RockinSEO.com – A Free Keyword Tracking SEO Tool
A while ago I wrote about a cool project that allows users to check how their blogs and websites stack against their competitors, Review My Web. Today, I’d like to present you with another free (and so useful) tool, from the same developer: RockinSEO.com.
Free Keyword Tracker
Yes, that’s what you get with RockinSEO. You get to track your website’s results in Google, Yahoo and the recently released Bing for up to 20 keywords, for free. More than that, for the same keywords you can compare your results with those of up to 3 competitor websites or blogs.
The results are easy to read and interpret as you can see in the following screenshots:
Track search engine keyword position
Click here to read the full blog post!
My Take on the WordPress Themes & the GPL License
There’s a huge hype these days around WordPress and the (infamous?) GPL license. Out of the “big guys”, first Brian Gardner of StudioPress (ex-Revolution) decided to distribute his themes as GPL. Later, iThemes followed, and now it’s time for WooThemes to adopt the license.
The discussion around this always seems to evolve into “open source” versus “author protection”. As Alex King pointed out in one of his posts, theme authors should be aware of what the GPL license exposes them too, while it provides freedom for basically everyone else.
I’m not by any means against freedom and open source. I’ve been preaching about the power of WordPress and the wonder that it is, but what I love more is to see a protection system for those authors that make a living out of releasing quality themes and plugins for WordPress. Somewhere along the way, in our quest for “freedom” we forgot how hard it is to earn our living, how hard it is to learn the things we now use to feed our families.
With all the respect I have for Brian, Adii and Alex who have been more than an inspiration for so many people and their contributions to the world of WordPress changed our lives, I fail to see how this sudden change of heart (or maybe “dictated” by Matt Mullenweg’s recent reactions) will help other developers.
The problem does not reside in the GPL license, but rather in the fact that by using WordPress you have to also release your “products” under this license. In theory the GPL license is an amazing thing that allows people to improve and build upon other people’s work, and thus contributing to the development of a bigger, better product, free or paid.
Click here to read the full blog post!
A Look Into the WordPress Themes’ Options Pages
For a long while the option panels where something that people could only find in premium (commercial) themes, and for a good reason. The pricing of their licenses allowed the premium theme developers to invest more time in giving theme users the ways to do through these panels what they could not do through coding.
With the buzz created around these themes, regular users became aware of what could really be achieved, and thus, those that could not afford the license of a premium theme, became more selective with the free ones. A good-looking theme was not enough anymore, and WordPress developers realized it.
A good premium theme would bring its developer not only a good amount of money, but also recognition in the community, and this is where the free theme developers scored their biggest points. Now that their “turf” was endangered they had to react, and they did. For premium themes like Thesis or WP Unlimited, users have now alternatives like Thematic, Hybrid, Carrington, WP Framework or my own (even if not a framework) Simple Balance.
Why should free theme developers consider adding an options page?
Because being “cool” is just not enough anymore. Theme developers need to learn how to be useful. Free stuff can be either useless and ignored or useful and praised. I’m yet to see the developer offering a free theme without gaining something from it, be it awareness, expertise, backlinks, donation money, you name it! But none of these are achieved through an uncompetitive – even if free – product.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Use Any Font on Your WordPress Blog with AnyFont WordPress Plugin
Recently I came across a relatively young WordPress plugin that allow WordPress users and designers to use basically any TrueType font you have on your computer on your WordPress blog, replacing post titles, widget titles, links and so on with automatically generated SEO-smart images using your desired font. The plugin is called AnyFont and it has been developed by Ryan Peel
The generated images have a very good level of clarity, way better than the classic SWF replacement and the plugin is really easy to administrate and customize.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Need help with Simple Balance? Ask away!
In the months past I’ve received a lot of messages, comments and emails, each asking something about Simple Balance. To some I have answered, to others I couldn’t, due to various reasons (mostly time).
Please understand that the simple fact that I released this theme for free is a “support” action itself, and most times, my daily activities do not allow me to help everybody in their quest to customize this theme the way they want to. That would mean to cut time from my clients’ projects to offer support for this free theme. I am sure that you can understand this situation.
That’s why, for a limited period of time, I’ll check out this post daily and try to answer any question you might have, be it design or source code related, as long as it is about Simple Balance. If you have previously asked the same thing on another topic, or sent a mail and did not get an answer, please ask again here so that I can answer your questions.
So… fire away!
PS: Some questions could already be answered in these posts:
Thesis 1.5 – A Premium Theme Worth Every Penny
Let me start off by saying that I’m not easily impressed by the huge number of “premium WordPress themes” out there. Sure, some of them are really good looking, but in terms of customization, most lack that something that would make me say: “OK, this one I can easily adjust to my needs!”
It seems that almost every premium theme out there focuses to much on delivering a top-notch design, that would make it hard to non design-savvy people to tweak to their own liking. This is where the new Thesis 1.5 theme makes a huge difference.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Free WordPress Themes Watch: Empty Canvas
My friend Adrian Diaconescu has released a new free WordPress theme called Empty Canvas. Those familiar with his previous theme, Corporate Sandbox will observe the similarities between these two themes, but as Adrian says: “[...] don’t download this theme and expect the Mona Lisa. It’s only a simple theme, that does wonders for me.”
Click here to read the full blog post!
10 Beautiful Non-Blog Websites Powered by WordPress
The time when WordPress was used strictly as a blog platform is long gone. WordPress has evolved into a mature CMS that gives designers and developers the right tools to create amazing non-blog websites for their clients. As proof for that stand these 10 beautiful websites powered by WordPress.
FernWoodCoffee.com
Herout-Caves.com
New WordPress Plugins You Might Want to Try
While working on a couple of WordPress projects these days, I’ve been on the look out for some new WordPress plugins. During my searches I’ve come across some really cool and useful plugins that you might want to check out too.
Manual Related Links
Tired of the old and sometimes irrelevant automated “Related posts”. This new WordPress plugin allows you to hand pick the links to be displayed at the end of your posts. Also works with off site links. Some might think that it’s a waste of time, other like me will see the value in giving the reader really relevant, hand-picked links.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: Aaron D. Campbell
WP htaccess Control
No need to access the FTP or the cPanel anymore to add rules to your .htaccess file. With WP htaccess Control you get to do that from the comfort of your WP Admin screen.
Download hereWP Version: 2.7+
Author: António Andrade aka Dardna
Click here to read the full blog post!
I Need Your Translation Skills!
Hey friends, as you might have noticed, yesterday I’ve released the 1.2 version of the Latest Posts by Category WP Plugin. As the time was short and the update was needed, I decided to leave the localization of the plugin for the next update.
As I’m typing this, the plugin is set to English as default, and I’ve already created the Romanian translation file.
How can you help?
If you’re proficient in any other languages than English and Romanian – like Spanish, French, German – and you’re willing to give me a helping hand in translating 19 short phrases, contact me via email. Tell me which language are you willing to help with and I’ll send you a text file with the required translations.
Not to be picky, but native speakers would be preferred, as each language has its own little tricks.
Each translator will receive a link to his/her website on the plugin download page and in the info files in the download package.
Already in the works: Croatian, German, Spanish, French, Bulgarian.
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