questions for those who seek help as well as learn somethings you may not have already known.

Join my group ==> http://www.facebook.com/groups/109578262474380/

Once you are a member, I welcome you to invite all of your friends & share the love.

P.S. I’ve got a new free plugin coming out soon that links your Facebook Page Photo Gallery to your WordPress blog! More on that soon :)

The post WordPress Help On Facebook appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve been noticing a growing trend lately. Many people are approaching me with some really great questions about blogging, WordPress, and internet marketing. In fact, when you add it all up, I spend a lot of my time answering the same questions over & over again which eventually steals from my free time and family time.

The Solution

The solution would be to write blog posts about each of their questions. But, most of the time I already have written them. So I guess I need to just do a better job of making people aware of that available information.

That is exactly what I am doing for you right now. I’ve compiled a list of posts that are older but still very useful. Find one or two interesting? Click the link, read the post, and share on Facebook & Twitter!

Help me get some of my time back by educating everyone else with this information.

WordPress, Blogging, Internet Marketing Tips

• Create a Photo Gallery in WordPress
• Your Blog Posts Are Too Long
• My Four Secrets To Killer Blog Posts Series
• Stop Installing So Many WordPress Plugins
• I Have Failed
• I Need Help With My Blog
• Managing Your WordPress Categories : Part 1
• WordPress 3.0 Menu Management : Video Tutorial
• WordPress Author Page

There are still so many more….visit my Sitemap

Looking forward to having for time!

P.S. Like me on Facebook too! http://facebook.com/cliftonhatfield.page

The post I’m Losing Time…Help Me appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is an identification label that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. More commonly used as a web address for websites.

Picking a domain name

You’re ready to get started with your website or blog but you are looking for the perfect domain name but you need to find that perfect web address. Here are a few suggestions to help you to find the right domain name for your website.

• Branding – People will often associate a website by its domain name. Use this method to establish your brand online. If your website or blog is about you, consider your first & last name dot com.
• Keep it short – Keeping your domain short and simple to spell will help people remember it.
• Using keywords – When considering a domain name, it’s wise to think about using targeted keywords if possible. A website about garage sales may want to try to using the words garage sales within its domain.
• Avoid easy to misspell words – This one may seem like it makes sense but I see it often. If the word is difficult to spell outside of simple pronouncing then it may causing people to have trouble finding your site.
• Thesaurus – Using this tool can help you brainstorm for other word choices.
• Extensions – If available, try sticking with the popular domain extensions like *.com, *.org, or *.net.

Register a private domain

Each registered domain name requires information to be submitted to the WHOIS database. This information may be information that you don’t want to make public. When purchasing a domain you often have the option to make the WHOIS information private by using services available at checkout.

GoDaddy Domain Promo Codes

I’ve been buying and selling domain names for years. I own 100+ domain names that all require a year renewal fee. You can often avoid paying higher registration fees by using the domain registrar’s promo codes. I’ve been using the promo code “cjcwinner” (without quotes) for years. It drops the price to $7.67 for the first year. Once you’ve purhased several domain name through a service like GoDaddy, they will often work with you on renewal pricing to pursade you to continue hosting your domains with them. Each month I give my GoDaddy sales rep a call to renew my domains for that month at a lower cost.

Final Thought

Domain name can be taken as serious as thinking of a name for business so don’t go about it lightly. Get out the pen and paper to write down word choices, ideas, brainstorming ideas, etc. Then visit a site like GoDaddy.com or Network-tools.com to search the availability of possible new domain names.

The post Buying A Domain Name appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Generally, when you register your own domain name, you are actually required to submit personal information (such as your name, email, and contact information) for usage on what is called the pubic WHOIS database. This is essentially a search tool that allows pretty much anybody to look into your site to make sure that, for example, you are who you claim to be, or that your web page is legitimate, and not some sort of scheme or lie. It is a helpful tool for inspiring confidence in your website’s visitors, but it also makes your private contact information available to the public online, which may be less than desirable. This is where private domain registration comes in.

Essentially, private domain registration allows you to adhere to the rules and requirements of the public WHOIS database; however, your web hosting company will now submit alternate contact information. This maintains trust and confidence among your website’s visitors, as you will still have a legitimate listing in the WHOIS database, but it also upholds your own personal privacy. Not only will your information be kept private, but you will also gain protection against common Internet annoyances such as spam email and telemarketing. In fact, you can even look into what is called “email masking” for even more thorough protection against such inconveniences. Of course, a private domain registration costs you a bit extra, as it is a service offered to increase your comfort and security. But, when you consider the vast uncertainties of Internet privacy, and the number of people who enjoy stealing information, spamming email boxes, and generally wreaking havoc online, increased personal security is generally well worth the slight additional cost.

The post Private Domain Registration appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

For those who may be unfamiliar with what title tags are, they describe the text that appears in the top line of a user’s web browser. The title tags are also used by search engines as the actual title of a search listing.

Writing descriptive title tags is very important aspect of optimizing a site to ran well with Search Engines like Google. They also attract more clicks by visitors on search engines. A good title tag can generate interest from people who know nothing about your brand, website, or company pulling them into your conversion funnel. This should be an expectation with modifying your title tags.

Figure out what title tags you should use.

Check your competition. See how others in your industry are structuring their title tags using keywords or phrases. Often times your post title is used as your title tag and this can make things simpler if you are using proper keywords within your post title. Having your keywords inside of your title tags means they will be prominently displayed in search engines therefore users identify the main subject of the page quickly.

Include your brand.

Next time you perform a search on Google, read through the result titles and notice how many display their brand. If your brand is clear and helps to deliver meaning behind your content, then including your brand into the title tags can be very helpful with your SEO efforts. However, if your brand contains any special characters like copyright, register, pound sign, dollar signs, etc avoid placing them into your title tags. Avoiding this practice will fall in line with the major web properties.

Title tag lengths

Each search engine has their own specifications on title tag character length so it is best to check with a resource like SEOMoz.org. It’s best practice to keep your title tags to 70 characters or less. There is little statistical data about the role that title tag length may play in generating clicks (longer or shorter better?) but your focus should be on the primary objective anyway….keywords.

WordPress Title Tag Plugin

There are several SEO plugins for WordPress available. However, always be sure that the plugin has the capability to edit the post’s title tags. There are also many themes available that support custom title tags. At the very least, be sure that your blog post title is reflected within the browser’s top line (e.g. top of the window or tab). One recommended plugin for customizing your title tags is All in One SEO.

Final Thought

SEO is something you should be taking very serious if you expect to draw in organic traffic from search engine. When it comes to on-site search engine optimization, few elements are more important than the title tag. If you have any questions about customizing your title tags leave a comment below!

The post WordPress Title Tags Are Important appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Blogging shouldn’t be a difficult task for you…if you do it right. Do you have trouble finding the time to sit down and write a good blog post? Or maybe you do find the time but can’t overcome a sudden onset of writer’s block? Well let me give you a nice tip. Don’t try to write your entire blog article at once. Spread it out over the course of a few days. If you can find 10-20 minutes to sit down at your computer or scribble down some notes on a piece of paper then you can put together your blog post over the course of a few days. Then publish it once you’re ready.

Write 5 blog posts in a day

If you are one of those people who can sit down and write several blog posts in a row in a single day then you may face a different kind of problem. You might write a week’s worth of blog posts in one sitting but it would almost be silly to publish all of them at once…right? By scheduling your WordPress blog posts, you can type up all those articles in one day then schedule them to publish each day of the week. Check out the video tutorial below on how to schedule your blog posts for WordPress.

The post How To Schedule Blog Posts appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

WordPress is used by an astonishing number of websites and bloggers all across the entire globe….it’s actually a jaw-dropping number. But how many of us actually know who is behind the development of the publishing platform we’ve grown to love? Well, finally WordPress has made it simple to find out for everyone.

We are a community

WordPress users have become a community of people ranging from novice bloggers to expert developers. As a community we work together to report bugs, offer suggestions, and more to the WordPress team. So although there are thousands and thousands of people who contribute to the development of WordPress, it wouldn’t be possible to point out everyone.

WordPress Credits Page

You can now find some of the most influential people currently involved with the project of building your publishing platform by visiting your Dashboard and clicking on the Credits links. Take a few moments to browse through some of them and learn about the people make things happen for you and your blog.

The post WordPress Credits appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

So as I peck away at my keyboard this morning I’ve decided to give the improved fullscreen mode in WordPress 3.2 a try. I wasn’t much a fan of the previous mode and found it a little cumbersome and more of a hassle than what it claimed to be worth. However, the improved mode tells a different story.

Please don’t distract me

I enjoy being free of many distractions while I write blog posts. (When I am writing code I enjoy listening to my favorite music) Over the last few version releases, the WordPress team has really paid close attention to giving us distraction free environment to type up our masterpieces (or something close). Obviously they can’t do anything about what’s outside the scope of WordPress but with layout changes, speed improvements, and color choices improved, we finally have a wonderful atmosphere that gives us the ability to become intimate with only the words on the screen and a white canvas to print them on.

F11 takes you a step further

Using a modern internet browser like the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer gives you the capability to put your entire browser window into fullscreen mode (beyond just maximizing the window). By clicking the fullscreen button in your post editor then pressing the F11 key on your keyboard you will experience a complete white window where you can type away. No more colorful icons to look at or flashing notifications in your taskbar.

WordPress 3.2 Fullscreen Mode Video Tutorial

Final Thought

WordPress never lets me down when they roll out a major update with sweet little gifts for us to play with or improve our overall experience blogging. The improve fullscreen mode gives me the comfortable setting I’ve been looking for out of WordPress each time I sit down to express my ideas and share my thoughts through blogging. Thanks again WordPress!

The post “Just Write” Says WordPress 3.2 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

This is a question I am hit with often by clients and friends. It’s actually a really good question for a couple of reasons. Your blog is so important to you that you become worried that upgrading my cause issues with your theme, plugins, or worse…erase your WordPress database. Well I am here to help answer some of your questions and concerns. I will keep this short….kinda.

Minor updates & major updates

I am not going to get really specific here but the main difference between the two is simple. Minor updates typically increases by a subversion e.g. 3.1.1 upgrades to 3.1.2. A major upgrade typically increase from 3.1 to 3.2….or better yet….3.2 to 4.0. Now what sets the version numbers anyway? There are several different reasons but for simplicity sake, minor updates usually only contain fixes for bugs, errors, or security holes. Major updates often introduce new or improved features or tools for your WordPress blog. That isn’t a perfect answer but you get the idea.

Risks involved with updating your WordPress Blog

If we loved in a perfect world then things would be boring but everything would work just as we wanted them to work. We don’t live in that world and “things” happen. Like updating your blog for years and it never breaks but one day you run an update and now your blog is all messed up! First question to ask yourself is, “When was my last back up?” Well hopefully you are performing an backup weekly or so (depending on how often your blog changes e.g. new posts, comments, etc). If you don’t back up weekly then you MUST back up your blog before running any updates for WordPress plugins, theme, or core files. If you lose everything or possibly just mess something up you can then at least hire a web developer to fix it for you but in order for them to restore it, they may need a backup.

How to perform a WordPress backup

There are different solutions for backups from different hosting providers. Here is a tutorial on How to backup your WordPress blog using Cpanel. Most hosting companies use Cpanel/WHM for their shared/dedicated hosting account. However, if you use GoDaddy hosting or some other hosting provider then you may need to contact them and ask support the proper why to perform and update on your blog/site.

WordPress Automated Backup Plugins = Fail.

Several people recommend using free plugins that are available in the WordPress Plugin Repository that will running automated backups on your WordPress database. I personally don’t recommend using these for several reasons.

1. The plugin may no longer but supported and out-dated with the latest version of WordPress which may just make things worse.
2. I believe those plugins ONLY back up your WordPress database and NOT your theme’s files. So if you have custom graphics and no backups of them, don’t expect your plugin to backup those files to in case of an error.
3. Their backups aren’t full. The plugin doesn’t back up your entire hosting account so if you have email addresses, add-on sites, images saved in your media library, etc. When your blog crashes, you won’t have a back up copy of any of those.
4. You don’t know who actually created the plugin and if they even knew what they were doing. Your WordPress blog is so important to you so why would you trust your valuable database data to a WordPress backup plugin that ws developed by some kid who doesn’t really know Jack from Jill. :O

Final Thought

Next time you are asked to perform an update on your WordPress blog, feel better about it by performing a full WordPress Backup first. If it’s a minor version update then you shouldn’t really have much to worry about (hopefully lol) but always be caustious when updating to a major version. You are best to let that warning message in your Dashboard linger for a few weeks before updating. That will give theme and plugin developers more than enough time to test their products with the newest version to be sure of compatibility. Happy blogging.

The post When To Update Your WordPress Blog appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve written this blog post and create a video tutorial on how to install and update a new WordPress plugin that is not hosted in the WordPress Plugin Directory, specifically for the latest version of Clifton’s Lightbox Plugin (v2.2).

Many free WordPress plugins are available inside the WordPress Plugins Directory and you can easily update them using your WP Dashboard. However, you may have purchased a plugin or downloaded a plugin that doesn’t support the one-click update function. Don’t worry because typically updating is a fairly simple process and I have put together a short video tutorial to help you along. I will use my free lightbox plugin for WordPress as an example.

Instructions

1. Backup your entire WordPress blog & database.
2. Click on Plugins in your WP Dashboard.
3. Find the plugin you want to update. If the plugin is active, deactivate it.
4. Click the Delete link for the plugin & confirm.
5. Download the new version of the plugin to your desktop.
6. Click the Add New button to add the new plugin.
7. Click on the Upload link.
8. Click Browse to find the downloaded plugin on your desktop.
9. Click the Install Now button.
10. Click on Active Plugin link.
11. Visit Plugins settings page to be sure everything is still configured correctly.

Video Tutorial

The post Update & Active New Plugin appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I am a family man. At 28, I am married to a beautiful woman who is a wonderful mother to our son. We live in a small village in southwest Ohio where I spent most of the days growing up.  After graduating high school,

Learn More About Clifton Hatfield –>

The post Who is Clifton Hatfield? appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Over 700 million people have a Facebook user account which comes with a Facebook Profile. But you want to be able to effectively market your home-based business on Facebook but you can’t use your personal Facebook Profile because it’s against Facebook Terms of Service.

Below are a few screenshots and a video tutorial on how to create your first Facebook Page.

1. Create Your Page

Go to http://facebook.com/pages and link on the Create Page button in the upper right corner of the page.

The next screen asks you to select a category from the following list:

• Local Business or Place
• Company, Organization or Institution
• Brand or Product
• Artist, Band or Public Figure
• Entertainment
• Cause or Community

2. Enter Your Information

Once you select the category for your business, you can fill in the additional requested information. Check the box next to “I agree to Facebook Pages Terms” and click “Get Started.”

Watch The Video Tutorial : How to create a Facebook Page

The post How To Create A Facebook Page appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Free at last. Free at last! WordPress finally pulls the plug on the much hated internet browser, Internet Explorer version 6. WordPress.com is the first to discontinue support of IE6 with the self-hosted WordPress.org platform version 3.2 to soon follow suit. WordPress 3.2 stable is set to release June 2011 and will require all users to upgrade their browsers if using Internet Explorer 6.

About Internet Explorer 6

Internet Explorer 6 was first released with Microsoft XP on August 27, 2001. It was the sixth version of Microsoft’s default browser to hit the market and it has made waves ever since by being remarked as one of the worst tech products of all time. Besides it’s near total lack of web standards and missing features of modern browsers, the near decade old browser has some very serious security issues.

Microsoft wants you to upgrade too!

That’s right! Microsoft is trying to get the rest of the world to move past its mistake and upgrade their browsers. They have recently released Internet Explorer 9 with several great features and offers a better experience on the web.

Why did WordPress drop support?

At some point we just have to move on and thankfully that time is now. WordPress has done an amazing job of being backwards compatible and offering a platform usable by even the slowest computers used in third worlds but eventually WordPress has to cut ties and keep moving forward with the rest of the world. We want to keep the internet safe and secure. One way to do that is to get as many people as we can to upgrade their browsers. Also, as WordPress becomes more feature-filled the platform will require more from the browser and that browser needs to have the capabilities to keep up.

Final Thought

About time! Personally as a web developer, IE6 has done nothing but cause headaches for me. Its complete lack of web standards has been such a burden on the internet. Knowing there are people out there still using Internet Explorer 6 simply because they don’t know any better eats me up inside. I know they are totally missing out on the entire internet. I want to give props to WordPress for finally making the call to drop support for IE6 and helping the world move past Microsoft’s mistake. Thank you WordPress!

The post WordPress Ends Support For Internet Explorer 6 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

During YCombinator’s startup school at Harvard University, Groupon’s founder, Andrew Mason, talked about his six points to successfully build a business. I found his list enlightening and truthful.

1. You’re building a tool, not a piece of art. Mason suggests that you don’t get blinded by vision, as he was with ThePoint. Groupon has been the total opposite, very focused on hooking the customer within the first few seconds.
2. Recognize and embrace your constraints.
3. Have a growth plan.
4. The best tools aren’t always that cool. Groupon chose e-mail because it’s simple and universal.
5. You’ll probably fail. Mason suggests that you have the fear of failure in the back of your mind because it’ll help you confront reality and shape your decisions toward building a viable product.
6. Quit now. Sometimes you have to let an idea go.

Final Thought

The truth is what successful entrepreneurs want to hear and must be told. Often the best way to be appealing is to take a simple idea and keep it simple. This is something Groupon has done very well. All entrepreneurs are risk takers but that doesn’t mean that ignore or forget about the possible failure that may be the result of their risk. Instead, they use it to fuel them in their drive to succeed. Then, if that times comes and the risk you took wasn’t a success, you may have to walk away from it with a lesson learned and experienced gained. It’s ok.

The post Groupon’s Advice To Build A Business appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

This is a recommended ping list for your WordPress blog. The information is gathered from personal experience and various sources on the web. Every time you post these services will be notified of your blog post increasing your online exposure. To use this list, copy and paste this list to your Settings->Writing tab in the admin panel.

This list comes as-is without guarantee.

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

References

http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services

http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-ping-list

http://wptidbits.com/trends/250-complete-list-of-pingupdate-services/

http://www.instant-info-online.com/wordpress-compressed-all-inclusive-ping-list.html

The post WordPress Ping List 2011 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Facebook Security & Privacy

Facebook Security is the latest in hot social media news. I guess we wanted to give Facebook Privacy some time off. Nearly everyday I have been seeing the same Facebook Post that if people don’t switch their Facebook connection over to an HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) then their Facebook account will be hacked. Well, I am here to shed some light on this hot topic and give you some additional information to let you decide if you want to use a regular HTTP connection when surfing Facebook or the more secure HTTPS connection.

What does HTTPS mean?

HTTPS is a way of establishing a secure connection with a website. Anytime you are checking your bank accounts or purchasing a product online, you will see the web address begins with https:// as opposed to the typical http:// that we generally see throughout the web. This means that the connection between you and the website should be secure. I say the word should because your browser will alert you if there are any errors with the secure connection. It provides a relatively secure connection that will prevent “middle-man attacks” or eavesdroppers.

When should I use an HTTPS connection?

It is most important to know that you are on a secure connection during any payment transactions to prevent hackers from obtaining your bank account information or details. A secure connection is most important when you are using the internet in public places such as airports, libraries, coffee shop, school, etc. These places are more vulnerable to hackers and eavesdroppers.

What are the disadvantages of using Facebook with HTTPS?

The most noticeable disadvantage is load times. Obtaining a secure connection, encrypting, decrypting, and transferring are things that happen while surfing Facebook on HTTPS.  Because these things take longer to happen, it will slow down the page loading times. You may only notice it on the first connection and before the SSL connection is cached.

As of right now, most Facebook Games and Applications don’t support HTTPS which leaves your secure connection open or useless.

How can I turn on HTTPS in Facebook?

1. Login to Facebook
2. Click on Account
3. Click on Account Settings
4. Click Change next to Account Security
5. Check Secure Browsing (https)
6. Click Save

What else can I do to protect my Facebook Account?

Well besides not giving away your password to people and making sure you have a secure password (NOT password123 or qwerty) you can have Facebook send an alert to your email address or to your mobile phone each time an unrecognized computer or device accesses your account. This is a good idea so you can be alerted when your account is accessed without your authorization.

Watch Facebook Video by Alex Rice

Alex Rice is a security engineer at Facebook.com

Resources/Links

Official Facebook Security Page

Facebook Blog (A Continued Commitment to Security)

Facebook HTTPS CNET.com

The post Facebook Security – Hacked Accounts appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

You are visual. I am visual. Those reading your blog are visual and those you want to read your blog are visual. Basically, I am telling you that people want something beyond words. We want to see pictures, graphics, and images. Add some life to your blog posts by tastefully placing images within your blog posts and pages.

You will best be able to deliver the message of your blog post if you stimulate the readers senses beyond just your words. As you are explaining your message drop in a graphic here and a photo there. If possible, don’t just stick an image randomly in the middle of the post. It looks completely out of place and…honestly…tacky. Confused? Let me give you an example.

Don’t do this…

Instead do this…

Here is how…

This instruction is theme specific so if your results aren’t working, your theme may not easily support this ability. Consider upgrading your theme to a Premium WordPress Theme. Place the cursor within the post editor inline with the text where you want the image to go. The image will always float left or right of the text. So it doesn’t matter whether you want the image on the left or the right on your paragraph, place the cursor before the first character of the paragraph that will be next to the image.

Ok, now you have your cursor set so click on the square icon right next to Upload/Insert above the post editor. The Add an Image lightbox will open on top of your post editor where you can upload a new image. Once the image is uploaded you will be able to select its Alignment. Choosing None will leave the image inline with the text. Left will float the image to the left of the text. Right will float the image to the right of the text.

If that doesn’t work or you aren’t seeing the results you expected there could be a couple of reasons. The first reason may be that the theme you are using just doesn’t support that ability and you may want to consider upgrading to a better theme. You may also want to try clicking on the alignment icons within your post editor toolbar to see if that helps any. If not, more advanced users can click on the HTML tab of the post editor and add the align attribute (e.g. align=”left”) to the <img> tag. The other reason may be just the lack of practice. You may not be able to figure it out the first time so just keep messing with it until you get the image exactly the way you like it.

Why is this even important again?

Well, like I said before that this just looks better and gives the reader a better visual of your message. It also helps the reader during their journey down your page of box-looking paragraphs….which is B.O.R.I.N.G. to say the least. I am NOT saying that your article is boring! I am saying that people who see paragraph after paragraph…after paragraph of text usually run for the hills. For example, why is it that we never read Privacy Policies or Terms of Service Agreements? Because despite the fact they are very important to review, they are visually boring and no one wants to be bored, especially not me. :)

As soon as the page loads, your readers may perform a quick scan of the content they will be reading and during that quick scan they will pick up on the images you’ve placed throughout your article. An image may look interesting to them which will encourage them to continue reading your post so that they can better understand the reason you’ve chosen that particular image.

Google L.O.V.E.S. Images

One of the highest ranked search terms on one of my blogs is for a blog post wrote about Albert Einstein. Every month thousands of visitors come to that post because they discover the image of Albert Einstein from Google’s Image Search Results. Now getting traffic isn’t just about how many people are coming to your blog but about how effective you are once they are there. I spotted this increase and took action in order to better capture those visitor beyond just coming here for the image.

How to Search Engine Optimize your images

Before uploading the image, rename the image file with your keywords e.g. blog-post-images.jpg. Then, immediately after the image upload completes you will be able to add an image title (the text that displays when a cursor hovers over the image). Add your keywords to the title too e.g. Blog Post Images. The alternate text is used by people with disabilities or text browsers. If an image doesn’t load for any reason, the alternate text is displayed within its place. Use this opportunity to add some keywords there as well.

What about videos? They are visual.

True. Videos are very visual but they are different than having images or photos within your articles. The reason is because videos deliver a message usually a spoken message and it doesn’t have the same kind of effect as an image. Don’t get me wrong though. Videos are great but images are more for visual aids to the message and not there to directly deliver the message.

Videos also won’t have the same SEO capabilities as images so I wouldn’t rely solely on video for visuals. It is always a good idea to write very descriptive text that covers everything that is covered in your video. Not everyone wants to watch your video and Google will do a better job indexing your content with text to crawl.

Where do I find images & photos?

The easiest thing to do is take the photos yourself. Writing an article about health or fitness? Have your photo taken while you’re on the treadmill. Another option is to purchase stock photos or graphics using sites like iStock.com, or PhotoDune.com. If you want to be really creative then you can purchase your own image/photo editing software to create your own graphics.

Final Thoughts

Don’t be boring. When you are blogging in a world where everyone and their mom has a blog too, the competition to draw the attention of readers and keep them coming back can be difficult. Difficult, unless you are ready to do what it takes to stand out from the rest. Attention to detail like choosing the right images or photos then placing them in the right spot can make a drastic difference. It may take some practice or asking your friends for their opinion but don’t give up because soon you’ll be creating articles that would be fit for a magazine!

The post Add Some Life To Your Blog Posts appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

How do I improve my blog’s page speed?

This is another question I am asked often and it is about time I share blog about the tool I use to optimize my blog’s page load times. If you are concerned about things like your search engine optimization and delivering your awesome content as fast as possible to your reader then page speed should be at the top of your list. Right now, I am going to share with you how I optimize my page speeds and what tool I use to do this.

Page Speed Add-on for Firefox

The Page Speed Add-on for Firefox is flat out rockin! This Google-built tool is designed to help you optimize the load times of specific pages on your blog. It will tell you what is affecting it the most and if applicable it will give you an optimized version of the file or image that may be slowing things down. The add-on will also score each area of the file when you an analysis as well as give you an overall score out of 100 maximum.

Why is Page Speed important?

Your blog’s page speed is very important because it can determine whether or not your visitor hangs around for the page to load so they can read your content. It can determine the page’s position within Google’s search engine results. If you decide to advertise your blog on Google Adwords, they will use the landing page’s load time to help determine your ad’s Quality Score (a high Quality Score means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click : CPC).

What does the Page Speed Add-on tell me?

After running an analysis using Page Speed, I receive a score and a complete list of what I need to work on improving if I want my page to load faster. It meters the HTTP Headers, images, javascript files, CSS files, style selectors, and the list goes on…Are your images too large and not optimized for the web? No problem because the add-on will tell you which images need optimizing, how much they can be reduced, and even a ‘Save As’ link to download the optimized version (which you can then FTP back to your theme’s images directory to replace the unoptimized version).

Watch the Video

Where can I download Page Speed or learn more about it?

Download Page Speed on Google Code for either Mozilla Firefox (need the Firebug extension first) or for Google Chrome browsers. The Page Speed Family Overview can provide additional links to better help you understand the tool or you can watch the video within this article.

I am a novice user but concerned about load times, all of this scares me

I understand your concern and the difficulty involved with using tools designed for developers. If you would rather not deal with installing the Page Speed Add-on then you can just use the Online Tool. It gives you the same result without having it quickly accessible on your browser window.

Final Thoughts

Although this may be require higher skills than a moderate blogger, it is worth learning or hiring someone to teach you because as I’ve listed in the first paragraph it is important. I do a lot of searching on Google and if the page takes much longer than a few seconds to load, I am out of there and slim chances I will ever return. Other people are the same way…probably even you. So concerned optimizing your blog for speed and ask your friends to check it out too for their feedback in case their experience is different than yours.

Check out 5 Firefox Addons for Internet Marketing

Page Speed Links

Page Speed Home

Download Page Speed Firefox Add-on

Using Page Speed for Firefox

Using Page Speed for Chrome

Page Speed Online Tool

The post Improve Your Blog’s Page Speed appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I just received an email today from a friend who was inquiring about how to build organic traffic to your blog or website. I could probably write at least two books on proper ways to gain organic traffic so explaining it within a single email will be difficult. It is constantly changing and evolving. Organic traffic is not easy business and if it was, everyone would be able to do it…successfully. So with that boring stuff said…

Organic traffic is best obtained by relevant links, relevant content, and proper content formatting. That is it at its simplest form.

Organic Traffic – Relevant Links

Relevant links are classed into on-page and off-page linking. Receiving inbound links from relevant high ranked websites with proper anchor text and content is important and will help to increase in Google’s Page Rank system. For example, if Harvard Engineering & Technology Dept. is linked to your blog post about Facebook Technology. Also, linking from within your blog to other content on your blog helps Google to understand the relationship between pages/articles within your blog which will give it a better understanding of what it is that your blog/website is about. For example, you’ve written about article about Proper Email Marketing and within the article text you also link to your article about the Top 5 Email Marketing Services.

Organic Traffic – Relevant Content

Relevant content is important because it gives Google a clear understand on what your blog/website is about. If you have blog posts about real estate, network marketing, Pittsburgh Steelers, lawn care, etc then you don’t really have a centralize topic. Pick a topic or niche for a blog and stick with it. If the blog is attached to a website that sells a product, write articles about the latest news on the industry, or even something that may interest your shoppers like how the product is made.

Organic Traffic – Relevant Content Formatting

Proper content formatting is the use of HTML to highlight keywords/phrases to target for organic traffic. Just as important is using them correctly and not over-doing it. Proper use of heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) to create a hierarchy of keywords. Making font bold or italic and also tip off search engines that that keyword is important. Proper keyword placement within the content and impact organic traffic too. Also, making sure targeted keywords are used within the page URL and within the title tags.

SEOPressor

If you are serious about your SEO (search engine optimization) please don’t get caught up in the out-of-date SEO tricks because they will only hurt you. Invest in one of the most powerful SEO plugins currently available for WordPress blogs, SEOPressor. Let the SEOPressor WordPress Plugin guide you to write and format your blog post content for on-page optimization. Visit SEOPressor Website or…

Watch the SEOPressor Video

Yes, I want that SEOPressor Plugin!

Buying Traffic

Sometimes buying advertising is a great way to get the ball rolling on organic traffic even though it isn’t organic it can lead to organic traffic from your visitors sharing and bookmarking the pages.

Final Thought

I hope that was enough information to give you some very simple basics to build organic traffic through SEO for blogs. I didn’t touch on Facebook Marketing (not advertising) or bookmarking to gain organic traffic. Also, those tips above are simplified because it goes much much deep than that so if you are serious about optimizing your blog for organic traffic hire a couch, an marketing company, or reading the most up-to-date information. May the Force be with You.

The post Organic Traffic For Blogs appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve written many WordPress plugins and I’ve built hundreds of blogs but my CCR Plugin is by far my favorite creation!

Online Powerhouse

Internet Marketing has exploded tremendously in the last few years and blogging has growth right there with it. Often, the two are meshed together to create a powerhouse of marketing strategies while establishing a home-base for an online presence.

Introducing Clifton’s Comment Responder Plugin (CCR Plugin)

If you’ve visited any blogs in the last few years then you’ve definitely seen the subscription form in the sidebars or maybe the lightbox/popup asking your name and email while offering you a newsletter or product in return. Great stuff….but old school..still effective…but I’ve got an even easier way. It’s called the CCR Plugin.

Capture your commenters’ name & email address

Capture your commenters’ name and email address and add it to your email service, e.g. Get Response, Aweber, Talk Fusion. Create autoresponder campaigns in your email marketing service, then add those campaigns to your blog posts, so when someone leaves a comment, they can either opt-in to your email list or (if you choose) have them added automatically. (it’s legal too)

How can this be really effective?

Let me give you an example of one way this plugin can be very effective for YOU. Let’s say you’ve written an e-book about Health & Wellness that you’ve begun to sell and market online. You’ve decided to write a blog post about the Healthy Eating and the post is getting some action from your followers, but there’s one problem. No one is buying your book. You know that they will love it but they just need to read a few pages to provoke them to buy it. Just offer a download link on your blog doesn’t give you an opportunity to market a sale to those how download a sample of your book.

Here is what you do.

Make a PDF of 5 pages from the best chapter in your book. Next, create an autoresponder with your email marketing service to immediately send a new subscriber those 5 pages. Then, create a new CCR Campaign with the subscription form for your autoresponder from your email marketing service. After that, attach the CCR Campaign to the Healthy Eating blog post. Finally, tell your readers that when they leave a comment on your blog post, your autoresponder will immediately email them the download link to your 5 pages from the best chapter of your e-book on Health & Wellness. Now that they’ve gotten a taste of your best chapter, follow up with them and offer them to purchase your full e-book! Now do you see how incredibly effective this plugin is?!

The CCR Plugin is available for $70 at http://CCR-Plugin.com OR send me an email and ask me how you can have it for $0.00…FREE!

Give it a try and leave a comment below!

Thanks!
Clifton

P.S. Not only can you get my CCR Plugin for FREE but I’ll give you all of my products and services at no cost. Hurry to find out. :)

P.S.S. Know any other bloggers? I bet they would this plugin too. Become an affiliate and share this with them too!

The post Add Your Blog’s Commenters To Your Email List appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

If you are familiar with email marketing then you should be familiar with sequential emails as well. If not, let me enlighten you. I am sure you have received a sequential email to your inbox at one point or another. This is because every success internet marketing campaign uses them.

What are Sequential Emails?

The most common term or another name for sequential emails is autoresponder or autoresponder emails. These are a series of emails sent on a predetermined timeframe. For example, you sign up for a new service online. Then, you immediately receive an email from them within your inbox. Then on the next day, you receive another email that extends the series from the first one and so on until you unsubscribe or you complete the entire sequential email campaign.

Why are Sequential Emails Effective?

They are most effective because they are automated. Automation is a key factor to success. You need hard work & automation because it doesn’t matter if you are a one man shop or a multilevel corporation, automation will always save time, money, and man power.

Sequential Emails Build Brands

Sequential Emails will help you to build your brand. Why? Because of the constant scheduled contact you will have with your audience. Pay close attention when creating your sequential emails and make sure to make your brand clear and important. If your subscribers are receiving your campaign emails then they may be new to you and your company’s brand. Your sequential emails will be your chance you keep your brand in front of them after they’ve left your website.

The post The Power of Sequential Emails appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

How are things going for you lately? Have you been struggling to stay connected with your audience, customers, or prospects? From home-based business operations to Fortune 500 mega-companies they all use a very simple system to take full advantage of this totally awesome resource we call “email”…or email marketing to be a little more specific.

Email Marketing is one of the best (if not THE best) ways to communicate information to those you want to reach, AKA Your Audience/Customer. Now I know that I said that it doesn’t require me to be faster than a speeding bullet, and that’s true, but my sent emails most definitely are…and I love that is can instantly reach thousands of people at the same time by clicking a button…and even not clicking a button when it’s automated!

Automation

Most businesses have one of two problems. One, they either have too many employees doing too many different things and all at the same time. Or two, they are just a one or two person operation trying to handle EVERYTHING by themselves and that can be very overwhelming. The answer to both problems is Automation.

There are two types of automated email — Triggered — Sequential. Triggered are emails sent to a person after they perform a particular action, like signing up for your website or purchasing your product. Sequential emails are sent to a person on a predetermined time frame, like after you sign up for a service and a week later you get an email from them then another one the following week and so on.

The power between the two is contact. Have you ever heard the term “Out of sight out of mind”? Well….this is the opposite. :) After you’ve acquired someones email address, don’t hesitate to email them. They obviously want to stay connected with you or else they would have never given you their private information in the first place,  right?

So , here is what you must do…Get a powerful email marketing system that can handle all of your needs and has the resources to handle your growing email list. As soon as you’ve signed up for your new service, find their tutorials and read/watch through them. Learn everything you can about maximizing their system and absorb their tips and marketing strategies…this stuff is priceless. Once you are ready, create your first sequential follow up email campaign so when you are ready to start building your list, you already have the emails written and scheduled that you want to send to them. From there….it’s Game On!

Email Marketing Systems

Are you using an email marketing system? If the answer is yes, do they provide all of the features and tools that you need, like multimedia support, plain text & HTML versions, free stock images, detailed statistics, and email surveys just to name a few? How about a custom API that your developer can use to set up smooth custom operations that can seamlessly integrate with your blog or website? Get Response Email Marketing provides me with ALL of those things PLUS so much more. If you aren’t using one yet…what the heck are you thinking?! LOL You are just spinning your wheels in the mud by not having a powerful email marketing system set up.

Get Response

I’ve been using Get Response over the last few years and have been able to reach thousands of people hundreds of times while giving me the upper hand against my competition. I’ve watched Get Response video tutorials, read through their blog, and been on their free webinars to help me learn this marketing strategy. And you know what? It has paid off ten fold.

So now that I’ve shared some of my email marketing secrets with you….are you ready to become an Email Superhero too? Join Get Response Today starting at just $8.16/MONTH…seriously…that is about 26 cents a day!

The post Email Marketing Superhero appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I hate hate hate to see the blog home page display the last 10 blog posts from start to finish. Don’t scare your visitors off because they can’t find an article that is actually interesting to them. Only show excerpts of your latest blog posts on your homepage and let them quickly find the ones the wants to read!

Watch The Video!

Click This Link ===> WordPress Excerpt with the More Tag

The post Another Pet Peeve of a Blog Rockstar – More Tag appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

If you keep up with the latest news about Facebook and more specifically their privacy issues then you are probably aware of their latest change that now offers Facebook Application developers access to your street address and phone number. Wait…what?! Well, that is probably what you’ve heard and instantly thought, “Oh no! Now I am going to start receiving junk mail and solicited phone calls!”. NOT TRUE!

Unfortunately, this makes for good news since over a half a billion people are on Facebook.com. The media is blowing, yet again, another Facebook Privacy change out the water and I am here to clear things up for you.

They LIE

If you are looking for your news on social media from main stream news channels, then the information you are receiving is probably way off base. Those guys have no idea what they are talking about and they skew the headlines to draw your attention and only stir up more upset people. Basically, they lie.

I have built many Facebook applications during my time and I am going to fill you in on what we have access to retrieve from your profile. The answer is nothing. We do not have access to retrieve ANY information from you Facebook profile without your consent. Should I say that again? Because I will if you need me too.

When you decide to use a Facebook application, you will be asked to authorize permission to specific data which is meant to enhance your experience while using that app. Facebook will display a nice little popup (sometimes it’s a whole web page) that lists all of the information the Facebook App is trying to receive permission to access. Don’t want them to have your phone number? Cool, deny it. However, you won’t be able to use the app. That sounds kind of crappy huh? Let me explain.

Facebook makes your life easier

You find this cool Facebook App listed in the Games category and it looks like tons of fun. You decide to give it a whirl but when trying to access the app, it asks for permission to access your name, address, and phone number. Huh? Why the heck would a game on Facebook need my name and phone number?! I am not sure but probably not for the greater good. So what do you do? Deny access and run for the hills (stay away from that app). However, what if you are shopping for Christmas gifts on a website that offers Facebook Connect. Using Facebook Connect, the checkout process asks for your name, address, and phone from Facebook. Why would a shopping cart need that information? Oh…I would have to enter that information in anyway to finish checking out, so sure, I will authorize this shopping cart access to my name, address, and phone from my Facebook profile. Now I won’t have to enter that information into the checkout process. See how that makes sense?

Final Thought

Next time you see the “Latest News” about Facebook giving all of your personal information away, don’t get caught up in the hype and do just a little real research and you will quickly learn there is no value to that story. Facebook is only trying to make the web a better and easier place for you to connect and be social. When a Facebook Application asks for access to your personal information, review it and if it looks fishy, bail. Don’t go crying to the media about Facebook. The people at Facebook are only trying to help and it is the app developer who is trying to make a fool out of you. Be safe and be smart and you will make it out of the internet alive.

The post Facebook Apps’ Access to Contact Information appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

They were stealing

I think that we all know Napster users were flat out stealing, we get it. I buy a CD, rip the music, upload it to Napster, then let everyone around the world download the music and mix their own CDs. Like I said, stealing.

Metallica got word of this after a demo of their “I disappear” hit the Napster network and everyone was rockin’ to it or listening to it on the radio….before it was ever released. Not good. After Metallica files a lawsuit, Dr. Dre follows suit. Then in 2001, Napster turned out the lights.

Biggest Opportunity Ever

Have you ever used iTunes? Probably, considering they have been around since 2003 and over 250 million iPods have been sold. So what does that have to do with Napster? Well, everything.

During its peak, Napster had more than 26 million users….yeah….26 million! That might not seem like a lot now because Facebook’s 500+ million users gets flashed all over the place but right after the millennium, that was a HUGE number.

Ok, back to Metallica. These guys became upset to see their music being illegally shared online and they have ever right to be mad. I agree. However, this is where they, meaning the music industry, missed the biggest opportunity they have ever had. Their number one goal was to shut Napster down and cut off millions of users who were trying to easily access millions of song titles. Keyword there is ‘easily‘. Not only was Napster popular because it was free, but it was popular because it was easy to use, easy to find the songs you wanted, and much easier than driving to the store and digging through rows of CD cases.

The music industry tycoons weren’t looking for an opportunity to make money because they were blinded by the money they had already lost. The move they should have made was to strike a deal with Napster or possibly buy them out. But why would you buy out a company that was stealing from you? To capture the loyalty of their user base, that’s why. If A&M Records would have bought out Napster, immediately they would have the attention of millions of users years before Steve Jobs. Instead, Apple launched their own online music store in 2003, iTunes. iTunes had many of the same perks of Napster, allowing you to easily find and download song titles. Then, unlike Rhaposdy, you could copy the song as many times as you want and place it in several different devices. The only difference from Napster is that you had to pay 99 cents a song. Oh No! Are people willing to pay 99 cents for a song they want? By the popularity of iTunes, I will say the answer is YES! Now, you can legally fill a CD with 18 of your favorite songs..cost $18. About the average cost of an artists CD with maybe 3-4 good songs that you would actually listen to while working out. :)

Final Thought

Never let the idea of losing money blind you from the opportunities to make more money. Napster was illegal and has since become a part of Best Buy’s venture but in 2001 they were king of mp3 downloads. Metallica should have seen this chance but let a little embarrassment get the best of them. I am just glad Steve figured it out. Better late than never!

The post Why Napster Failed in 2001 appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Between the holidays, shopping, family events, and work, I can barely keep up. But now I am back with a new (and much needed) video tutorial on how to create a photo gallery in WordPress.

How to create a photo gallery in WordPress 3.0+

Majority of the bloggers I know are working to brand themselves. They write about topics they are passionate about and give information to those looking for their knowledge. What about branding yourself through blogging? Who are you? You may have a neatly written About Me page with a photo of yourself but people are visual. What about a photo gallery or even a video of you? Creating a photo gallery in WordPress 3.0 is extremely simple and I have put together a video to walk you through the steps. So get your photos on your computer’s hard drive ready to be shared with your visitors through a simple and easy to navigate photo gallery.

Create a photo gallery in WordPress Video Tutorial

The post Create a Photo Gallery in WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Hobos and tough guys are no longer the only ones wearing fingerless gloves. If you are wondering what the ‘heck’ I am talking about let me share a few very interesting Facebook statistics with you. I think we all know that Facebook has over 500 million active users but did you know that more than 200 million (40%) of those active users access Facebook from their mobile device. Those are serious numbers, folks.

Now that the temperatures have dropped throughout many parts of the United States, people are heading out with a pair of gloves on their hands. If you are one of the growing number of people purchasing a touch screen mobile device like the iPhone or Droid, then you probably understand the frustration of ripping off your gloves each time you want to check your friends’ latest status updates or check into a new place on Facebook. Fingerless gloves are a great idea for those looking for a solution to this problem. I picked up a cheap pair this past weekend after temperatures dropped and the snow started falling. If you are looking to keep the tips of your fingers warm, there are styles available that offer mitten-like flaps that snap or button to the back of your hand when you need the touch of your skin for your mobile device.

Final Thought

This post was short but…..so what. I’m just really happy that the homeless and body builders aren’t the only ones allowed to get away with the convenience of fingerless gloves without looking foolish….much. I was surprised at the warmth these gloves still provided even with my fingers were exposed. Making a quick fist was one way to keep them warm and there are always the pockets in my jeans. :) If you still think they look silly, just think about how silly you look pulling a Michael Jackson when you’ve got one glove on and one glove off poking away at your cell…

The post Fingerless Gloves Are For Facebook appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Whoa! It’s been more than a minute since my last blog post. I have been swamped with new projects and the launch of my latest Email List Building Tool, the CCR Plugin (Clifton’s Comment Responder Plugin).

Now, I am back to talk about the New Facebook Profiles. If you’ve been on Facebook within the last couple of days then you may have noticed many users have a new look to their profiles. Once again Facebook is forcing you to learn how to navigate their site as they continue to nail in a great layout. And honestly, I don’t think changing things around is a bad things for even the most newbie users. Why? Because it helps the new people to learn how to “discover” pages and navigate through new environments.  Basically, it’s good practice for them whether they like it or not.

What’s so great about the new profiles?

Well, I am not going to go over every little detail and bore you but I will cover a couple things that stand out and tell you why I think they are awesome. Get ready to tell your story.

New Facebook Profile Tabs Gone

So if you follow the Facebook Developer’s blog then you knew…like a forever ago..that Facebook was going to drop profile tabs on user profiles. At first I thought that was a bummer but I should have known better. The tabs have been moved to links into the left sidebar beneath the user profile photo. This is a much better location which reflects a similar layout of the user homepage with links stacked in the left sidebar. Previously, only Facebook Pages and User Profiles were the only pages on the site that carried tabs in their layout and this was an anomaly to the rest of the site’s layout. Yes, we grew used to it but still it was too different. I will not be shocked when Facebook Page Tabs meet the same fate.

New Facebook Profile Info

Facebook has dropped profile tabs (something we knew was coming) and now offers profile visitors a glimpse of the user’s info right on their profile without having to click the Info tab. Why is this awesome? One less click. Now you can find out more as soon as you land on your friend’s page without having to click that Info tab. Instantly  learn about the user’s education, company, relationship, birth date, etc. Why is this good for your profile? Facebook is made up of friends and connections. Letting people know about you is a huge focus for Facebook and being transparent with your friends is a step in the right direction.

New Facebook Profile Connections

The people at Facebook also realize that their social networking giant is all about connections. The new Facebook Profile Connections in the left side bar beneath your profile info links is an amazing addition! Why? Because now you can really represent your friends, family, and connections into lists and display them directly on your profile. Let others know more about the people you have connected with and the relationship you have with them. Organizing your friends into lists is another great way for you to keep friends list under control especially when you have more than a hand full of them.

Final Thought

You may not like the new profile layout and I am sure you have good reasons but overall I still think their changes are a huge improvement. Remember that Facebook is about building better connections with your friends and sharing your story with them. They will continue to change things until they feel like they make it as easy as possible to do that. I know that I didn’t cover everything in this post about the recent changes but I hit many of the highlights. My suggestion to you is check out the Facebook New Profile page and learn more about all of the changes. Then learn how to dominate your Facebook friends’ NewsFeed.

Tell Your Story On Facebook

The post Facebook New Profiles appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

So, you’ve got your WordPress blog and you’ve been blogging, building a following, and wondering what else you could do to enhance your blog. The answer is expansion. Joining a growing website like Tumblr.com give you the opportunity to publish your content on another website. You can rely on syndication and your visitors to share your content, or you can do things PLUS adding your content to growing social sites which will let you reach a wider audience quicker.

What is Tumblr?

Imagine WordPress and Twitter having a romantic evening with a candle lit dinner and maybe a little wine. Then, nine months later they celebrate the arrival of their new bundle of joy, Tumblr. Ok, so obviously great websites aren’t born that way but it’s probably something close or at least I like to think so. :)

Tumblr takes the power of blogging and simplicity of simplicity and give its user an awesome short-form blogging platform. Unlike Twitter, Tumbr allows its user to publish media content directly within their posts and doesn’t have a character limit.

Why I joined Tumblr

Lately, I have been doing some research looking for new ways to expand my reach and attract more people to my blog and WordPress tutorials. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have been very effective for me but my interest is in finding younger sites that are growing rapidly so I can get establish my presence with early on. Tumblr is one of them.

Although I have only recently created my account, I feel like I already know a lot about the microblogging site and ways it will be able to help me. So, I am going to share my findings with you and you can do the same.

I want to expand

Everyday less and less people are relying on automated systems like RSS Feeds to receive information. They are relying on their friends on Twitter, Facebook, and even SMS (text messaging) to let them know what is going on in the world and recommend what’s important to know. Using Tumblr makes it easy for users to reblog content (a function similar to retweet on Twitter) and consume the recommended posts. Since their launch in 2007, Tumblr has reached over 1 Billion posts. I think you get the idea.

The art of making money

You may have 10,000 fans on Facebook and 100,000 followers on Twitter but the advertisements that run beside your content on those sites are only putting money into their pockets and not yours. Tumblr lets you place your own advertisements and affiliate links with your content. Now, YOU keep the money from the ads and it doesn’t cost your a dime. Instead of fattening FB and TW bank accounts, fatten up yours. I like that.

WordPress Tumblr Plugins

Tumblrize is a WordPress plugin that will make things a little easier for you if you are already publishing content to your WordPress blog. Simply put, it ports your posts to your Tumblr blog. Although this makes it easy to share your blog’s content on Tumblr, I recommend writing unique content if you have the time <–SEO Ninja Move.

Final Thought

Using younger sites like Tumblr will definitely help your chance of becoming a Rockstar. The downside to trying to publish and maintain content across multiple sites is pretty obvious, time and effort. My plan of attack…outsourcing. If that isn’t an option for you right now but you are ready to expand your reach to more people and have the time to put into the efforts of making that happen then think about creating a Tumblr blog.

The post Why I Created A Tumblr Blog & Why You Should Too appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I recently read The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy and he drills into some great points that people, including myself, often overlook. He speaks of the importance in the little things that we take for granted or assume that they do not have any significance. However, over time and practicing a consistent routine of those little things will very quickly add up and multiple into good habits and even better, wealth.

Blogging Habits

Your blogging habits will directly effect the success of your blog, your brand, and your wealth if you have chosen to use blogging as a business tool. In the video below, I will give you some tips and words of encouragement to become a consistent, effective, and successful bloggers.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I have a quote excerpt from Friedrich Nietzsche that I think about every day during tough decisions and when I am in one of those I just don’t feel like doing it moods. “He who would learn to fly one day, must first learn to stand and walk…One can not fly into flying” – Friedrich Nietzsche. Continuously practicing over and over again, I will be able to gain more knowledge that brings me closer to achieving my goals. Because of two things, habits and stating off small.

Watch my video below, leave your comments. Let me know what habits you have that help you to reach your goals. Share with your friends, please!

The post One Can Not Fly Into Flying appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

The myth is that your visitors aren’t scrolling down your pages. The truth is…well..is the good news, they are. Internet surfers quickly learn that in order for them to receive the most out of a page, they will must scroll.

I recently read an article in Practical Web Design Nov 2010 Issue written by Joe Leech of cxparenters.co.uk. Although the article was merely a foot note in the ‘expert advise’ area, he did a wonderful job of squashing the idea that content below the page fold (page fold – area of the page you see before you begin to scroll down) is often missed by visitors because they don’t actually scroll down. Again, that isn’t true at all.

Good News

When your visitor lands on a page you might think that you have to cram as much information near the top so that it’s right in their face. Good news, people have learned how to use the internet and expect to scroll…well my mom might still be learning. :)

Never use iframes

Don’t force information above the fold using gimmicks like iframes or smaller text. You are wasting your time. In fact, iframes could possible be the worst thing you could do. I will tell you why.

Based on user-test studies done by cxpartners, a user experience consultant, heat maps generated by eye trackers show that moments after the user lands on a web page they look at the browser’s scroll bar to gauge its extend of content. If you choose to use an iframe you may be concealing the fact that your page has much more content but it’s buried within the iframe and not the browser’s actual window. Therefore, your visitors may not see everything you have to offer or they may have a difficult time finding what they are looking for.

Avoid horizontal lines

Proper web design is not quite a science but it’s far from a simple task. You may be surprised how much thought goes into deciding where to place certain elements on a page, what styles to use, and how to encourage users to explore the entire page. One tip, avoid strong horizontal lines. They naturally discourage people from scrolling but vertical lines or boxes give the appearance that content exists down the page and causes the eyes to move more up and down rather than simply left and right.

Whitespace is your friend

Another great tip that strongly encourages exploration of your web pages is the use of whitespace and imagery. When well placed, they will let visitors unconsciously know that more content exists down the page. Remember Less is More.

Final Thought

Website architecture is a key element in user experience. So it doesn’t matter if you have a website with 10,000 unique visitors a day or ten.  If they made it to your blog or website then I am confident they are expecting to use the scroll bar to explore your content.

Now that I have said all of that, I feel inclined to let you know that your blog posts are too long. Just because I’ve told you that people actually scroll down pages doesn’t mean you need to make them scroll their life away. Keep your blog posts to the point and informative. And don’t forget to use your More Tag to avoid flooding your homepage with complete blog posts.

If you already know all of this stuff, go make sure you don’t have too many plugins installed!

Check Out My Page Fold Video

The post The Page Fold Is A Myth appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Often bloggers have a lot to say which is probably a good reason why they are blogging in the first place. The problem lays in their reader’s attention span or the fact that people want instant gratification or maybe just don’t have the time to read your pillar post.

You have to get it all out

If you are one of those bloggers who write posts that are comparable in length to a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, then you are probably thinking to yourself, “But Clifton I have a lot to say and want my readers to get exactly my point. I can’t help but write long posts!” Well, if that is you then I have a few solutions for you to consider.

Post breaking up isn’t hard to do

Do you have the TinyMCE Advanced plugin installed? If not, get it installed now.

1. Go to Plugins in your WordPress Dashboard.
2. Click on the Add New button.
3. Search for TinyMCE Advanced.
4. Click Install Now.
5. Click Activate Plugin.

Alright, thanks for installing that plugin which now places an ”Insert Page break’ icon to your post editor. Now, you can break you overly long post into several pages. Place the cursor within your post and click the Insert Page Break icon to distinguish a break and create a new page for your post. What does this do? It doesn’t scare your visitors away when they see the behemoth blog post you’ve written. Remember, instant gratification. If they think they have to read all of that, they will bolt.

Create a series

Would you rather have one long blog post that is probably scaring your readers away or would you rather break that post into a series of small posts and give the illusion that you have more content? I hope that you would choose to create the series. Divide your post into a series of smaller posts each highlighting a point within the overall post topic. Here is an example of my My Four Secrets To Killer Blog Posts Series.

Be Bold

Look up. No, not literally at your ceiling. I mean move your eyes up the page and notice the subtitles above my paragraphs styled in bold. In fact, they aren’t just bold because I utilized the Header tags that are hidden under the Paragraph drop down menu in the post editor. This helps your on page SEO. The subtitles give your readers the opportunity to scan the page quickly and decide if there is actually going to be some points within the text that they will find interesting.

How much is too much?

Like always, the answer is “it depends”. But if you blog posts look more like a college essay and less like an informative summary then you and leaning in the wrong direction. Somewhere in between is a good target. Use your comments and feedback to gauge if you left too much information out.

Final Thoughts

This is a blogging tip to increase your page views, time on site, and reader interaction. If you are happy with writing your pillar posts and it doesn’t seem to impact your readers then don’t change a thing. Or just try out a few shorter posts and see if that changes anything. Everything is trial and error.

I would love to hear everyone’s feedback on this topic. What works for you? What are you comfortable with? Do you enjoy reading long blog posts or the shorter but informative ones?

Guess what?! You Have Too Many Plugins Installed Too

And…learn how to add post excerpts to your homepage by using the More Tag. Help your SEO and increase readership.

Then, share this post on Facebook and Twitter!

The post Your Blog Posts Are Too Long appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Step 1

Be prepared. Building a successful blog takes dedication and enthusiasm. If you aren’t willing to stay dedicated or excited about what you are creating then stop reading this right now and go back to Facebook.

Step 2

Glad you stuck around, now let’s get back to business.

Narrow your niche and become an expert. What are you passionate about? If you are attempting to write about topic that you have little interest in or feel this may be a phase then you will quickly loose interest and your readers will see right through it.

Step 3

Know your audience based on the target niche that you are passionate about. Basically, who is reading your blog? What questions are they looking for answers to? Are you answering those questions?  If not, you better figure them out.

Step 4

Learn how to use your WordPress blog. There are over 25 million WordPress blogs swirling around the blogosphere and the support is absolutely….Absolutely…incredible. Have a question about WordPress? My good friend Google has the answer. Performing a better search returns better results. Looking for a way to upload images to a post? Search ‘WordPress how to upload images to a post’ and the first result is ‘Using Image and File Attachments WordPress Codex’ which has detailed instructions on how to upload an image to a post. If you don’t have time to learn to use WordPress, then hire someone who does. Click here if you need help with your blog.

Step 5

Continue to learn. Your niche is probably constantly changing and evolving. Now it is your job to stay on top of that and make sure you are delivering valuable, quality, up-to-date information to your readers. The plus side is that this always gives you something to talk about and teach.

Final Thought

Never be scared to start blogging or even reach for the stars. The harder you work at it, the quicker you will become comfortable with it. Before long, you will not only be passionate about your niche but you will become passionate about sharing it with your community. Now Go Get Your Blog On.

The post 5 Quick Steps To A Successful Blog appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

That is a huge number I would love to reach. Wouldn’t you? Now imagine being able to reach over 12 times that number and being able to tightly narrow that target. The answer is Facebook.com. Now with more than 500 million users and 50% of them log in any given day, Facebook has grown into possibly the number one marketing platform available.

There are ways to properly reach your market’s target on Facebook. Facebook advertising is really powerful for geotargeting or just advertising to those who already Like your Page. Taking advantage of the EdgeRank formula will drastically increase your odds of landing on a user’s Top News feed. In fact, if you aren’t using the EdgeRank formula, you might as well close your Page. :)

Final Thought

As Facebook continues to grow and they are able to offer tremendously useful features for businesses to target their market and still keep the social networking site fun then any internet marketer will be able to reach great success if they play their hand just right. Here are some more tips to having a very successful Facebook Page. Facebook Page for small businesses is a 3 part series on tips and strategies for using and maintaining your Page properly. If you are branding yourself on Facebook, you will probably have people wanting to connect with not only your Page but also your personal profile as well. I have put together some things you need to know on how to write an attractive profile for Facebook.

What do you think about Facebook growing into this monster and how you are utilizing it to expand your reach? Facebook advertising? Page promotion? Surveys? Contests? Let me know in the comment area!

The post Wow 250 Million Users Everyday BooYa! appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Every time you log into Facebook (according to statistics that would everyday) you land on your homepage and start reading your Top News feed, the default view. Then, switch over to your Most Recent feed to catch anything else you may have missed. But the real question for any internet marketer on Facebook is ‘How do I get onto someone’s Top News feed?’

I’ll share the secret with you

20 million people visit Walmart on a daily basis, whereas 250 million people visit Facebook each day. There is no other online marketing channel that can deliver this kind of reach. So how to do you get in front of those 250 million people? I’ll share the secret with you. Ok, it’s not really a secret but it’s a question that many people ask but just don’t know the right answer.

The EdgeRank formula

That neat graphic you see in the upper right of this post is the EdgeRank formula that Facebook uses to determine what content shows up in a user’s top news feed. So what do those letters mean? Well, that is why you are reading this article and I am going to tell you.

EdgeRank looks at the affinity score (how often the user interacts with the FB Page), its weight (how many comments and Likes a post has), and the time decay (how recent that update was posted).

How to nail the EdgeRank formula

Be sure your posts on Facebook follow the above formula or else you may be wasting your time, as updates will not be seen by your fans. Before you post the content, ask yourself if you are being engaging? Are you asking a question to not only spark interest but entice your readers to interact with your post, leave comments, and click its Like link.  Launching a new product? Request your fans’ opinion within a Facebook post.

Final Thought

The above information is extremely valuable and I strongly encourage every internet marketer to take advantage of it. A ‘call to action’ is the nail in the coffin to successful email marketing, copy writing, and other forms of internet marketing. Understanding and utilizing the EdgeRank formula will drastically increase your exposure.

Do you have any experience using the EdgeRank formula or any of Facebook strategies to effectively increase your exposure?

The post Facebook Pages & Top News appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

This is another one of my most popular questions and it’s a rather quick and easy fix. I’m glad that the more popular questions are just a simple answer. :) Below is my step by step instruction on how to make your WordPress blog or website’s homepage static and how to place the latest blog posts on a subpage.

Watch the quick video tutorial below.

If you found this helpful, share it with your friends.

The post Make Your Homepage Static in WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Stop installing so many WordPress plugins (just had to say it twice). So you have your new blog and you are ALL excited to start writing awesome blog posts and getting a bunch of traffic but your mentor and friends have all given you a huge list of must-have plugins to install and activate. You are still very new to this so it takes you a couple of weeks to find all of these plugins, install them, activate them, set them up, then learn to use them. Most people leave out the last – most important – part. Now, you start to notice weird things happening on your blog. Site loads slow, errors appearing in the dashboard or on your blog, multiple Facebook Share buttons and Tweet buttons. What is going on?! AHH!

You have too many plugins installed!

I can almost guarantee I am right about the above statement. It’s probably one of the most common errors I see in blogging. Installing plugins isn’t just a simple “I am going to install and activate the plugin and my blogosphere is going to be perfect” solution. You have to closely maintain your plugins and monitor their effectiveness. Is anyone actually using that Sexy Bookmarks plugin? I’ve never once used it. Ever. Have you click that icon on someone’s blog? In my opinion (I am stressing that this is only my opinion), I also see the Sexy Bookmarks button as juvenile. If I am browsing through a Professional Internet Marketer’s blog and wanting to take the blog’s content serious, it would be a hard thing to do when there is a big Sexy Bookmarks button below every post. Just seems juvenile…and rather lame.

Choose your plugins wisely

Find out which plugins are going to meet your needs. Do some research on a plugin before installing it and find out what it does exactly. Read reviews on WordPress.org. Talk to other blogger about the plugin. Don’t just ask them if that have it installed, ask them if they truly find value in it. Have they every clicked and used the Sexy Bookmarks button?

Do you already have a plugin that does the same thing? I can’t count how many times I have come across a blog to find an array of Facebook Share and Tweet buttons jumbled in the corner of every blog post. Looks like they have two different plugins activated that do the same thing, both are adding the Facebook Share and Tweet buttons.

Read the manual

Okay, so not all plugins, especially free ones, come with a users guide or much on support. But try using Google to find more information on how to use every single plugin you have installed. Look for video tutorials on YouTube or questions that have been asked on WordPress.org. What is the point of installing a plugin, activating it, then never setting up it or tweaking its options? Make sure you are utilizing it in the right way. Aren’t internet savvy? Do NOT be scared to learn how to use a plugin! Just because it’s on a computer doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to figure out. 99% of the time it will be so much easier than you expect after you do a little research or read the author’s help notes.

Final Thought

This article was written to encourage bloggers to take action within their cluster of plugins running on their blog. I threw in some personal opinions and may have been a little assertive at times but this is a growing issue I see among new and old bloggers. Do not fall victim to this horrible failure. Take an hour of your evening and go through your plugins and analyze which ones are honestly making your blog better for yourself and more importantly for your readers.

Learn how to find answers about your blog.

The post Stop Installing So Many WordPress Plugins appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I’ve put together a detailed video on how to create a static page in your WordPress blog. Nothing complicated here but just some basic instructions and tips on what to do when creating a page and how to add it to the navigation bar. I suggest watching the entire video and if you have any questions after the video’s end, please contact me. Thanks!

The post Create a Page in WordPress appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

Feel like printing off your Facebook photos?

The difference between adding photos to your Facebook account and sending photos to the print shop is the bulk. My wife for example has her digital camera glued to her hip and snaps a photo any chance she gets. Then, since it’s so easy to upload them to Facebook, she can quickly get the photos she took that day online without a problem, all 200 of them. Simple. But if you want them printed, there is always at least a little more complexity to it. Drive to Target, login into Facebook (hope it’s secure), find the photos you want to print, wait for them to print, pay for them (and a pack of new white socks), drive home. Simple, just not AS simple.

Reasons why to print your Facebook Photos

Grandma is probably dying to see pictures of her grand kids or you with your siblings. Probably albums full of photos she’d love to see but she doesn’t have a Facebook account or possibly even a computer. Select your favorites (preferably sober) and bring them over to Granny’s. Might as well pick up a few frames while you are at Target.

Collages are be fun to create and share with your friends and family. The photo Kodak Kiosk supports other cool options.

Greeting Cards. Did you get a great photo of the family and plop it on Facebook to share with everyone else? Print it off as a greeting card and send it off in the mail.

Photo Books are a great idea to document an entire event and all the photos just so happen to be on Facebook already. Print off an entire album and make it into a photo booth you can pull out when guest come over. lol

Picture Movie DVDs is a cool way to share your Facebook photos on a loop. Like if you wanted to play it at a family reunion, wedding, or graduation.

Next time to stop in Target for a pack of new white socks, look for the Kodak Kiosk and check out the new Social Network Connectivity software and let me know what you think!

Share this with your Facebook friends and let them know they have this option!

The post Print Facebook Photos At Target appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.

I am absolutely shocked by the number of internet marketers that do not utilize the power of online bookmarking websites like Digg.com! There I said it and it had to be said!

I love to read…

I love to read great articles and blog posts online but there is no possible way I could find every blog post worth reading even if I spent hours searching for them. Google.com does a pretty good job of helping me find something interesting but the information is often outdated. I can find links to recent articles on Twitter.com but I don’t much information about the article until after I click on the link. Who has time to click on useless links? Not this guy.

What is the solution?

Digg.com solves many of the problems we face when it comes to finding good reading material on topics you are looking for. People you are following on Digg.com will be digging blog posts and articles on topic you are interested in. And if the article is outdated then I doubt anyone will be digging it so you won’t have much to worry about when it comes to reading old stuff. Since Digg.com lets its members add titles and descriptive text, you will have a chance to read a excerpt of the linked webpage before actually using your precious time clicking on a lame link.

Learn more about Digg.com in the video

The post Why You Need To Be On Digg.com, Ya Dig? appeared first on CliftonHatfield.com.