How to link wordpress.com blog posts to local tags and categories. posted in tag:wordpress tips, filed under: Blog Promotion

The tags and categories that appear above or under a blog post (depends on the theme) links to the global tag pages of wordpress.com. I will show you a way to put tags and categories so that they link to your own blog.

That ensures that visitors will not be thrown out of your blog and into the related global tag page of wordpress.com in the quest for more related content!

Instructions

Believe it or not, you don’t need to spend money for a css upgrade in order to do this. You just have to put hyperlinks right in the title field of posts.

Choose from the list of tags and categories in your side bar and choose one tag and one category that are appropriate for that blog post. It is possible to add more tags and categories if you want, but it is not advisable to add too many.

Now all you have to do is put text links right after the actual blog post title, right within the post title field.

For example, this is what I put in the title field of this post:
How to link wordpress.com blog posts to local tags and categories. <em>posted in tag:<a href=”http://shongjog.wordpress.com/tag/wordpress-tips/”>wordpress tips</a></em>, <em>filed under: <a href=”http://shongjog.wordpress.com/category/blog-promotion/”>Blog Promotion</a></em>

Helpful tips
1. You must still choose tags/categories from under your blog editor in the admin area and make sure they are the same as they appear in the text links in the blog post. Otherwise, your post will not be added to your local tag page.

2. You should put up a notice somewhere visible, that instructs the visitors that the tags and categories attached to the post title lead to your blog and the other set leads to the wordpress.com global tag pages.

You may say that you don’t have to put links to your tags and categories in the post title, because you can add those links at the end of the post.

But consider this, if you put those links in the post title, they appear as hyperlinks when someone reblogs your post.

Here is how a reblog of this post looks:

I suspect that links put in the post titles remain intact when splogged. In that case, you are adding links to your own blog and copyright information (more on copyright information coming soon) in that splog and that tells Google that you are the original creator of the content.

Put links to local tags in wordpress.com global tag pages
And last but not the least, this technique enables you to link to your local tags right in the wordpress.com global tag pages!

Have you ever seen any local tag in wordpress.com global tag pages? Visit the link I have pasted above and you can see some!

Add images in a Recent post widget – for wordpress.com

The Recent Post widget that wordpress.com offers its bloggers does not pull images from posts. Images help a viewer gain more information instantly, even before having to read.

If you want an image to show up for each post in the Recent Posts widgets, you can do it using a third-party service.

Add images in a “Recent Posts” widget using Widgetbox

Visit Widgetbox, sign up and go to the Make a Widget page

Widgetbox › Make a Blog/Feed Widget from Your Own Content

Please choose Blog Feed, choose Basic and enter your Blog or Feed address.

Make the necessary customization, save widget and agree to their “Terms and conditions” and then again click “Save widget”.

Click the “Get widget” button and choose Flash (not javascript) and modify it so that it works in your wordpress.com blog. Please read the following post to learn how:

How to have Flash embeds in a wordpress.com blog

Paste the modified code in the sidebar using a text widget and you will have a “Recent posts” widget that also pulls an image from the latest posts!

How to unlink global tags under wordpress.com blog posts – © Netty Gritty

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How to link wordpress.com blog posts to local tags and categories. posted in tag:wordpress tips, filed under: Blog Promotion

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How to add hyperlinks in wordpress.com post titles – © Netty Gritty more wordpress tips at Netty Gretty

I was totally surprised today when I put the needed HTML code for creating a link in the title field of a blog post and the link was clickable! I was expecting one of the two scenarios:

a) The code will be stripped off by wp.com

b) Even if the code was not stripped out, it would turn up as code, and not an actual link.

And in case you are wondering, this is the code i put in the title:

How to add hyperlinks in wordpress.com post titles – <a href=”http://wp.me/p4Nhu-OT”>© Netty Gritty</a>

Try clicking the copyright symbol, and then notice the address bar of your browser. It links to this very post.

Some helpful tips

1. It is possible to add more than one link in the post title.

2. You need to have at least two words/letters with a space in between in the text link, or else the hyperlink won’t work.

Credit:

I must thank Panos for this post. His post Page tabs as extra links made me so jealous (like, how come I was not the one to figure it out?) that I wanted to do something similar! But using posts….

Disclaimer:

I haven’t tested if it works in all themes. If you like this idea, I am requesting you to test this at least once in your theme and see if it works. I will update the info right within the post and also link to you as the contributer.

View list of themes where you can add extra hyperlinks in the post title

 

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Different Youtube video embed options for wordpress.com

Youtube videos can be inserted in a wordpress.com blog in several methods.

Youtube embeds for wordpress.com – Method no. 1

WordPress.com Supprt Doc says that you have to paste the url of a Youtube video using the Video button in the Upload toolbar.
And this how a video turns up when posted in this method:



It is also possible to change the width or both width and height of the video in this method:

YouTube « Support — WordPress.com

Youtube embeds for wordpress.com – Method no. 2

Simply paste the Youtube video url in the HTML editor of your page or post and the video will appear!

See an example:

Youtube embeds for wordpress.com – Method no. 3

You can also embed Youtube videos in a wordpress.com blog using the gigya method.

To do that, you need the following code:

[gigya src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO-ID-NUMBER” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash”]

You have to replace the bit VIDEO-ID-NUMBER with the actual ID Number of the video.

And this is how a Youtube video posted in this manner turns up:

Note: It is possible to resize the Youtube video by changing the width and height attribute, if you are using the gigya method.

For that you need to add the width and height information in the code:

[gigya src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEO-ID-NUMBER” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”nnn” height=”nnn”]

Just replace the nnn in the above code with the specific number for the width and height you desire.
Of course, don’t forget to modify the video ID number!

And here is an example of a resized Youtube video.

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Notes:

1. I have purposefully used the same video to help you easily understand how the Youtube video looks when posted in different methods.

Visit the original video at Youtube – Dio – This is your life – to compare the difference between the original video dimensions and the ones posted in this post.

2. It appears that a Youtube video appears to be of different sizes when different embedding methods are used. The first video in this post looks narrow – but it appears to be of the same dimension as in the original video. The second one looks um… “chubbier”. The third one appears to be of the same proportions as the second one, but looks smaller. The fourth one is a result of arbitrary change of size.

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Attention:
Please don’t forget to tell me which embedding process you like the most and why.

Create junk art online!

I was googling for Junk Art Masterpieces just for kicks and I have found a site where you can create Junk Art online!

And if you are wondering what Junk art is, you can check it out at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Also here are some interesting links:
Household junk Recycled into Portrait Masterpieces

Junk Art (PHOTOS): 10 Amazing Artists Using Recycled Materials

Click the following image to view even more examples:

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Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p4Nhu-O7

How to add an Etsy widget in a wordpress.com blog

Etsy is a wonderful site where you can buy or sell handmade things. And this post will show you how to have an Etsy widget in a wordpress.com blog.

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Post update – March 08, 2011
Panos has figured out that Etsy offers a Flash widget and Panos also explains how you can add it in your wordpress.com blog. You can learn about that in his post Adding an Etsy widget.

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A little background information
Currently Etsy offers two ways of showing a user’s Etsy shop in a website/blog.
1. The javascript widget
2. The image widget.

The javascript widget will NOT work in a wordpress.com blog, since the code will be stripped off right away. The image widget will work without a problem, but it’s not so attractive.

So, we are gonna try out a Flash widget – yes, Flash widget – to have an attractive Etsy widget in a wordpress.com blog. If you don’t know already (since the wordpress.com Support Doc doesn’t mention it), it is possible to embed an Etsy widget in Flash in a wordpress.com blog. To learn how, please visit this link:
How to have Flash embeds in a wordpress.com blog

Before you can create an Etsy widget in Flash, you need to know the feed url of that particular Etsy page. Figuring out the feed of an Etsy page is easy. Just add /rss to the Etsy url (without any space).

Let’s see an example….

Davidjacobsonglass creates wonderful glass art and this is the url of his Etsy shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/davidjacobsonglass

If I want to create a widget that will show things from his Etsy shop, I need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the feed. Just joking! I just have to add /rss

And after putting that bit after the url, the feed url I get is this:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/davidjacobsonglass/rss

Now that we have an Etsy feed, let’s create the Flash widget!

We can use these sites for free to create an Etsy widget:
Vuvox Express, Springwidgets, Widgetbox and Takeslides.

My personal favourite is Vuvox Express and I am going to create an Etsy widget using their service. What I like about Vuvox Express is I can customize the look of the widget in many ways.

To create an Etsy widget, I visited Vuvox Express and pasted the feed url in the RSS feed field and clicked “Connect”.

VUVOX Express – create amazing pieces with live feeds

Give it a while (the time depends on how fast your internet connection is) and they will fetch the latest images from your Etsy blog. Then you get to choose a style and a variation from the style.

Below is a variation from the style “Postcards”.

Customizing the size of an Etsy widget for the side bar/footer

The size of the widget displayed above is probably okay if you paste it in a page/post. But what if you want it in the side bar/footer?

Then you will have to make it smaller. You can do so simply by changing the number in the height and width bits in the code.

I chose the style “Photo slider” for the widget below and I also changed the height and width information. The original width and height were 400 and 346 respectively and I changed the info to 200 and 150 respectively.

So far, so good…..

But, have you noticed? The link to the Etsy shop is NOT visible in the widgets! Actually individual link for each item DOES exist there, but is NOT easily visible. When you hover the mouse over the i icon, a “show/hide media info” text pops up. If you click it, the individual links to individual items are visible at the top.

What good is an Etsy widget if it the link to the Etsy shop or Etsy items are seemingly inaccessible?

Add a text link to your Etsy widget
Add a link to the Etsy shop by putting a text link right below the widget. If you are linking to your own Etsy page, the link text can say “Visit my Etsy shop”. If it is someone else’s Etsy page you are promoting, then the text link can be “Visit User’s Etsy shop”. Of course, you have to change the bit User with the name of the actual user.

So here is a widget with a text link below it. I used the style “Media Wall” for this

Visit David’s Etsy shop

Urge your visitor to click the i on the bottom of the widget

View an example. I used the style “Spin” here.

Tip: Click the i on the bottom bar to enable item links

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If you like this post, don’t forget to share it!

How to add a Return to top link under a wordpress.com blog post

This is a neat little trick. You will find it useful for long posts. If your post is full of information and your reader has scrolled down to read it all, then it is a good idea to remind your reader to go “Return to top of post”  for another dose.  And here is how to do it easily….

Just use this code under a post.

<a title=”Return to beginning of post” href=”POST-URL/#wrapper”>Return to top of post</a>

You have to modify the part POST-URL with the actual url of your blog post.

Now, seeing it in action would be really helpful, wouldn’t it? Even though my post is not long enough that you need to scroll to get the rest of the content, please do scroll anyway to find the “Return to top of post” link.

Disclaimer
I haven’t tested if it works in all themes.
So please don’t kill me if it doesn’t work in your wordpress.com blog.

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Okay, please stop scrolling.

Here is the link you have been looking for:
Return to top of post

Shortlink of this post http://wp.me/p4Nhu-Na