Showing posts with label how-to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how-to. Show all posts

3 May 2020

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How to Remove console.log Messages From Any Application

Remove console log Messages


Being a developer often times we would find the need to write console log messages to debug the application that we write in JavaScript or any of it's frameworks.

More times that we can count, we tend to forget/ miss out removing the console statements that are written in our application. It could be either by one developer working on a small application or can be a team of developers working on a big application.

This post will help you suppress all the console log statements that are present in any application.

Let's take for example, that you have a JS file that performs some functionality in your application with some console log statements written in it. All you have to write is just a one liner at the top of the page.


window.console.log = function() {};


The above line would suppress all the console log statements and sent to a noop function that are written in your JS file. This can come very handy when you are pushing your files to production that will not print any console messages in your browser console.

This can even be written at your Node backend, if needed. Take this for example, you have a JS file that you are running in your node server by calling
node append.js


// File Name : append.js

function appendString(firstName, lastName) {
    console.log(`First Name is ${firstName}`);
    console.log(`Last Name is ${lastName}`);
    return `${firstName} ${lastName}`;
}

The above will print the two console log in your Node Terminal Console. So, to remove this, we will be adding a similar fix like the above to this append.js file.

Here's how it will look like


// File Name : append.js
console.log = function(){};
function appendString(firstName, lastName) {
    console.log(`First Name is ${firstName}`);
    console.log(`Last Name is ${lastName}`);
    return `${firstName} ${lastName}`;
}



We are not calling the window object here because that's not available at the server side. Window Object can be accessed at the client end.

We have to find one JS file that basically links all the other JS files in your application and write it on top of the file. This varies from application to application.

The above are just some simple examples, but I hope you get the idea as to where this line has to be put in your application.

For applications like Angular that has different environment setups, we can suppress the console logs specific to environments like only in production.

Here's how you can suppress the console log messages from an Angular Application. 
Drop your comments if this worked out for you or if there's a better way that you have found to do in your application.

Photo Credit. : Photo by Max Chen on Unsplash
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5 Apr 2020

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How To 301 Redirect From Non-WWW to WWW using .htaccess

301 Redirection

If you are a blogger or a developer who mostly works on blogs, websites, you will definitely have faced this situation to have the website with www prefix to your domain.

There's no official proof that having www prefixed to the domain has any improved SEO effects, yet I have seen most of the websites to have www domains compared to non-www domain.

Here's this post that will help you do a 301 Redirect from non-www to www domain using .htaccess file.


RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com$ [NC] 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The above snippet of code will do a 301 redirection of the non-www url to www url.

Note : Replace example.com with your domain name

Another way is to have a generic htaccess snippet of code to redirect the url from non-www to www.


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

This piece of code will take up any domain url that's non-www and redirect to www domain.

Add either of the above code snippet to your website's .htaccess file

HTTPS urls can be redirected in the same way as above by replacing the http to https.

Let me know in the comments, if the above code snippet worked for you.

Pic Credit. : Unsplash
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15 Mar 2020

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How to Upload ads.txt file to Blogger - Adsense

This post is going to help people who have Adsense enabled to their blog and are using Blogger Platform for Blogging.

I was recently browsing through my Adsense account after some period of time and I could find an alert notification that's here in the picture below.











I updated the ads.txt to this blog as I'm running this blog under Blogger since 2013. I thought this would be a useful post for fellow bloggers who would search on how to upload the ads.txt to their Blogger platform domain.

So, here's how it is done.

Step 1 : 

Login to your Adsense Platform and click on "Download" to download the ads.txt file for your domain. You will see a one liner text in the file with the Publisher ID.

Step 2: 

Login to your Blogger Platform. Go to Settings >> Search Preferences

Step 3: 

You should see "Monetisation" at the bottom end of the Search Preferences. Now, here Custom ads.txt would be disabled. Click on "Edit"

Step 4 :

After you clicked on the Edit Link, you should copy paste the content from the ads.txt file and click on "Save Changes".

Step 5: 

Now is the time to verify if the changes are present. You should be able to verify this by going to your blog root domain in a new tab and enter /ads.txt.

https://www.example.com/ads.txt

This will show you the ads.txt content that you have updated in the Blogger.

As it is mentioned in the Adsense Alert Message, it might take a few days to see the updated changes in your Adsense Account. Be Patient and keep Blogging.

Let me know in the comments if this worked for you. Happy Blogging.

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27 Aug 2016

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How To Get Verified On Twitter Through Application Process


Yay.,! Have you heard the news ? Now you can get verified on Twitter by applying manually telling them you're the one. Yes., I was wandering for news on Twitter and found this which I thought I should write about it on this blog. 

I've been writing about Twitter tips and stuffs related to Twitter for sometime as of now and like everyone else who's using it frequently not just to share their blog links but to read news as well, I've the fantasy of getting verified on Twitter someday too.

Getting a verified profile on Twitter is special for the ones who know its value., Okie., now let me share you how I've applied for the twitter verification process.

As I was browsing through Twitter I found this link in their blog - How to Get verified on twitter through Application Process which I was thrilled to see.

As you know being a twitter user., getting a verified profile is not a small thing to have in your profile. And the process that was happening before sounds very much manual to us where the twitter guys would selectively pick the profiles from millions of users and grant them the loyalty. I've wrote about it some years back How to get a verified Twitter Account when I was kind of a noob and was still trying to understand how twitter works.,

Now that I've seen the Application Process Verification, I started the process not even thinking about anything else.

Before applying to get verified, you should look into their tips page where they tell you what you should keep in mind before applying and what's needed. Find the link below.

Request to Verify an Account

After you finish reading it, you can follow the link - Verification Request to finally start applying for the verification.





If you don't get it the first time, you can still apply for the same account after 30 Days following the same verification link.

P.S : I've applied for the verification process as well. Feeling excited. I'll write a blog post with the update once I get a mail back from them either positive or negative.

Photo Credit : Flickr- Mambembe Arts & Crafts

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19 Jun 2016

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How To Optimize Images with WebP Format

Do you own a website ? If you have a website, or any business that is running online, or even a blog for that matter, you should make sure the site runs fast and the users can access it without any waste of time. 
Load time of a web page matters in the online business., Lets say you have a great website with colorful images, and really nice design and rich use of JS animations. It'd take hell amount of time to load the page and the user who's trying to visit your website, gets annoyed by the time that it takes to load and it'll lead you to a heavier bounce rate which will kill your blog/website rating at any time.

I was just surfing the web recently and I found something called "webp" format which is a modern image format with the tagline "lossless and lossy compression" for images on the web. I couldn't help but write about it in my blog here.

It's been said that WebP images are 26% smaller in size when compared to PNG images.

You can read more about how webp works here

WebP format is natively supported in Chrome, Opera browsers.,

In this post, we'll tell you how to use webp format to optimize the images for your website/blog in the following steps.

Step 1: 

I'm guessing you've followed the google webp link to know a bit about the format. Now, lets download the precompiled version of the tool that we'll use to convert any image to webp format with lossless and lossy compression.

Download the precompiled version of the tool here

Choose your platform - Windows, Linux or Mac OS and download the files.

Step 2 :

Extract the zip/tar file, copy and place it anywhere you feel convenient. In my case, I'd place it in my C drive.

So, now the path of the files in my system would be "C:\libwebp-0.5.0-windows-x86" 

Step 3 :

Once that is done, go inside that folder "libwebp-0.5.0-windows-x86" in your drive that you've copied it to.

Now, lets copy an image that you want to compress and check if its actually working. Copy a bit bigger sized image and place it inside "bin" folder which would be like below

"C:\libwebp-0.5.0-windows-x86\bin\image-to-be-compressed.png"

Step 4 : 


This is a bit trickier part yet you can do it even if you're not any sort of developer, or just someone who knows to operate basics of command prompt.

Open your command prompt and navigate to the installed folder. Check out the screenshot that is attached below to make sure you're on the right track.



Once you're inside the bin folder in your command prompt, run the following line

"cwebp yourfilename.JPG -o webpfile.webp"


If you've done that correctly, you'd see the below screen.


Now if you check the size of the image that's been created, you'd be amazed of how much smaller the image size you get out of it without losing its pixel sizes and quality.

There's a reason why the webp format is being said to be "lossless and lossy" . You can even convert back from webp format to any other format such as PNG, JPG etc, with "dwebp" command. 

Checkout the parameters that you can use with "cwebp" command - cwebp command

Checkout the parameters that you can use with "dwebp" command - dwebp command

That's it. you can do the image compression with just one command without using any photoshop tool.

P.S - Do comment below to let us know how did it go or even if you get stuck somewhere.,

Photo Credit : Flickr
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30 Mar 2016

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5 Things to Know About Twitter Analytics


Are you running a business offline or online? It doesn't matter where you do and what you do, but it sure matters that you use any medium of influencing people to come to you, use your service in anyway possible. I've been writing my way through twitter ever since I've found its usability as a media to publicize yourself as a brand no matter what you do and where you're located in any part of the world.

Using twitter has made me realize there are people who take the slightest care of what you do and those are the like minded people that you'd want to follow and want to be followed back. Setting up a twitter account is not a heavy task and the part of being online (by online I mean the way you stay up tweeting frequently without giving up) is a hell of a job if you're running up a business motive on twitter. Unless you've a twitter account that tweets random thoughts that comes to your mind, tweets with media that you see day to day, you wouldn't be running out of tweets.

To use Twitter Analytics efficiently, you should know the least about it at some point of time.

Twitter has given us the option to check who actually are interacting with you and how are you doing last month compared to this month and how exactly are you growing on your followers rate/ following rate and everything that get accounted which is the Twitter Analytics Platform.

In this post, we're gonna list down the 5 thing that you should know about Twitter Analytics before you start using it.

Monthly Tweet Analysis : 



Tweet Analysis is what we're going to talk about. Brands or Businesses that are tweeting every now and then from their official account should be using this analytics to collect the data of how far their tweets have reached the world, how good is the engagement of tweets with the fellow twitterers.

Normally, you can see any particular tweet activity just by clicking on the "View Tweet Activity" in your tweet section. That will give you a clear analytics of how did that tweet go with the twitterverse.

You can now view weekly activity of your tweets on the right side of your twitter dashboard as well. But when you want to collect the data monthly so that you can account yourself with the growth that you've reached this month and can easily compare yourself to the previous month and do what you should do to be better next month.

That's a good one and they show you your top tweet for the month, top follower for the month, top mentions, top media tweet, top card tweet etc., all for the particular month that you prefer. Scroll down to your twitter analytics dashboard to see older months analytics data.

You're a social media marketer, that's great., you're just steps away to collect those data and make your excel sheet for the month.

Know Your Influencers : 


Twitter is letting you know who was engaging with you the last month most of the times and is showing you the details on what tweet the whole engagement was happening.

Get the data on what was your top tweet on twitter last month, who was your top mention, who was your top follower, what was your top media tweet, what was your top card tweet, all in one single page of Twitter Analytics.

Top Card Tweet for the Month

Top Follower for the Month

Top Mention for the Month

Top Tweet for the Month




You get to know who's your most interesting influencer on twitter in short, you get to know a like minded personality to your business.

Now that's a lot of valuable data for you and your company that runs its promotion on twitter.


Export the Twitter Data : 


The twitter analytics data that you see for a month or any relevant period of time can be exported to your local system in csv format.

You can select any particular number of days, years range which lies next to the export button on top of your tweet activity. Now that should be considered as a lot of data related to your twitter market.


Flavour of Audience:


Knowing your audience is the key to promote your business to the fastest level. Twitter Analytics provides you with the data of what audience base that you're followers are and where exactly you can improve to make sure a lot of people read your tweets and engage with it.

Audience Analytics will help you to improve the understanding of your followers base and tweet accordingly. The list shows the people who have engaged with the tweets that you've been tweeting since the given time period.

Conversion Tracking : 


Twitter provides you the conversion tracking facility just like Google Analytics where you're (the developer) supposed to put the code to your website and the tracking starts immediately once your code is verified.

The Conversion Tracking works in such a way based on the code that you're implementing to your website. You can track any particular page conversion event based on the conditions option when you're setting up the conversion tracking event.



You can add even multiple accounts to the same analytics dashboard. Click on the username on top right, and select the account that you want to use with the analytics dashboard.

Conclusion : 

The data that you get from twitter analytics can be a good option to analyze the growth of your business and make any changes needed to promote your brand on twitter.
Now, that's an important piece of data to your brand.

What features do you like about the Twitter Analytics Platform ?  What do you think it is less of ? Do Share in the comments.

Image Credit : Flickr
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28 Feb 2016

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How To Find The Number Of Verified Followers On Twitter


Having a verified profile on Twitter is not a small achievement to have on your portfolio unless you're a famous celebrity in your line of work. Getting verified on Twitter is as much as not in our hands until Twitter decides to contact out for Verification.

If you've come to read about how to get verified on Twitter, I'd suggest you to read the linked blog post below.

Read this : How To Get Verified On Twitter

Let that be aside. You have a number of followers that you could even possibly count each and every one of them in hands. Have you ever wondered how many of the verified profiles that follows you ?

Have you ever asked yourself to check that once after you lost count of your followers which I'd say when you reach 100 followers you'd loose the name count of the people who followed you.

When I started using Twitter, I used to follow people and let them follow me back and we exchange tweets, retweets, and favorite each others tweets which are the most used functionalities on Twitter

I happen to count all the followers that followed me and welcome them with a Shout Out (SO) either automated or manually (Atleast when I started out).

While I use Twitter I happen to be followed by some of the verified profiles on Twitter which is pretty awesome actually and you'll feel good about it for no reason. I lost count of the number of verified profiles that follow me on my account later on which led me to find some pretty cool tools that I'm going to share in this blog post.

That was the reason I had to research on any tools that will help you to find the number of verified followers on your Twitter. And I found one.

Social Rank


Social Rank is a platform where you can organize, sort out your twitter followers in case you have way too many to do it manually on twitter.

You can even sort the followers and create a curated list of followers and use it for any purposes that you are planning to may be promotional tweeting, call it your choice.

Once you're logged in to social rank, you'll see the list of followers that follow you on twitter. You'll see a select option where you can select "Verified Followers" and there you go, it'll show you the list of verified profiles that follows you on twitter.

Here's a screen shot of my list of verified list of followers on twitter from Social Rank. 



Me on twitter- @vickythegme

Feel free to mention any other tools that helps you find the list of verified profiles that follow you on twitter. And don't forget to let me know how many verified profiles are following you on twitter in the comments.

Photo Credit : Flickr


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29 Mar 2015

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How to Find the Number of Connections on LinkedIn


Being a professional in any niche, it has become a mandatory to have a linkedin profile and its even more important if you are into entrepreneurship or a social media strategist.

LinkedIn has become a part of  any person that is into his way out on building an online profile. Linkedin has not just become an online profile maker instead it has emerged as a job searching platform as well where you can just find out the company profiles and get an idea of the people who work on those companies.

Building up a professional profile is not just filling up your portfolio, the projects you've done so far and the companies you've worked with. The main asset of having a linkedin profile is in building connections that might/will help you in any near future.

You see, connections in linkedin are as valuable as it seems. Connecting with people may get you leads to your next going to be successful business, or sometimes some of your connections will endorse you with new technologies that you know already, some can help you with recommendations.

While building up your business/personal profile, you obivously need to have a lot of connections both you know personally and virtually on the internet.

Connections are important and you'll realize when you're in need of someone in your connection professionally available someday.

There's one thing in linkedin that I feel a little bit typical that when you get a huge number of connections that you actually lost count, that's when the need for this arises.

You'd wanna look at your connections count and you have no clue how to find the number of connections in your linkedin account.

Don't worry., I've been there and  this post will help you find your number of connections in simple 2 steps.

Step 1:  

Goto the "Connections" at the top menu in your linkedin profile. Once you click, you'll be redirected to your connections list page where you can view the connections in your profile.



Step 2 : 

You'll find a "Settings" icon on the connections page which you should click to find out the number of connections to your linkedin profile.

This will be the url for the page where you'll see the number of connections.




There you go., you got your number of connections to your linkedin profile.

You can also click "Refresh" button if you wanna check the up to date connections number.

That's it., You got your connections number.

Check out my linkedin profile and lets get connected. ;)




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11 Aug 2014

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How To Register A Twitter Application

Twitter Applications are nowadays getting created like hundreds and thousands a day.

According to this post -> One Million Registered Twitter Apps at their twitter blog back then at 2011, a new app is registered every 1.5 seconds. It is needless to say the amount of apps that would be registered by the end of this year and only you can imagine the limit. And the amount of twitter app developers are increasing day by day.

I've been running a nono-coding blog (mostly twitter related tips) and I don't wanna get into any details to coding with this blog, as I've my personal blog where I share some coding experiences.

This post will guide you to create (register) a Twitter App in just minutes.

The first thing you should do is to go to Twitter Dev - http://dev.twitter.com

If you have a twitter account (I'm sure you do), just sign in with it to twitter developers site.

Viola., You've created your developer account.

Now GoTo -> My Applications at the right corner of your account

In My Applications, obviously, you'll find nothing if you've not created any applications. ;)

So, create one by clicking on the "Create New App" button.


Follow the Instructions and enter the fields that are neccesary.

If you don't have a website, you can just add your localhost as your Website Address. But make sure you type
http://127.0.0.1/website 
Similarly when adding the callback url, make sure you add the localhost ip address, because it returns error if http://localhost/website/callback.php is entered.
Callback URL : http://127.0.0.1/website/callback.php
only if you don't have a server to host the application.

Once you click on the "Create Application" , twitter will generate some keys that you'll be needing when it comes to coding part.

The 4 needed part of the api applications are
Consumer Key 
Consumer Secret
Access Token
 Access Secret
You should be using them in integrating the app that you've created with your code to make it up and running with twitter.

An important thing to note down is that you can change your access level to the following.



Read - Can only read tweets, view user profile and login options
Read, Write - Can  both read and write (which means pretty much you can tweet , retweet, favorite tweets) etc.,
Read, Write and Direct Messages - Can read, write both statuses, direct messages.
To  know more about the Application Permission Model,->  https://dev.twitter.com/docs/application-permission-model 


And you can get user details, tweet status, retweet, favorite, do nifty things (not literally) with twitter api.

Now you can test your oauth connection with the test Oauth option at the top right side of your app.

To know more about the coding parts for the twitter integration with the app that you created just now., checkout my personal blog - vickythegme for the code pieces.

Let Us know your difficulties with creating a sample twitter app by following above.

Photo Credit : Flickr
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23 May 2014

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4 Tools to Tweet Longer Than 140 Characters


Twitter Users are increasing more and more day to day. When you start using twitter frequently you may want to use something that ll make it easy for you to tweet at times when you can't be online all the time.

 There comes the usage of twitter management tools which will help you manage your twitter accounts (even multiple accounts too with some cents spent). But then you want something that will let you tweet more than the tweet characters limit which is obviously 140 as you know it.

Basically, twitter is designed as a Short Messaging Service (SMS) and you can't blame for what it is. There are many third party tools, that make use of the twitter's API facility and are created to fullfil your reason to tweet longer tweets more than 140 characters.

 With that in mind, I am going to share some of the 4 tools that will let you tweet more than 140 characters.

Talltweets :


This is the one that comes to my mind when I first think about tweeting longer sentences more than the character limit. You may know it obviously, the make of this application., Yes, you guessed it., Amit Agarwal, a professional blogger from India. This tool is a simple one with you can tweet more than 140 characters in two forms.
  1. Tweet as text which will split the full lengthy tweet into chunks of tweets that apply the tweet character limit.
  2. Or tweet as an image which will create an image of the tweet message and send it to twitter as one media tweet which looks good by the way.

Twitlonger :


Twitlonger is one tweeting tool which attaches a link to your tweet and let the users view your tweet on twitlonger site.

Also you can reply to the tweet that you sent or any tweet that is sent from the site.

Twishort :


Twishort is another one tweeting tool where you can tweet longer than 140 characters with a link attached to your tweet. The users can view the full lengthy tweet when they click the link which will take you to view the lengthy tweet in your account at twishort.

One different feature other than the above tools is that it has also a facility to reply to any specifc tweet. All you have to do it to copy and paste the twitter url link for the tweet that  you wanna reply to.

You may also would like to use their twiage - an app to calculate the your twitter age. :)

JumboTweet


Jumbotweets is another platform to tweet longer than 140 characters to your twitter account.

This works the similar way as the other tools,. tweets the lengthy messages with a link attached to it at the end of each tweet.

It is used as a microblogging platform service where you tweet with a link and the users can view the full tweet in its website.

P.S : A new service from us LongerTwits has come out to tweet longer than 140 characters and more.

Currently we've Tweet as Text facility where your tweets are split into chunks of 120 characters each and sent to twitter.

Tweet as Image facility will let you tweet your lengthy messages in an image format. (Inspired by TallTweets).

Tweet as Link will let you tweet your messages by attaching a link at the end of your tweet which links to your complete text in our site.

Soon, we'll provide the option to save and collect your tweets (last 3200 tweets).

Stay Tuned with our posts and let us know your feedback in the comments.

Photo Credit : Creative Tools - Flickr
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22 Apr 2014

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How To Use Twitter Advanced Search


Use Twitter more for business purposes? New on Twitter? I've been there before what I call as a couple of years back.
Twitter Users are increasing day by day and by the time that you're reading this, hundreds of new users might have joined twitter with the intention of developing their business.

Later these days, twitter users are increasing more and more mainly because of the reason that it is a major social media to promote your business.

We've been writing tips to use twitter for quite a period now (you might wanna look into our posts on twitter tips) and realized the missing of twitter's advanced search.

 And not to mention, this post will let you know how to use twitter's advanced search feature and make it more useful for tweet searchers.

Use of Advanced Search :

As you know twitter's advanced search has more features added to it.

Advanced search has many options to search people or tweets on twitter like, search by Words, People, Places, Dates, and Other vibes.

You can search for tweet by date, people tweeted, place etc.,
Even typing nothing in the text boxes will result you with some search results that you might feel interesting to know. :)
You can also search tweets based on language too.
Advanced search in Twitter works when you search for anything on the search link https://twitter.com/search-advanced and you will get directed to the search results that usually comes when you search using the simple search bar at the top of your stream.

You may see the search query with some keywords in your simple search bar at the top which you've used in the advanced search option.
That means the search queries will work fine if you search them directly in the search bar that you always use to search.

Here are some of the tips that you can use the simple search bar as an advanced search option using operators.

All you need to do is to search using the operators column in the above image.
 Use the above technique to make your simple tweets search on twitter as an advanced one.

Conclusion:


Now try those similar search operators in your search bar and make use of the advanced search right where you tweet and let us know too.. :)

Photo Credit: Flickr- Rosaura Ochoa

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19 Jan 2014

// // 5 comments so far

How To Improve Your Blog Post URL For Better SEO

Improve Blog Post URL
Any blog post or any html page component on the internet has its own URL which is most preferrably accompanied with the DNS of the system. For better performance in terms of SEO, and in terms of looks, your URL needs to be perfect. If that is not the term, it has to be readable as well as understandable. When I said understandable, I meant it for the search engine algorithms which are changing from time to time. URLs need to be understandable for the search engines to get indexed easily and also for the best search results.

The url contributes a major part to the SEO and it speaks for the content inside it. The URLs should be apt for the content and it also suits the blog post or any page that you're gonna write on. Most importantly, for humans, internet searchers should guess what's inside when they see the url of the blog post or a page.

Now I'll tell you how to improve your blog post URL just doing some researches.

Bring In Words:

URLs need to be easily read for any user to click them and have a look.
For example, when you're writing a blog post like 4 Simple Tips to Increase Your Twitter Followers, you might think how you can give a better url to get listed. The words that are used in the title of the post are keywords and they are mainly responsible for getting listed in the search results of users.

Here tips, twitter, followers are the most searched keywords which you sure have to use it in your url. With the new keyword planner tool, you have to set up an account on Google Adwords which will suggest you al list of keywords if you search for it.

Make use of those keywords in your URL. You have to be sure that your URL should portray what the page or post should be about.
It is a good practice to write with a structure so that the users can navigate easily if they want to view other pages too. If you're using blogger platform, the blog post url must contain the year and the month followed by the keywords.
For example:

It is a good thing that it shows the posts that are written on the respective month and year.
It shows the users a structure of the blog and any users can navigate to other posts easily, If you're using wordpress, you can change the url as anything you wish and it is a good thing too where you can optimize your url with only main keywords, so that it looks short, clean and neat and easy to read.

Since I am using blogger, I can't change the structure of my url, where as I can just contribute to the usage of keywords in the my url which will do the rest.

Things to Avoid:

Avoid using lengthy urls where you can short urls with small lengthy texts (keywords) which in wordpress said to be slugs. Actually lengthy urls are not easy to remember  and most users might find it difficult to make a connection with it.

Avoid using default url generations because if you're using blogger, sometimes your url might generate something like page1.html etc., Sometime it takes the first line of the content if you don't provide a title and once it is created it can't be reset unless you open a new post, Even when a title is given it generates urls based on the titles which includes unwanted (not most important) words in it. 

It goes the same with the wordpress as well but you can edit them easily from time.

Easier Navigation URLs:

URLs need to be easier for any user to navigate throughout the blog. When a user enters your blog via the google search results, after reading the post completely and lets say, they want to navigate to another page.
Some users find it easy to just cut a part of the url and enter it at the address bar, to see the posts related to it.
Some blogs might have restricted the usage of typing urls on to the address bar. When a user enters the part of the url, it should return the related page, where if there's no related page, it should show a 404 page.
In this case, if your url is not structured well, and your users don't know it, it might lead to an error and still giving a bad impression to the user who is trying to find something on your blog. 

Write the urls that gives a pretty structure to your blog. Like I said earlier, the blogger urls have the year and month added with it and the keywords, wherein if any user just cuts the keywords from the url and just enters, it will show the posts that are written in the corresponding year and month.

For Wordpress, most of the urls that you see everyday contains only the slug keywords, that are accompanied to the url of the blog. Make use of the pretty permalinks nicely for easier navigation through your blog.

And this is a nice way where if the user takes off the keywords, it will direct the user to the main page.

Conclusion:

Whether you're using blogger or wordpress, its important for the users to know the structure of the url. By the structure, I mean, even if the user cuts keywords on the url and enter it on the address bar, it should return to the page where it meant to be.
 Like I said earlier, URLs speak for the content and it is a main part of the SEO. Make sure you use it for the bright future of your blog.

Image Credit: Flickr

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8 Jan 2014

// // 1 comment so far

How To Set Up Custom Domain in Blogger

Adding a custom domain to a blog is not at all a tough task to do if you've done already. You can add your custom domain to your blogger blog just by adding the domain that you purchased from Godaddy or any domain providers.
I purchased a domain today which is the current domain techlanes.com and I wanted to change my blogspot blogger to the custom domain which I did successfully.
I just found it quite easy though since I have already done with my another blog codedsack.com . I was wondering if I could write it in a blog post which would help other blogspot bloggers to run their blog with a custom domain name.
Those who don't know where to buy a domain so cheap , I would recommend you to use Godaddy.

First of all, when you buy a domain from Godaddy, you'll be provided the godaddy domain set up option once you login.
Now, we are going to add the custom domain to our blogger blog.

Step 1:   Reach out to the Settings -> Basic in your blogger and you'll find Blog Address under Publishing. 


Step 2: Now click on the Add a Custom Domain . You have to type in the custom domain that you purchased from Godaddy.

The main point to note here is that you when you type your custom domain, add prefix www to it.

For example : http://www.yourdomainname.com

It will now show two fields such as Name, Label or Host field and  Destination, Targets, and Points to field.

Step 3:  Now login to your godaddy account and launch your domain to edit the DNS zone file.


Before you'll have one A host and now you've to add the below IP Addresses below.
216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21


After adding the IP Addresses, you've to add the Host  and the target (Points To) field in the CNAME section.

That's it. You're done with your DNS Zone file in your Godaddy Account.

Step 5: Now Add the domain to your blogger blog.

While adding make sure you type www infront of the domain name and then click on the checkbox to redirect naked domain (yourdomainname.com) to regular domain (www.yourdomainname.com)

Hope that I explained it well for you to set up a custom domain to your blogger blog.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

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28 Nov 2013

// // 3 comments so far

Test Your Responsive Design on Mobile Devices

Responsive Websites are getting common these days and your day-to-day apps are changing themselves to a better responsive design, which makes me to say that Google + too have changed to be a responsive one.

Responsive design is a strategy to provide a web view that will change according to the devices you use. The design is mainly done with CSS3 Media Queries.

Developers mostly need to check out the design while designing a site whether it supports all devices. And mostly common people would like to check out the responsiveness of the design with respect to any device they use.

While hunting on the internet, I found a tool online that will help designers check the responsiveness, compatibility of a website on the way.
 I wanted to make sure that it is known to all those people who read my blog.

And that is MobileTest.me developed by Vangelis Bibakis. It is a place where you can test your mobile sites or web applications or any blog you'd wanna check for the responsiveness as well as the compatibility to use.

It is an easy one where any one can test with just the url and no need to create any account to use this function.


Just Go To mobiletest.me where you have to type the url at the top and hit enter. You can select the type of device you'd want to check your site by clicking the icon near the input box.

It has nearly most of the latest devices like iphone 5, HTC ONE, Lumia 920, Nexus 7 etc.,

And whats great is that you can test your localhost site too.

I've also found some other tools for testing the responsiveness of a website.

Some of the tools to check responsiveness of your website.

Responsinator, Responsive.isami.responsivedesign.is, Dimensionsapp, Responsive tool from MattkersleyResponsivetest.net etc., are some of other tools that will help you check your website.

If you've reached here, then share these tools with your friends and let them know about it too.

Conclusion:


Now why don't you check your responsive design and let me know about your website.

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25 Jun 2013

// // 2 comments so far

How to Use Pinterest Effectively To Gain More Traffic

Pinterest - a platform of Infographics and a media of pictures that rock the Internet World these days. Just like other platforms StumbleUpon, Instagram etc., it started as something and is now one of the top  social media. It is a social networking platform to enhance your social engagement with other fellow networkers.
Pinterest was first started in early 2010's and has got an amazing response from the users (mostly bloggers and SMB's) all over the world. And now it is listed as one of the top bookmarking tools by EbizMBA as of June 2013. As you know it as an infographic platform, you can  share (Pin It) images other than infographics too. Large amount of traffic can be produced to your blog or your business if it is used efficiently. Here in this post, I'll tell you some techniques to make it work for you and your business efficiently.

Just Like Other Social Networks:

Remember Pinterest is a social networking platform too.It also stands 4th in top social networking sites by EbizMBA.  First of all, don't think Pinterest is strange and uneasy to use. It is just like other social networks. Let me tell you how it differs from other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

 Facebook->Pinterest:
  • Sharing (Share) -> Pinning (Pin It)
  • Like ->Like
  • Pages -> Boards
  • Friends -> Followers
  • Comment -> Comment

Twitter -> Pinterest:
  •  Tweet -> Pin It
  • Retweet -> Pin It
  • Favorite -> Like
  • Reply To -> Comment a description
  • Followers -> Followers
  • Following -> Following
  • Lists -> Boards

Considering all the above controversies, it can be said as Pinterest is a combo of everything. Lets get into the things that you could make a fine use of it .

Pin It- The Top Notch:

Pin It- button is what makes the Pinterest works. When you pin it, it comes to your board(if board is already created). If you have no boards already, you need to create one and start pinning you images. The Board name should be exactly related to your blog's function. You may create as many boards as you like. For example: If your blog's niche is Social Media Marketing, then you may create your board like Social Media Marketing or Social Media Blogging or Social Media Infographics ( if you pin infographic images) based on your Genre. Use the Pin It button in your blog for the readers to pin your posts on their accounts too. The main thing to notice while pinning your posts is don't pin all your posts at a time. Pin only such posts that you believe could make the users view it on your website. If it's an infographic image, Pin It without any second thought coz it always costs you some visits.

Search On The Floor:

Search On Pinterest
  Search is an effective option to find what exactly you're looking for. You may find a common search on the top left side of your Pinterest Account. Pinterest allows you to search for keywords even if you don't have any account associated with it. That means you don't need an account to search for keywords. For example:, You search with the keyword Social Media Blogging. It shows a list of results and the results changes everytime you search again with the same keyword. It is updating its search as soon as a new entry is posted with the same keyword. This is the benefit of search option in Pinterest. You'll be getting new and fresh results everytime you search with the keyword. And you can also find the keywords that are mostly listed on the search results. This will help you analyze the keywords and use them when you pin your own posts. Remember the search is based on the title of the pin and  make sure you have the most searched keywords on your title to get listed on the search results.

Writing a Description:

Write a Mind Blowing Description
  Description is another main part of Pinning a Post to Pinterest. Only the title of a post is not enough to pin your image on Pinterest. Description is a must to pin your post. It has to be powerful enough to tempt anyone to read the full blog post. Lets say,  You're searching with a keyword. A list of results are displayed based on your search. So, what'll you do? You open a pin and view the image, first you'll see whether it has a description or not, just to get a vague idea  what the pinned image is about. If you don't see any description, you'll move forward to another pin. Well, If the description is nice and clear to understand, you'll read the full post on their blog. Likewise, every user will expect a description for any pin so that they could get an idea of what the pinned image is about. A description should be good enough that it should tempt the viewers to read the full post on your blog. It should describe the theme of the post that you're going to Pin It. Here are some tips to write a powerful description for Pinning an image.
  • Understand the whole theme of your post and write a sentence that covers the theme.
  • Write not more than one or two lines.
  • Don't copy the same lines from your post.
  • Finish your description line with a question or suggestion that tempt the reader to read your full post.

Here comes the Interaction:

Finally, it all comes to interaction. After everything you have done, interact with other Pinners very often to show off what you've pinned. Interact with the people related to your Genre, like, comment on their pins, repin their pins on your boards. Let them know what you're pinning. When the title and description are better even without a good image to pin, people would love to read the full post on your blog.

Conclusion:

With all the above, I guess I covered some techniques to use Pinterest effectively to gain traffic. Now, do post your ideas and suggestions below too for all the readers out there.

 Photo credit: ddatch54 via photopin cc
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5 Jun 2013

// // 75 comments so far

How to create Drop Down Menu for Blogger Blog


Drop Down Menu for Blogger blogs

 
 Tired of using the default menu features of the blogger blogs? Blogger allows you to use its default menu features according to the template you are currently using. There is no default navigation menu bar in blogger. I am using Blogger for more than a year and I have also tried creating a drop down menu bar on my blog too.

When I were using the blogger earlier days for my blogs, I tried creating and implementing the drop down menu css codes. Finally, I designed a drop down menu tab for my blog. Later on, I reminded myself today that I could make a blog post out of it and also it will help other people out there too.
The above is the sample design for the menu bar.
Here is the CSS Code for your blogger drop down menu.

 <style type="text/css">  
 #vicnav {  
 background:#CC0000;  
 border-bottom: 5px solid #993300;  
 border-top: 1px solid #e14d09;  
 clear: both;  
 overflow: hidden;  
 }  
 #vicnav ul {  
 float: left;  
 width: 100%;  
 }  
 #vicnav li {  
 float: left;  
 list-style-type: none;  
 }  
 #vicnav li a {  
 background:#CC0000;  
 color: #fff;  
 display: block;  
 font-size: 14px;  
 padding: 5px 17px 5px 15px;  
 position: relative;  
 text-decoration: none;  
 }  
 #vicnav li a:hover {  
 background:#990000;  
 color: #fff;  
 }  
 #vicnav li li a {  
 background: none;  
 background-color: #9c1a03;  
 border: 1px solid #990000;  
 border-top-width: 0;  
 color: #fff;  
 font-size: 14px;  
 padding: 5px 10px;  
 position: relative;  
 text-transform: none;  
 width: 130px;  
 }  
 #vicnav li li a:hover {  
 background: none;  
 background-color: #CC0000;  
 }  
 #vicnav li ul {  
 height: auto;  
 left: -9999px;  
 margin: 0 0 0 -1px;  
 position: absolute;  
 width: 160px;  
 z-index: 9999;  
 }  
 #vicnav li:hover ul {  
 left: auto;  
 }  
 </style>  

I have also attached the HTML sample code below for the CSS so that its easy to understand.

 <body>  
 <ul id="vicnav">  
 <li ><a href="#" >Home</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >Sub Menu Indicator</a>  
 <ul >  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 1</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 2</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 3</a></li>  
 </ul >  
 </li ><!--li close of Sub Menu Indicator-->  
 <li ><a href="#" >MenuTab 3</a>  
 <ul >  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 1</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 2</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >Wrap Menu 3</a></li>  
 </ul >  
 </li><!--li close of MenuTab3-->  
 <li ><a href="#" >MenuTab 4</a></li>  
 <li ><a href="#" >MenuTab 5</a></li>  
 </ul >  
 </body >  

The Above code will create a simple drop down menu with complete CSS effects.

The HTML code above needs nothing but the input link to the post or page that you want to. If you need to show the hover link or current link with different colors, you can change the color  in background: #color in any id and try it.

Let me know if you have any changes or difficulties that you find in the code or may be if any errors.

Also view our another drop down menu with circular menu lists drop down. Hope you might be interested in it as well.
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