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How to Add Floating Notification Bar in WordPress ?

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Recently I was search for best wordpress plugin that Add Floating Notification Bar in top of the page with fully customizable features to put a small note about kolakube skins. I found this great wordpress plugin called “Notification Bar”. So I thought t0 share this with my blog readers.

add notification bar in wordpress

It is very easy to use just install plugin from WP plugin directory. Configure it. So Without wasting anytime move on to Add Floating Notification Bar in WordPress.

Benefits, Features and Options:

  • Quick & easy setup!
  • Custom message and call to action button
  • Sticky Notification Bar!
  • Choose any color to match with your site
  • Very easy to customize

How to Add Floating Notification Bar in WordPress ?

  1. Go and Download Notification Bar Plugin from here.
  2. Activate this plugin.
  3. Than goto Setting => Notification Bar
  4. And configure it as per your need. (See screenshot below!)

configure WP notification bar

5. Click on Save Changes and see your wordpress blog.

What you can do with Floating Notification Bar in WordPress?

  • You can show your popular post in floating notification bar.
  • You can show some important note to your visitors.
  • You can add link of some specific post.
  • You can also add a short link + text about any affiliate product and can earn money ;)

That’s all. I hope you will like my short but helpful tutorial about how to  Add Floating Notification Bar. Make sure to drop your comments below..

Stay Safe :D

How to Make Thesis Theme Responsive ?

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responsiveFinally, DIY Themes officially announced that now we can easily make thesis theme responsive with  “Responsive Skin + Child Theme Starter Set” for Thesis Theme.  All this work is done by Alex “the kid” Mangini. ;)
 
The starter kit is free. Here are thing which you need to make thesis theme responsive. 

Some of you may be confused what is responsive design? Well, below I am writing a short info about what is responsive design!

What is responsive design?

Responsive design is, the design that will automatically adjust your website/blog/ based on width of device. You can say In the simple words, your blog will work perfectly on all the mobiles/smartphones/tablets without any mobile version WP plugin.

make thesis responsive

Now without wasting anytime. Let move on How to Make Thesis Theme Responsive ?

How to Make Thesis Theme Responsive ?

Below I am mentioning 2 simple ways you can do to make thesis theme responsive! If you are confused at any step just leave comment below :D

  • Manual Method.

Just download the thesis starter set and delete the current “ custom_functions.php ”  and  “ custom.css ” files  (remember to keep the backup of both the files in case if something went wrong ), then upload the custom_functions.php and custom.css files that you download recently from this link :) .

  • By Installing child theme easily !!

If you don’t want to manually upload the files, you can also use a child theme, instead. That won’t take much efforts from your side but it will only work with the fresh installations.

If you face any problem in installing that you are most welcome to ask any question in below comments. I will help you for sure :D

Why Your Website Get Penalized by Google Penguin Update?

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google penguin updateOn April 24th Matt Cutts, the head in charge of webspam team at google announced that there will be another algorithm change to the google search engine and it will be named as google PENGUIN update.
 
Oh wait I said google search engine; yes my friend google again updated its self. But again the same question arises as it came last year during panda update. Why there was a need of a new algorithm? While the same simple answer to reduce or nullify the webspams and to make google SERP better.
 
To quote Matt’s words:

“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content.”

That’s the bad news for only those who use to spam google and make their blog on high SERP with specially use of black hat techniques. Black hat hummmm I don’t know whether you know about this, or not but still to explain you,
BLACK HAT SEO– this is an illegal activity which is done by most of the bloggers this technique just make any one blogs reputation up by awfully activities. Mostly it consists of keyword confusion games which mean wrong keyword stuffing, getting indexed within seconds and many more.

Yes that’s true for few days or forever this black hat techniques are stopped due to update. But again same thing goes as black hat peoples cracked panda update, there is maximum probability that they will crack down  google penguin update and remove more technique to recover them self but I personally suggest you that if you are blogging to make money wait for few days and just belief on your hard work.

Black Hat SEO

If you have started getting low search engine traffic it’s most likely that your website has penalized by google for not following guidelines of google.

As last time when Panda update took place in February 2011, the chief goal of that date was to penalize those site’s which contain poor quality content, site’s whose content doesn’t match with query. As it was a high profile update it affected the web spammers largely.

Every blogger and website owners should keep in mind that google is tracking your each and every moves. Google always tweak search engine algorithms because it’s the company which has multi bullion dollar a year business and it’s their responsibility that they make accurate and quality search result.

Mutt Cutt even says
“Google just wants to provide Search result which will enhance the experience of the users”

How Google Serves up Results to Users

Google works hard to make its search result better. Its working is quite simple it’s like a filter which filters the website according to your query. There is lots of website which contain the words which you input in search box but google knows that you won’t like to crawl on 100s of site but a user want what he wants. So the billion dollar company always works hard to make it better and valuable in minds of people.

How will google penguin update affect your sites?

For starters if you have created and maintained with solid and original with quality content articles which has been organically rising up the ranking then you won’t have much to worry.

By saying organically means the article you wrote where ranked in google and was indexed by search engine and steadily your page ranking and alexa ranking was increasing.

But if you have tried to fool google by use of short cuts and tried to rank you website above higher quality content websites with poor content, by using black hat techniques. Then there will be subsequent decrease in google page rank and traffic in few coming months.

panda and penguin update

Following are few things which would make a website to penalize.

Unnatural and excessive back-linking

You might know about Akismet Plugin if you are using wordpress, just go to administration panel of this plugin and watch out how much garbage your Akismet filters out of your comment area.

All those spam are comment are from people or from automated robots which leave comments with links going back to their site in the hope of that they will get one backlink. Sometimes that spammer cross the limit as their comment don’t even relate with the article. One more technique which spammers adopt is create an account in any famous fourm and post links of their website which is an illegal process giving the person lots of traffic and good quality backlinks. This things where previously building huge number of backlink and also increase search engine traffic. This type of tactics is now targeted more readily by google and this will be largely addressed I google penguin update.

Poorly written article which doesn’t make any sense because of worse grammar

In the effort of making any website full of content in a very short time period some people use what are known as article spinners. That is they start to recycle existing content which are already on other websites. This type of thing is an illegal activity which makes a blog without the new and fresh information and overall there is nothing new of yours. This thing is been seen by google and google is targeting such website which use article spinners and span over all SERP.

Keyword stuffing

Some of the spammers do this type of activity which refers of using unnatural placements of keyword in content. The keywords are those which rank better in SERP and when you actually read the content on website it doesn’t make any sense but its only stuffed with lots of keywords.

There is lot more things in black hat technique but this are on the top list which makes a blog to Get Penalized by Google Penguin Update. Read also : Common SEO Mistakes & Tips From Google for New Bloggers

In future when your blog will be in surveillance of google may get penalize due to such activity which you use to make you website famous in SERP. The only way to rescue from penguin beaks is to only perform White Hat SEO techniques and nothing else. If you have already harmed by penguin update then just leave a comment I will try my best to help you out.

Why Bloggers Need To Be Heavy Smartphone Users

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Do you already own a smartphone? If you’re a blogger, chances are you do. After all, bloggers as a whole are technically adept people. But merely owning a smartphone isn’t enough for a blogger. We need to become heavy users, becoming attuned to all the little aspects of the smartphones. In other words, we need to become power users.

At this point you might be asking why we need to use our smartphones heavily. The answer is quite simple.

Our readers use smartphones

More and more people move from regular cell phones to smart phones every day. That means shifting behaviors in general. It also means changing behaviors for reading. People seem to enjoy reading on their smartphones. Web sites, particularly with mobile plug-ins, are laid out well. There are many RSS applications as well. Smartphones make reading easy.
 
If more and more people are reading your blog on your smartphone, shouldn’t you become familiar with their device of choice? That isn’t to say you should go rush out and buy the newest iPhone or Samsung cell phone just because your readers are using those devices. But it does mean you should be exploring all facets of the smartphone you do own.
 
Remember, blogging is about connecting with your audience. If your audience is reading on smartphones, you should become familiar with how they’re reading so you can create a deeper connection. Make sure you see what they see, how they see it. Here are a few tips for become more intimate with your smartphone.

Read your site often

If you do nothing else, you should be reading your own blog from your smartphone. Sure, you know all the content. You either wrote or edited it. But you probably did that right from your computer — you know, the one with the big screen and keyboard. Reading your site from your smartphone changes the experience, and gives you an idea of what your readers see when they visit you.

When you visit your blog on your smartphone you might start to realize some things. For instance, the first time I visited my site from my very first BlackBerry I realized that it looked like crap. It loaded slowly and was difficult to read. It was clear that we needed to install a mobile plugin. Now that I use Android phones and the iPhone, I make sure that my sites look good on both of those. That way my readers get the same experience.

You might be the person who creates the blog, but your blog is nothing without the audience. Make sure you see things how they see them.

Leave comments

While mobile plugins have made it more pleasant to view blogs on smartphones, they don’t necessarily make commenting easier. Since many of your readers will want to leave comments, you should make sure that it’s easy to do from a smartphone. The best way to accomplish this, unsurprisingly, is to leave comments yourself.

This doesn’t have to be anything time consuming. In fact, you can do it while waiting on line or on the train, since you’ll be doing it from your smartphone. But just make sure that you know how easy or difficult it is to comment on your blog from a smartphone. That will motivate you to make it easier for your readers.

While you can always ask for feedback, there is no substitute for first-hand testing. Since more and more people are reading on their smartphones, it is the blogger’s responsibility to ensure an easy mobile reading experience. It doesn’t even take that much effort. Just make sure that you’re reading and commenting on your blog with your smartphone. If it’s easy for you, it’s easy for your readers. They’ll thank you for it.

Five Tips to Write a Successful Blog Post

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A blog post is worthless if the reader clicks off after reading a few sentences. But with nothing more than a few paragraphs of text, how can a writer truly connect with an audience? Often, through improving their blogging style, decent writers can transform into amazing writers and build audiences that keep coming back for more. These tips will help writers kick their blog writing skills up a notch, making them better able to connect with their target audiences.

editing

Improve the Tone

Blogging is an excellent medium to connect with an audience, yet it can also be greatly abused by those who know nothing about writing. Because anyone with basic computer skills can put up a blog post, readers often find poor writing and are turned away from a particular post. Bloggers who want to make a good first impression on their readers can do so through well-crafted pieces. Those who need additional help to hone their writing skills can consider taking online classes in creative writing.

Proofread, Proofread, Proofread!

One simple typo can turn a blog post from something informative and helpful to something laughable. Proofreading may seem tedious, and it’s certainly not the most exciting part of the writing process, but it must be done. Bloggers need to proofread everything they post at least twice, and they may want to have someone else read through it once as well to be certain they have caught everything.

One way to proofread more successfully is to read the post out loud. Often, when a writer reads his or her work aloud, or has someone else do so, poor wording or confusing sentence structure pops off of the screen. Blog posts should be conversational and easy to understand, so reading them aloud can shed light on sections of text where the wording is awkward and detracts from the message.

Create a Killer Opening Sentence

Internet readers often skim an article to determine its worth before actually reading it. The opening sentence of a blog post needs to hook the reader. A great lead sentence will compel the reader to read the entire post. A good opening sentence will ask a question, use a statistic, present a quote, make a claim or tell a story. Spending time on that opening sentence is always a wise idea when writing a blog post.

Write Short Paragraphs

Blog writing is different than academic writing in that readers have different expectations. When writing a paper for a college professor, long, carefully crafted paragraphs are expected. This is not the case with blogging.

Readers prefer short, crisp paragraphs. Now, this doesn’t mean the paragraphs shouldn’t be structured well. It does mean, however, that the paragraphs need to be short and to the point. This also helps make the article easy to scan, which is beneficial to online readers.

Part of the reason this is important is that reading on a screen is harder on the eyes than reading on paper. Whereas a reader might be willing and able to persevere through a long paragraph in print, online it just serves to make the reader feel tired. This often translates into the reader clicking away from the blog post.

Focus on One Topic

Blog writing is a bit more informal than other types of writing, but that can be detrimental. Bloggers can too easily slip into rambling, and a long-winded, aimless post is boring to read. Writers who keep their posts focused on one particular concept or main thought will have a better chance of connecting with their readers.

When it comes to writing a blog post, clarity and brevity will keep readers interested. Add to that a grammatically accurate post that is thoroughly proofread and has a winning opening sentence, and the writer will succeed in connecting with the reader within just a few paragraphs of text.

Lindsey Harper Mac is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education on behalf of Colorado Technical University. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.