If you’ve ever come across a web site that you wanted to write about you know how difficult it can be to keep referring back and forth between the site and the posting page of your blogging software of choice. If you use Firefox, blogging from a web browser is as easy as ever once you install the ScribeFire extension.

ScribeFire opens a publishing window from within your browser that allows you to blog while viewing a web page therefore not requiring you to go back and forth between browser windows while posting. Features include both WYSIWYG and HTML coding options, drag and dropping of formatted text from pages you are browsing, easy image uploading and insertion and it supports all major blogging platforms including Blogger and Wordpress.com. If you run multiple blogs, ScribeFire allows you to setup accounts for each and includes easy bookmarking to your del.icio.us account and Technorati tag insertion from within the posting window.

Once you use it you’ll wonder how you got by without it. You can download and install the extension here and if for some reason you have yet to join the Firefox revolution, you should try it now as well.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

I just had to drop another quick comment about a submission I received today. As you might imagine I get a lot of weird, funny, and often times ridiculous sites submitted that somehow expect to make the cut for inclusion in the directory. Each morning I weed through the obvious MFA (made for adsense) sites, the sites that somehow missed the fact that this is a blog only directory, and those that think keyword spamming will somehow endear them to me.

Then you have sites like I had this morning.

Now I am not going to discuss the merits of hiring an SEO firm to help you get better search engine placement, that is your personal choice. What I am going to comment on though is the SEO tactics used by this SEO blogger.

I have been running websites in one form or another since 2000. And while I am in no way an expert on search engine optimization, I do know enough to understand a few basic techniques that almost all reputable SEO firms agree on. If you choose to use directories as part of your SEO and marketing campaign, make sure your submissions use relevant titles and descriptions. Looking at the submission above, would you even consider going to this individual’s site for SEO tips?

This submission gives me another opportunity to harp on those that submit here and any other directory for that matter. Most directories worth submitting to give you space for a nice 2-3 keyword rich (but not spammy) title and several hundred characters to use to describe your site/blog. Use them!

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

With Valentines Day fast approaching I thought I would use the holiday to inaugurate the free template listings that the SuperBlog Directory blog will be providing going forward. If you are a template designer for any of the various blogging platforms out there and have a totally free template you would like me to promote, you can use my contact form to request that it be listed.

To start things off I have come across this free Valentines Day themed Wordpress Template dubbed “Pink White Valentine” with loads of pink to go around. The designer states that it is compatible with Wordpress 2.2 and higher, is widget ready, and is valid XHTML and CSS.

Live demo | Download

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

You’ve got your brand spankin’ new blog, a great template, and you’ve added loads of great posts. So why isn’t anyone commenting? While not necessarily a gauge of how you are doing, in fact some turn comments off completely, getting people to comment on your posts is a goal of many bloggers.

So now that we’ve determined that many bloggers want people to comment, how is that goal reached? Besides the obvious of writing helpful thought provoking or controversial posts, giving potential commenter’s an incentive is the next best option. With that in mind, I found a plugin for Wordpress does just that.

NoFollow Free allows you to remove the “nofollow” tag that normally accompanies links in user comments which in turn gives those who want to leave comments an incentive to do so, a search engine friendly link or links back to their own site. While this type of plugin is not new, NoFollow Free is a good choice because of the various options it gives you when setting it up with various user selectable situations including but not limited to:

- replacing nofollow on author/text link
- replacing nofollow on registered author/text link
- replacing nofollow only if the visitor or the registered users had X previous comments
- putting back the nofollow if user defined blacklist words are matched

It also comes with an image band that you can place in your header to proclaim to your visitors that your comments are now “NoFollow Free” because what good is this plugin if nobody knows you use it right? Give it a try, I am.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

While not necessary in order to use the service, StatCounter has announced a new Wordpress plugin that makes adding the required code for their web counter even easier. Before the plugin, adding the needed code required at least some knowledge of web programming and access to some kind of HTML editor. Now all you need is a free StatCounter account and a way to upload the plugin to your Wordpress installation.

Complete details on how to get the plugin and even a procedure to add StatCounter for those using Wordpress.com’s hosting service can be found on the StatCounter blog.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

If you have run a blog for more than 5 minutes you have been made aware of just how bad the comment spammers can be. My one main blog averages 50-75 a day. Fortunately, Wordpress comes with a pretty good spam tool pre-installed called Akismet. While it is an excellent tool that I have found catches 99% of the spam on my site, you still need to weed through the spam wasteland the Akismet leaves behind to make sure that nothing got caught that shouldn’t have or at a minimum to delete the various Viagra and porn comments from your queue. Enter a fairly new tool that takes care of the aforementioned problem.

WP-SpamFree aims to prevent the major source of comment spam from even getting to your site, the automated spambots. The author of WP-SpamFree knew from experience that the majority of these spambots couldn’t handle cookies or javascript so he came up with a seamless way to take advantage of that weakness by making the comment procedure include these 2 features that most human web browsers have activated by default.

WP-SpamFree isn’t designed to take the place of Akismet as even the plugin author admits that while less than 1% of spambots can handle javascript, some indeed do and either way trackback spam is a completely different animal which bypasses the comment form altogether. Because of that he recommends you use it along with Akismet to catch virtually all Spam from the spambots and so far from my unscientific testing, it works like a champ.

As I said earlier, my primary blog averages 50-75 spam comments a day, well over 15,000 to date. So far in the 3 days I have had the plugin installed, Akismet has had to catch nothing, 3 days without a single spam comment. Of course spammers are a crafty lot and I am sure they will find a way to circumvent this plugin, especially if it becomes popular. Until then though, adding this to Akismet on your Wordpress blog is a 1-2 spam prevention punch that is hard to beat.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Lately I have become more and more diligent in enforcing certain submission requirements to the dismay of some that have been submitting. Despite what some might think, I am not having a bad day nor am I picking on anyone. With the recent crackdown by Google on directories, owners have had to become something more than just a place that provides webmasters with links or they face becoming irrelevant due to the dreaded Google penalty.

So what exactly does that mean? For one directories need to provide something useful for real users, and by that I mean those other than webmasters or bloggers. Before the latest Google “wild hair”, most directories rarely if ever provided a resource for the general browsing public. Webmasters submitted their sites and if they get some link juice from the directory they were happy, any visits received from a directory was a bonus that was normally not expected and rarely happened. The better directories have come to this realization and are now trying to be more than just a link farm.

What does that mean to those submitting here? As has been noticed by some, I am moving towards the DMOZ model of submission reviews. If you stuff your site title or description with keywords, you can guarantee it will be rejected immediately. Site descriptions must actually describe what your site is about, if by reading your description I am unable to determine what your blog discusses, It will be rejected.

Even given a good description and title, ensure you have some posting history. Nothing is more annoying to those looking for types of blogs than finding out about it here and clicking through to a dead link or going to a blog that hasn’t been updated since the Reagan administration. I have received a lot of complaints about that requirement but proving to me that you are serious about your blog by showing some history of updating it means that it will be less likely to turn into a dead link later on. That is also shown by those newer bloggers willing to submit as a featured listing which is why that requirement is waved for premium submitters. Lastly pick the most relevant category. Site users go to a category to find blogs that are relevant to what they are looking for, not for sites submitted to a category because it has page rank or is closer to the home page. Depending on my mood, sites submitted to the wrong category can also be rejected.

Finally I thought I would close with a comment on the benefit of upgrading to a featured listing. Besides the obvious of putting your site above all regular listings and the extra exposure generated by appearing randomly on our home page you also can submit your RSS feed. This feature gives your listing links to 5 more pages on your site along with the text from the article being linked to. As this site has matured, A much larger portion of the visitors are coming directly to the detail pages from search engines because of those post links. They then click through to your blog which if you think about it is what directories were supposed to do in the first place, get visitors to come to your site.

If all you are looking for is a link, feel free to submit your keyword spammed submission to the various directories. I am sure some if not many will accept them. If you want more, spend some time on your submission and write a description and title that would benefit someone looking to find what you offer. Those submissions are welcomed here.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites