Author Archives: Mitchell Espina

About Mitchell Espina

Mitchell Espina, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist from the Philippines.

Keyword Rank Checker Tool by SEOCentro

To check your keyword ranking position on major search engines like; Google, Yahoo! and Bing, and also get the advanced report including related keywords and spell check use Keyword Rank Checker Tool by SEOCentro.

Keyword Position Check
How are your keywords ranked by the search engines?

Keyword
Domain (example: www.host.com)


Please enter the access code as displayed above.
Access code



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Invalid Token (hack attempt) or Timeout on Pligg

How to Fix Invalid Token (hack attempt) or Timeout on Pligg

Here’s what to do when you encounter “Invalid token (hack attempt) or timeout. Go back, refresh that page and try again later.” error on Pligg when you try to edit the submitted story (title, description, or category).

Here’s what to do:

1. Open the “csrf.php” file that is located on your “libs” folder.
2. Find this code: $this->log(‘token: ‘ . $name . ‘ does not match: ‘ . $token);
return false;
3. Edit this code to: $this->log(‘token: ‘ . $name . ‘ does not match: ‘ . $token);
return true;

Here’s a print screen:

Invalid token (hack attempt) or timeout. Go back, refresh that page and try again later on Pligg

Notes:

1. You can’t find the csrf.php file if you are using the Template Editor on your Pligg admin.
2. You need to use an FTP Client to access the file.

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TPG Get Posts: Display the Latest Blog Post on Static WordPress Page

TPG Get Posts Plugin: Display the Latest Blog Post on a Static Page on WordPress

The WP template I’m currently using doesn’t have a feature to display the latest blog post on a static page. And I am thinking that it would be helpful if I could display my latest blog posts on the main page.

By the way, here’s how to set your static page:

1 – On the WP dashboard, look for the Settings, click Reading.
2 – There are 2 check buttons: Your latest posts (selected by default), and a Static page.

  • a – Front page: (this will be your main page)
  • b – Post page: (this will be the page for your blogs)

WP Static Page

Display the latest blog posts discussions

I’ve done a lot of research on how to add the latest blog post on a static page, and I’ve found a relevant discussion. You can read the discussions here, with the codes for displaying the latest blog posts on a static page. But I find it difficult to apply; other than that, one of the reasons is that what if I’m going to change my template, so does it mean that I will add codes again?

TPG Get Posts WP Plugin – is the answer

What I’ve found is a WP plug-in called TPG Get Posts. The TPG Get Posts plugin allows you to use a shortcode tag to add on a page and will display the list of blog posts just like the standard blog. The posts display can be selected by one or more tag values supported by the WP get_posts function, to let you control the displays on your page. See the list of support tag values here.

Here’s how to install

  • Upload the plugin to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory and unzip it.
  • Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

How to use the plugin

1 – To use it, open the page where you’d like to add the shortcode [ tpg_get_posts ] and just make sure that you selected the HTML editor.
By default it will display the latest 5 blog posts, but you can customize the display settings by using the supported get_posts template tags.

To learn more about the TPG Get Posts plugin, download link, screen shots and faqs, visit here.

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ManageWP Contest: Win $1000 for an Idea

That’s right guys! You have read the blog post title correctly, you can win $1000 just by submitting an idea.

ManageWP Contest: Win $1000 for an idea

{image source: click here}

How the ManageWP Competition works:

  1. first, you need to register a free ManageWP account.
  2. submit your suggestions via ManageWP dashboard. You are allowed to submit 3 ideas.
  3. the winner will be personally picked by Vladimir Prelovac, ManageWP founder.
  4. the winner will be posted on the ManageWP blog on the 13th of August.
  5. the winner will receive $1000 
  6. the competition will be open until midnight on Saturday 11th August.

Update: August 07, 2012 – I’ve already submitted 3 ideas, can’t wait to see the result.

To read more about the ManageWP competition, you can check out their official blog post here.

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How to stop Spam Comments in WordPress blog

Is it really possible to stop spam comments in your wordpress blog?

By the way, what are spam comments? A spam comment is one posted by an auto-comment-software or by an individual (doing blog commenting task to get backlinks) which automatically submits unrelated comments. And these type of comments may include links to other websites. {see image below: example of spam comments}

how to stop spam comments in wordpress blog

Here’s what I did to fight against these types of comments:

1) I have activated an option under settings – discussions: users must be registered and logged in to comment
2) I have activated the Akismet plugin.

I have already tried using reCAPTCHA in one of my personal blogs, but still spam comments can get through, maybe because the auto-comment-software they’re using can solve captcha.

I will update this blog post in a month time to see if the methods above are effective to fight against unwanted comments.

Oh! in addition, I have installed a “SEO Facebook Comment” so you can leave your comments using your facebook account. I just hope that this will not be abused. Should I think in advance on how to prevent “spam comments on Facebook”?

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How to get reviews on Google Places

Creative Ways to Get Reviews on Google Places

As you savvy marketers, gaining as many good quality reviews on your Google Places page is not only a good idea for converting prospective clients, but also helps with increasing your rank locally. Most customers won’t know to leave Google Places reviews, so it is your job as a business owner or marketer to actively promote and encourage customers to give honest reviews.

In this blog, we will look at creative ways to get the word out.

  • Loyal Customers: The first reviews are always the hardest to get, so why not start with the customers who frequent your business. Go out of your way to contact your top 10-15 customers and encourage them to leave a Google Places review. Many times just letting them know that you would appreciate their review is enough to get them to pop on and write something up.
  • Call-To-Actions (CTA): Give people a little kick in the butt to get on and leave a review. Start incorporating simple call to actions into your digital marketing strategy to encourage your customers to voice their review.
  • Email Newsletters: Having a call to action inside a newsletter is a great way to connect with customers and let them know you’d value their review. Additionally these are already qualified reviewers because they already like you enough to opt-in to your mailing list and they liked your email enough to open it.
  • Website: Place a call to action on your website to let visitors know you’d love their reviews. When first starting off, I would recommend placing the CTA in a more prominent spot such as a right column ad space. Once you’ve collected a handful of reviews, you could then move it to the contact us page or use text in the footer.
  • Table Cards: If you’re a business with a physical location, make a point to communicate to customers while they are in your business. Design a fun, creative table top cards or tents encouraging customers to leave a review on their smartphone (via QR code or link). You would be surprised how many customers will pop on to review while at your business.
  • QR Codes: For all of you who think QR codes are pointless, think again. QR codes work perfectly to link customers directly to your Google Places page to leave reviews. Take some time to review your business and find creative places to place the QR codes and CTA’s. This could be in your menu, on your receipts, printed on your packaging, on the exit door or even in crazier places like inside of bathroom stalls. (most people are on their phone in bathrooms anyways, let’s be honest)
  • Email Signature: If you’re like me, you send out hundreds of emails each day. Placing a CTA in your email signature can really get the word out that you value reviews. Additionally, if you can get the rest of your staff on-board, you could easily gain some reviews in a matter of a few days. Just keep in mind, everyone you’re communicating with could be a potential reviewer, so keep things professional and positive.
  • Social Media: You’ve worked so hard to build up a loyal and engaged social media audience, so why not leverage those people to help build reviews. Send out some posts with CTA’s asking people who have used your products or services to voice their opinion on what they received. Take it a step further and integrate a CTA into the branding of your social media page from the background, profile picture and/or cover photo.
  • Automated Email / Mail Follow Ups: Anytime you’re able to collect information from a customer, you should always have some good way to follow up and continue engaging that person. Many businesses have some sort of automated emailing or postal mailing that is sent to people once they convert into a subscriber. This again is a good place to include a CTA to leave a review because they are engaged enough to sign up with your business, they probably are engaged enough to leave a review.
  • Add on to Loyalty Cards: Many businesses are smart enough to give out punch or loyalty cards to their customers. Typically the customers who use these cards are patrons and visit the business a lot. Perfect! These are the types of customers we’d like to have reviewing our Google Places page. Put a CTA on your loyalty cards about leaving a review and make it a point to have your staff mention that you’d love them to leave a review.
  • Incorporate Into All Your Marketing Efforts: Chances are you’re doing all kinds of different marketing efforts in your marketing strategy from print ads to maybe bus wraps. No matter what or where you’re advertising, find creative ways to ask people to visit your Google Places page and either leave a review or read the reviews you have posting. Again, is huge in building your credibility with potential customers.

At a seminar on the topic someone asked, “Can I place a computer at my business and encourage users to leave reviews on the spot”. Well this is a great idea because they are honest customer reviews and would probably have a good conversion rate for customers to leave reviews, but the problem is all the reviews would be coming from the same IP address which is a red flag from Google. So unfortunately, that technique would not work.

If someone posts a negative review, keep your head on and simply reply to them as the business owner in a professional and polite way. I always encourage offering something to unhappy customers to help ease any hard feelings. Even if you can’t win the angry customer back, others reading the review will see the response and it will help win back your credibility.

It’s important for you to keep your “white hat” marketing hat on and never buy or create fake reviews. Chances are Google will find out and remove the reviews and penalize your listing. Take your time while collecting reviews and focus on getting honest, real reviews. It’s not going to be an over-night endeavor and in many cases can take 6-12 months to collect a descent number of reviews. Also, although Google Places is probably the biggest and most important, make sure you take some time to collect reviews on some of the other major directories (yahoo, bing, yelp, citysearch, etc). These often times are pulled into your Google Places page anyways.

If you have any good ideas on how to gain more Google Places reviews, please post in the comments, we’d love to hear.

This article is originally published at web.savvypanda.com, written by Gabriel Wahhab on Thu, May 31, 2012 @ 02:47 PM

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