What an awesome day!

I just did a quick upload of my slides to SlideShare.  Here’s the link for now.  (I plan to go back and make it faster, at which point the URL may change.)

http://www.slideshare.net/happywebdiva/search-engine-optimize-for-wordpress-in-3-easy-steps

I hope to see you at the Nashville SEO Meetup soon!

Geek on,
Anna Belle

Beginner

• Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide – Google
  32 page easy-to-read beginner roadmap PDF
• How to Write Magnetic Headlines – Copyblogger
• Why Content
  for SEO? Great infographic
• Google Places

Intermediate

• Google’s Tips on Hiring an SEO
• Googles “Quality
  Guidelines” For webmasters
• Google
  on “Google-friendly Sites”
  Fairly advanced, covering things such as rich snippets
• Beginning WordPress 3 by Stephanie Leary
  $24.87 at Amazon (or 17.60 Kindle)
• The Definitive Guide
  To Higher Rankings For WordPress Sites
• How to Install and Setup WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast
  Best tutorial I’ve found for WP SEO by Yoast (though a bit dated)
• How To Take Your Keyword Research To A Higher Level
• WordPress Theme Malware Prevention and Protection
• The Periodic Table Of SEO
  Ranking Factors Excellent overview from Search Engine Land, June 2011

 Advanced

• Search Engine Ranking Factors
  SEOmoz’s biannual big picture analysis
  Last updated 2011
• Vaughn’s Summaries: SEO Optimization Google Summaries
• Schema.org
  Cooperative venture of Bing, Google and others developing standards web developers can use structure data for search engines

Resources to Subscribe To

• Danny Sullivan and Search Engine Land
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• ComScore (the Web’s report card)
• Sucuri Research Blog (reports on WP security attacks)

An Assortment of Tools

• WordPress Theme Unit Test
• Open Site Explorer
  (Tool for Backlinks and Link Popularity, including Social data)
• Majestic SEO (Backlink Tool)
• Lynx for Mac

It all began with a server migration and improving the way 404s were rendered.  While poking around the Web, I happened across a promising Google Analytics tip on tracking these evasive creatures.  So I captured the code, pasted it in, and a day later looked at the results.

Nada.  I then looked at the code more closely and realized it was the old format, which one usually puts in the footer.  No problem. But a day later still nothing.

Now it was a challenge and I was determined.  I found one blog post using newer code format, but one part of the JavaScript looked off.  Given that I’m no JS ninja, I tried it.  It turned out to be a step in the right direction, but sure enough — that one bit of JS was indeed off.  All of the results were the same. “404.html?p=/page_not_found_uri/”.

More scrambling…. and somewhere along the way, buried in a forum as I recall, I found some code that looked right.  Jackpot.  Now when I check our Google Analytics Top Content and enter /404.html in the page filter at the bottom I get a lovely tidy list of 404s, including their source.

To save others who might be on the same quest, here’s the code to use in your 404 html pages.  Just replace “UA-xxxxxxx-x” with your account number.  Then get out your virtual feather duster and start cleaning out those cobwebs.

<script type="text/javascript">
google.load("jquery", "1.4.2");
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxx-x']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
(function() {
var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>


In other words, I’m learning how to develop apps for Google Android and Apple iPhone.  Then in the spring semester, I’ll be doing it with a large group of incredibly smart and enthusiastic Vanderbilt engineers.  Can you see how this might grab my attention?

It’s no secret: the future is all about mobile.  And these young engineers, many about to graduate into what I have no doubt will be brilliant careers, know it.  They already have teams and team leaders for projects ranging from Android Dining to iPhone Augmented Reality.

Then there’s me.  I haven’t taken a class in approximately 200 years, and when I did it was oh-so-genteel – library science.  I had to work up the nerve to ask the professors, but once I did, oh my goodness.  They and the student leaders have been so very welcoming.

I’m a far cry from the normal demographic.  Not only am I female, I’ve got gray hair.  But repeatedly they’ve made it clear they’re happy for me to join in their fun.  It’s been markedly different from the stereotypical female-in-IT-land experience.  And this in the hottest area of technology.  All I can say is – wow.

So here is to Professors Jules White and Doug Schmidt, Vanderbilt Computer Society President Hamilton Turner, and all of the Vandy Mobile Teams.  You all are amazing.  I can’t wait for January.

A  joint Labor Day and Wedding Anniversary celebration.

Today is not only Labor Day, a holiday in the U.S., but it’s also our wedding anniversary.  Mr. WebDiva and I have been married an inordinate number of years.  What better way to celebrate than to learn Java?

How did this come to be, you might ask?  Well… it started ten days ago upon attending an excellent Web Spiders session.  The session featured two Vanderbilt School of Engineering faculty and several students, including the President of the Vanderbilt Computer Association, demonstrating applications they’ve developed for Android and the iPhone.

My question….  With my knowledge of PHP, MySQL, plus some ancient underpinnings for Fortran and PL/I (learned back in the punch card era, no less), was I a good candidate for developing my own mobile phone apps?  Answer: yes, definitely.  What to learn next?  Answer: Java for Android.  (The other option, Objective-C for iPhone, didn’t appeal as much.)

So that’s how it all began.  Next steps have been….

1. Buy a great Java book.

After browsing Amazon’s virtual shelves, I decided on Head First Java, 2nd. ed.  I love this book, but this morning, now several chapters into it,  I concluded it’s more theoretical than hands on. (Duh. The title says it all.)  For learning code, I need some hands on. My grand plan is to go back and forth.

2. Search the Web for tutorials about learning Java on a Mac.

The good news: Java is native to Mac OS X.  Figuring out what package to download and install isn’t necessary.

The bad news: there’s almost nothing out there when you search intro Java/Mac tutorials on Google and Bing. (Actually I’m using Bingle, but that’s another story.)  All you can find is that eye-crossing stuff for people who already know everything there is to know on the topic.

3. YouTube, however, has a few adequate tutorials.

Eureka!

I started with the silent, but simple and to the point, You [sic] first java on OSX.  Then it was on to the more thorough, with voice, Compile and run java on Mac via Terminal.  Between these two I had my first Java program running from Terminal in no time.  Then one of those wonderful, serendipitous links that YouTube is so good at, led to the start of an excellent series: Java Tutorial #1 – Hello World.

4. A Java development environment?

The first thing you learn in “Java Tutorial #1 – Hello World” is that not only does the author use and recommend the Eclipse development environment, but also Eclipse is available for Macs.  Dandy.  I go to download it, but there are not one but two versions of Eclipse for the Mac: Carbon and Cocoa.    What’s a diva to do?

5. Carbon vs. Cocoa Eclipse?

Back to Google and Bing, but, once again, there’s not much out there.  My brain is turning to glue. I’m reading through obscure articles on Mac flavors of Eclipse, learning such things as the word “Galileo” is somehow part of it, when Mr. WebDiva announces lunch.  In honor of our anniversary, my wonderful, amazing better half has made a chocolate babka! Be still my heart. The answer to my latest dilemma is now obvious: download the Cocoa version, while eating seconds of babka.

Put these five steps together, and I’ve now programmed four more simple (and silly) little Java apps in Eclipse.  Who could ask for a nicer Labor Day and Anniversary?

So here they are:

• 800 x 600
• 1024 x 768
• 1280 x 800
• 1280 x 960
• 1280 x 1024
• 1440 x 900
• 1600 x 1200
• 1680 x 1050
• 1920 x 1200
• iPhone

Enjoy!

And go check out the Facebook site.

Unlike like most UU websites, these are both somewhat attractive and attempt to use the new media, with hat tips to blogging, YouTube and even Facebook.  But the bar for candidates on the Web was set by Obama some time ago, and by this measure they both fall far short.

First, I’ll run through three quick and simple changes both could make to their sites, and then I’ll get to the more serious issues.

Quick Fixes

1. Stop the non-stop slideshows on the home pages. Most web users dislike endless animations.  The photos on both sites are fine, but I’d strongly recommend adding a stop command after about three or four photos.  Then I’d switch some or all of the photos out every few weeks.

2. Improve the contact forms. Hallman has a good big “Contact” button in her main menu, but the text box for actual comments is very small, suggesting she doesn’t really want to hear much from you.  Moreover, when you fill it out, you don’t get clear acknowledgement that your message has been received.  Morales has a “Contact us” email in the footer of all pages.  The footer is where people will often look, so that’s good, but it’s in a small font, suggesting they too would just as soon not hear from you either.  That said, the Morales campaign replied promptly when my church used this email recently.

3. Shrink the photos of the candidates. Did you ever notice how small the photos of Obama and Biden were on their site during the campaign?  At first I was surprised, and then realized it was brilliant.  It meant the focus of the site wasn’t really Obama – it was you, the site visitor, the person who might vote or donate.  Plus it made room for other content in that prime real estate.  On UU campaign sites, what do the visitors most want and need to see?  Clear position statements are essential, and both have that, but might it not also be comfort and hope?  Might it not be ministry?

A Shift in Understanding

Those are the easy things to talk about.  The hard part, of course, is what’s more important.  To oversimplify, neither candidate really knows how to use Web 2.0, in particular social media.  They both talk growth, but they aren’t communicating effectively to the base that swelled Obama’s ranks – the younger generations.  And it’s not just the 20 and 30-somethings they are missing.  It’s anyone who gets the Web.

UUs can be proud that our faith attracts the technoscenti in unusually large numbers.  But that said, do we live up to it?  We can attract such people sometimes, but can we engage them?  Neither of these candidates does – yet.  The funny thing is, nor should they.  I learned long ago that there is, roughly speaking, an inverse correlation between first-rate ministry and technological-know-how.

Rather, what they need is to find someone they each can trust in this arena – and work with that person.  I would advise both candidates to put a technological visionary on their team and turn not just this aspect of their campaign over to him or her, but once elected, be sure to channel that vision into the denomination.  UUism needs it.  Desperately.   To quote a recent (and excellent) presentation I went to, “The Internet is Our Parish.”

Here are some Web 2.0 things I hope for.

• A UU podcast that speaks to me.  I don’t mean yet another sermon-cast.  Ho hum.   That’s trying to mold the ‘net to old faith models rather than molding faith to the new models.  All I’m asking for is a five minute podcast, perhaps every-other-day, with a meditation or thought for the day.  We have roughly a bazillion brilliant orators in UUism.  Can’t one of them do this?
• Twitter feeds from UU leadership.
• Targeted, informative, ministerial email newsletters that are easy to subscribe to.
• Websites that collect feedback in meaningful ways and build new, virtual UU communities.
• And of course, the Obama signature technology — highly selective blast texting — at just the right moment.

Were I to see such things I would know the future for my faith is bright.

So who is my modern-day tech heroine? To quote the Ada Lovelace Day website: “Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones.” But my field, web development, is so new. There’s hardly been time for any role models, let alone female ones.

My best support comes from a group named…. Can you guess…. The Lovelacians. They are, collectively and individually, my heroines. In alphabetical order, they are:

• Donna, a true web leader with a vision;
• Gill, the best web designer maybe on the planet — certainly in my universe;
• Heather, a super sys admin, who can actually explain her trade so that people like me can understand;
• Judy, my fellow jack-of-all-web-trades, savvy business woman and podcast co-hostess-with-the-mostest;
• Kim, the amazing Drupal Ninja biker chick.

I may not have a classic role model, but who needs one with wonderful, talented and generous friends like these?

And I’m wearing blue for the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, especially its amazing staff.  Every day I see them in action — so many people in so many ways dedicated to overcoming and reducing the suffering of cancer.

Check out, for example, the Jim Ayers Institute, where they are establishing tests to detect cancers at the very earliest stages.  Can you imagine spotting colon cancer with a blood test?  They’re working on it, and using technology to do it.  Bet they’re wearing blue today too.

Needless to say, while delighted to learn he was blogging, I was put out with his software choice.  Blogger.  Not only am I a die-hard fan of WordPress (having experimented with a number of platforms, including Blogger), I associate Blogger with spam.  But he, ever logical, pointed out that Blogger makes it simple to work with his photo platform of choice, Picasa.  Score one for Blogger; score much more than that for the blogosphere.