ROCKFUSE » Blog Design

How to get your Feedburner subscriber count in Plain Text

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:59:42 +0000

While tweaking down this theme, I wanted to use my subscriber count in plain text. Actually, it wasn’t that hard thanks to 45n5’s great tutorial in doing that. Not to mention, the dozens of other articles which pointed the exact same thing following that particular tutorial.

Anyway, all of them were from the time before Google started intergrating Feedburner into their own setting and because of that, the code was a bit outdated and gave a php error.

parser error : Opening and ending tag mismatch: meta line 1 and HEAD

And when I looked into the problem, I understod that it was because Feedburner specifications had changed around since the Google Integration. So, I worked around it and found the solution.

So here’s how to get the feed count in plain text.

In whatever place you want the feed count, insert these lines, possibly at the very top of the page (Don’t forget to replace myFeedburnerFeedId with the ID of your feed)

$whaturl=”https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=myFeedburnerFeedId”;

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $whaturl);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
$fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];

?>

Then, in the place where you want the feedcount to appear, just insert:

And we’re done!

You can see on the top-right of this blog, it’s at work. Have fun with it guys!
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41 Places to find Free Images to your Blog or Web Site!

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:06:35 +0000

Lately I’ve been scouting a bit on the sites that supply copyright free images/photos for one of my projects. So, i the process, I thought, why not make a compilation of some of th worthwhile sites that I come across? And here it is – a list of 41 sites that offer photos and images absolutely free of charge.

Some of the pictures are totally free of charge, some may require you to credit the copyright holder, and some may not be available for commercial use. But plenty of options are there to go around – so enjoy!

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How a simple CMS element in your Wordpress blog can increase your Page Views

admin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:53:28 +0000

A Wordpress blog is unquestionably the ultimate free CMS (content management system), that one could get his/her hands on. But however, Wordpress is made to be used by systems that gets updated more frequently than others. So, the ultimate downfall, as I see in Wordpress is that it’s relatively harder to highlight the content that had been published in the past.

If there are posts that people could gain something from, despite of the date which they had been published on, people will read them. News themes like Revolution really had understood this and they display categories as the main navigation in the blog header. This leads a user directly to a category that he/she is interested in, therefore, leading targeted readers to targeted content, in the most efficient way possible.

For an instance, if a person visits my blog by accident from a social network like StumbleUpon, and if he/she is interested in Social Media, she can directly click through to the “Social Media” section, and check out the latest published Social Media articles. That would give more use of my blog to that user, than a scenario where he/she could find one social media article from the latest published posts.

Most of us think that merely displaying categories in the sidebar could get things done. True! If you have around 10-12 categories and you could place them higher on the sidebar. But, the most effective way to do is to lay your categories out in the header, where most of the people will look for navigation.

That’s why Wordpress news themes harness more page views than typical Wordpress themes. If you can tweak your existing theme to display your most important categories in the header, that could really work well for you. It’s important to pick the most important ones because usually, we tend to have more that 20 categories in established blogs.

Although news themes come packed with this feature, most of the time, the tweaking will have to be done manually. I had to edit my blog header through a HTML editor to do it. But, there are a few ways in displaying your categories like a typical CMS (horizontally in the header), through advanced Wordpress tweaks. But, you might not want to display all your categories there, which is why it’s better to use a HTML editor and design it manually.

Since implementing that on ROCKFUSE, I’ve seen really good results. To make a long story short, More exposure to your content = more page views = more convinced readers = more subscribers. Just thought of sharing this with you since, it’s an effective way of harnessing the most of what you get, blog-traffic-wise.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress,Design,CMS,Blog Header,Page Views,Blog Traffic,Themes

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How to get free images for your blog posts legally in a few seconds

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:30:01 +0000

Sometimes when I feel like I’ve got a few minutes to kill, I tend to go ahead and add a custom designed image to my blog post that I was currently working on. It’s not a necessity and I could’ve just inserted a few random pictures off the Google Image Search. But, in fact, having your own custom made graphics give that post a sense of professionalism and sometimes, you could really get into trouble when you steal off other people’s pictures from Google Image Search.

The first and the most important thing to keep in mind is that just because it comes up in a Google Image Search, you just can not go ahead and freely use it in wherever you want. Why? It’s ~~like~~ stealing. Many of us do this and some of us get into trouble. It’s like copying and pasting someone’s content in our blog, without asking.

Usually, the workaround is to contact the owner of the site you want to get that specific picture from and ask for permission. But we both know that’s too much of a hassle.

So, what’s easier method?

Creative Commons Search of course. Creative Commons organization lets you search for work that you can legally and freely obtain and manipulate without contacting the owner first. If you check this search out, you can find out that you can search for pictures within Flickr that you can “use for commercial purposes”, and can “modify, adapt of build upon”.

If you intend to edit the images or manipulate them, you should in fact keep the “modify, adapt of build upon” option checked. If you’re using them directly for commercial purposes, such as your own designing work that you get paid for, or your advertisements, you should have the “use for commercial purposes”.

Flickr lets it’s users define CCs(Creative Commons) rights for their works. They can forbid anyone from using the pictures regardless of the purpose, allow it to be used for non-commercial purposes or just let whoever wants to edit it their way to edit it for whatever purpose. What CC Search does is go through these pictures and list them out for you.

So, when you feel like you need to use an image for your post, just go through these licensed images and take your pick. CC helps you find what you need in the most legal, and ethical manner.

Technorati Tags: Creative Commons,Free Photos,Blogging,Blog Posts,Flickr,Search

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5 things you must put “above the fold” in your blog.

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:30:12 +0000

When you take a folded newspaper, what do you see first, even before unfolding? Everything that is visible even before the newspaper is unfolded is called “above the fold”. As for the whole purpose of it, something above the fold in the newspaper is to persuade the frequent browser to buy the paper. How many times have you bought the newspaper just looking at the headline? I have to admit. Above the fold marketing, if exploited right, can be really powerful for newspapers and blogs alike. Newspapers, virtually run on above the fold advertising.

So how can we apply the same thing to a blog? Surely, blog doesn’t have a fold. But, like unfolding a newspaper, your visitors must scroll down. Like browsing in a newspaper stand for a good newspaper, your visitors browse through blogs. Like someone buying a newspaper because what’s above the fold is good, some will subscribe to your blog because your above the fold is good.

So today, we will see how you can improve your blog, by prioritizing the 5 things every blogger should put on their blogs, above the fold.

Header – D’oh!

Your header should be customized. Or at least, not the same thing as the free theme. If you are willing to customize your header a bit, please take these into consideration.
Your header should promote your blog brand effectively. Your unique name that sets you apart from others. Also, try embedding something into the header that tells ‘em your blog is, well.. your blog! Something that will portray your blog’s personality.
And also, if you have enough room, just try to have a few words describing what sets you apart from the other blogs, and why the visitor must subscribe to your blog.
If you’ve got it all sorted out, good for you. And if you haven’t, again, good for you. Ha? Mindblogger is launching a blog competition tomorrow. And one of the prizes include a FREE customized blog header. So, keep tuned in for that.

Something to feed on

Yeap, this is a bit obvious too:) Make sure that your RSS Feed Chicklet or the link is there possibly with e-mail subscription options. Some people prefer to have the e-mail subscription link rather than the actual form. That might be alright if you’re out of room. But if you can find some room for that, that’d be room well occupied.

A glimpse of your best

Now here’s something that you haven’t heard before. Convincing someone to subscribe to your blog is like asking that person to buy something. Why should he or she, out of all the blogs in this world, subscribe to yours? or ‘buy’ your content?
If you’re stuck without an answer for this question, and if you’re a good blogger, your “Most Popular Posts” will save you! When someone sees the best that you have to offer and choose not to subscribe, there’s little that you can do to convince him or her otherwise.
And having this above the fold, will instantly catch the “eye of the tiger”, and will do the convincing for you. So if you can do that, I can guarantee you’re going to see some good coming out of that.

All your pretty squares

Mind you, people will not scroll down to see your 125×125 ads. Probably the only place to put your ads if you want to make some money would be the top of the sidebar. However, I wouldn’t recommend this to bloggers starting up. In fact, I wouldn’t advise them to monetize their blogs until they have hot significant figures in blog stats. 125×125 is something that every blogger puts in his or her blog. But not many bloggers get something out of.

Something niche-specific

Except for the above 4 things, there’s something else that I can’t be specific about, that should be decided by you, for you. Something niche-specific that will help convey your message to the visitor. Something that says “I’m at top of my game!”. If you’re running a personal blog, probably an “About me” widget. If you’re blogging about business, then probably an “About this blog” widget. Photography blog – thumbnails of “My best photos of all time” widget. You get the idea. It’s your call. Portray your confidence through your blog. Success will inevitably follow.

So, just try to develop your own code of conduct and see whether your blog stats do any good. Experimenting is the key. Something that will work for another blog, might be completely useless for you. That’s why I always say “You cannot replicate another blogger’s success”. If you got your own “Above the fold” ideas, let me know. Might do a follow-up on this post in near-future, and I just might publish your ideas as well, with some link love and credits of course… So, comment away!
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Your blog header could do wonders for you!

admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:34:20 +0000

Imagine you get a free one-year subscription for Magazine A or Magazine B; of either you should choose. The choice is yours. You can’t pick both. You have no prior experience with either and you have no way to decide other than looking at the cover page. The thing is one magazine has a kick-ass logo design and the other one is just simple!

<>And just by looking at it, you’ll probably select the one with the good design, right? Now what if we can apply the same thing to a blog? Suppose you have good content and a good blog design. But you need to say out loud ‘I am a professional!’ to the average site visitor yes? Why not do it with a professional header design? I mean, that’s the first thing that a visitor sees in the blog. And probably the first impression of the visitor would be based on your header right?

And if you header does the talking about professionalism for you, then, you score!

It’s psychological. When people see premium blog designs or professional headers, they automatically brand your blog, ‘great blog!’. (Yes, with an exclamation mark!) Much like you wanted that subscription of the magazine with the kick-ass design.

Of course! If you don’t have any design experience at all, and if you’re not willing to spend and get it done, probably you should ignore it. But if you do, then why not make use of that and have a good header, and maybe a good logo design? It can probably drive a visitor’s gut feeling into subscribing to your blog.

On the other hand, people like Steve Pavlina had been highly successful with just a simple mention of their domain name in the header. But I believe that he could have enjoyed more from his blog if he considered having a cool header design. What do you think?
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