Tag Archives: Blogs

Corporate Blogging

Marketing, , , ,

In my day job I work for an online home furnishings retailer OrientalFurniture.com. We are in the process of upgrading our ecommerce platform and redesigning the site to provide new functionality and an updated look and feel.

We are currently rebranding and carrying out our new marketing efforts and one key aspect is our new Interior Design blog. This new blog will focus on Asian Style with categories for Buying Guides, Style Tips and Cultural Spotlights.

This blog will be a lot different to manage than my personal blogs as it will be the blogging persona of our company. Also it is a blog in a traditional industry. Hopefully the niche interior design angle will let it standout and allow us to create unique content.

Stay tuned 😉

WordPress Plugins for a Better Life

Tech, , , , , , , ,

Well, at least they make *my* life better, and hopefully those of my readers! I use a lot of WordPress plug ins for SEO, Event Management, Web Analytics, Communications, etc so I wanted to just list them out for all to see.

Here are all the plug ins in use over at Complete Poker Rules:

  • AdSense Manager
    • For managing Adsense Ads throughout the site
  • Akismet
    • Nearly eliminates the spam comments I receive. Some false positives but that may just be the nature of running a Poker Blog.
  • Amazon Reloaded for WordPress
    • Allows you to search Amazon from the post edit screen and insert the product image or text link complete with Amazon Associate ID.
       
  • cforms
    • Contact forms with an excellent admin interface and highly flexible styling. 
  • FeedBurner FeedSmith
    • Used in conjunction with FeedBurner to manage your RSS subscriptions.
  • Google XML Sitemaps
    • Creates and keeps up to date you sitemap.xml file for assisting search engines with the structure and pages of your site.
  • Headspace2
    • Make your WordPress site SEO friendly with this very powerful tool.
  • Highlight Author Comments
    • Call attention to the comments that you leave as admin so they stick out from the rest.
       
  • More Link Modifier
    • Changes the behavior of the ‘More’ link in WordPress posts. You can customize the copy that is displayed as well as disabling the “Jump To” behavior of the More anchor link when clicked.
       
  • Redirection
    • Manage the redirection of deleted posts, etc without needing to edit your .htaccess file. Also great for 301 redirecting domain.com to www.domain.com or vice-versa.
  • Robots Meta
    • Manage the index nature of your site. Some SEO expert say that duplicating content within your own site dilutes the link juice you would otherwise get from a single instance of a post. Also good for noindexing your WordPress Login page among others.
  • RSS Footer
    • Append a footer to the end of each post in your RSS feed. This is especially key if you have sites that scrape your content, it will include a link back to your site and you can at least benefit from the juice!
  • Search Excerpt
    • Enhance the on site search experience for your readers with keyword highlighting and relevancy sorting. 
  • Sociable
    • Allow your readers to share your content on social networks.
       
  • Theme Tester
    • Allows you to test out a new theme without disrupting service to your visitors. 
  • Ultimate Google Analytics
    • Plugin to allow you to include your Google Analytics tracking code on all your pages. Also allows you to set which user level should the tracking code be displayed for. For instance, you can disable to tracking code for admin users to avoid inflating your tracking numbers.
  • WordPress Database Backup
    • Schedule the backup of your WordPress database tables to file or email.
  • WordPress Related Posts
    • Include links to related posts based on tagging. great for deep linking content.
       
  • WP-Polls
    • Include a poll in your post. Highly customizable: user contributed answers, multiple selection answers, etc. 
  • WP-PostRatings
    • Adds a ratings system to each post. 
  • WP-Table
    • Insert a table in your posts or pages for a better handle on structuring your content without CSS.
       
  • WPListcal
    • Create events and display them in any post, page or template. Flexible scheduling system to show x days out, only current and future events, etc. 

Complete Poker Rules – New Blog Launched

Poker, , ,

Over the last week I have been working to get a new poker blog launched. Complete Poker Rules is a blog that will have discussions (via blog posts and comments) about poker strategy, poker hand analysis, poker how-to’s,  book and product reviews, etc. 

While the site is focused on discussion and community, the Poker Rules section will provide all the info you need to a variety of card games and betting structures. The rules are presented by “Roberts Rules of Poker” authored by Bob Ciaffone.

Feel free to drop by: www.completepokerrules.com and join in the poker conversation!

Marketing, the Web and Technology

Marketing,

I first cut my tech teeth with a great company outside Boston called Nova Marketing. I worked with some great, talented people and had a chance to learn a lot about marketing while starting my career in technology. So this is something that has always been of interest to me. With that being said, here are some great Blog’s/Podcasts that I follow daily to keep up to date with marketing in the new media: