Big Foot Web Marketing

I went through about 6 or 7 different FireFox extensions before I found one that did what it said it would do and worked consistently and didn’t make me jump through hoops to upload or above a photo.
I settled on simple but powerful Firefox add-on to use with Flickr for photo management. Fireflix.

It works as a sidebar- so when you install in order to access it you need to go to view->sidebar . Took about 30 seconds to set up with my Flickr account.

One of the things I loved most about the add-on is when surfing I can drag images to the sidebar and upload in batches to my Flickr account.
I found Fireflix to work very fast and a breeze to use. I think it is one of the best Firefox extensions available to use with Flickr and I have tried quite a few.

I have also used Picnik to edit and then send to Flick but this saves a step if image requires no editing.

A word of caution about using Flickr in your blog. When you upload an image an give it a “title” in the wordpress image upload, you are giving it alt tags. From an SEO point of view these are important- they can be used for keywords. Think of them as anchor text for images. When using Flickr you are in effect linking out to Flickr with keywords instead using those keywords to pint your own site.
For this reason i would avoid using Flickr as your primary source and host for your images. Whenever possible host your own images.
Wordpress image uploader and manager is AWFUL – especially the new flash version in wordpress 2.5 so it is tempting to got to a third party host.
A hassle- but I host my own images AND upload some of them to Flickr as well using Flickr for the social media advantages rather than as my image host.

As far as I know I have not seen a similar add-on to use with Internet Explorer. If you know f one let me know and I will post.

Install Fireflix Firefox Add-on for Flickr Photo Management

Tags: Tuesday's Tool by Lisa Stewart
2 Comments »

I quite like the Daily Top 10 Posts Plugin. I find it quite useful to take a quick peel at what posts are doing very well or breaking out. The plugin keeps track of post page views in a 24 hours day stating at midnight.

You can display post count for all to see as well as place code in sidebar or widget to show the top 10 posts. I don’t do this and set the daily top 10 post to “noshow” in the snippet of code in readme file for the plugin.

You can view your “top 10 posts” in the dashboard it will list them in descending order as well as give you view count.

I have found it useful on a couple of high traffic sites to show more than my top 10 posts using the Daily Top Ten plugin and set it to show me the top 50 but you can set for any number quite easily.

How To Increase Number of Posts to Show Using Daily Top Ten Plugin

Go into the the plugin to edit. Find two snippets of cod that define the number of posts to display:

The first set of code displays the numebr of posts in your dashboard:
$widgets = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * from $table_name inner join $table_posts on $table_posts.ID=$table_name.postnum WHERE time = '$nowisnow' and postcount > 0 and post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY postcount DESC LIMIT 10");
and change the DESC LIMIT 10 to DESC LIMIT 25
or whatever number you like.

Find the next snippet and do same:
Thsi snippet dispalys posts on your site for all to see .
$widgets = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * from $table_name_all inner join $table_posts on $table_posts.ID=$table_name_all.postnum WHERE postcount > 0 and post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY postcount DESC LIMIT 10");

Change the DESC LIMIT 10 to DESC LIMIT 25 ( or number you choose)

When you go to you dashboard you should see your new top 25 (or 50, etc) listed.

You can also reduce the number of posts to display with Daily Top 10 plugin. You may only want to show you top 3 or 5 posts to visitors in your sidebar. Just change the second number to the value you want to display in sidebar.

Why would knowing your top posts be useful to you?
Take your top 10 posts an expand on the idea. If your page one best brownie recipes is ding well try best squares or best cookies.
If you are aware of what people are looking for then you can use this information to expand your blog and your traffic/readership.

Tags: SEO Tools, WordPress Plugins by Lisa Stewart
4 Comments »

I am addicted to colour. I worked as a floral designer for several years and working with colour and interesting colour combinations was one of my favourite aspects of design. I still work with color as an artist and I can tinker with web palettes for hours.
I spend WAY too much time at Colours Lover’s colour community.

You can use the tools at Colour Lover’s colour community to create a new color palette for your web site or blog. Use any image or create your own color swatches and import into Photoshop or just copy the html hex code.

On the site you can browse through huge archive or search by color. One of the best features is its “inspiration tool” where you can use any image- it will extract colour swatches from the image. You can then create a palette of 5 colours and save in many formats- photoshop ASE files, Photoshop swatch, GIMP, etc ans well as getting plain hex code for html.
Here is an example- one of my favourite paintings by Frederick Leighton:

Using the image it serves up many colour swatches:

Then you can create a palettes to share or save:
and use in your photo editing program or just use the hex to pop into CSS and change your colour scheme. I wrote about how easy it is to give your site a fresh look by changing color in CSS of your theme a couple of months ago- take a look if you want to change your blogs quickly or if you are limited by skill

All who know me know of my battles to conquer Photoshop- and maybe there is an easier way- but I will also do a screen capture
of the swatch and open in photoshop then use eyedropper tool to figure out the html Hex code for a colour.

At any rate- the tool is great for inspiration when you are trying come up with new colours to make your web site or blog stand out. I use the css that came with the theme I am using on this blog, Networker because it works but I may get around to changing when I have free time.

I really like Courtney Tuttle’s re-design of Modern paper Keyword Sniper theme for WordPress and may change to that in coming weeks and play with colour.

Tags: Tuesday's Tool by Lisa Stewart
3 Comments »

Announced today, The Apple iPhone 3gG will be released July 11, 2008.

Huge price drop down to 199.00 for 8g version and 299 for 16g. Will will be available in classic white or new glossy black.
The new phone will be feature loaded:
GPS
Faster data speeds of 2.8x
Longer talk time. 8-10 hours
Normal headphone jack – you can use any headphone with it now.

More info on apple site.

Tags: Internet Marketing and Blogs by Lisa Stewart
3 Comments »