Most Blogging software creates categories, yet most people want to change the text that appears at the top from the ugly “From The Category Archives” to something different.

The Wordpress Thesis Theme is no different and in my research I found there are a few different ways to accomplish this.

I started looking into accomplishing this after modifying one of my Drupal sites in a similar manner.

I found, Rae Hoffman’s site Sugarrae.com in my research and she had already outlined what needed to be done. Yet, in the examples I found the SEO issue I’ve always seen with database driven sites.

Below is the custom code that Rae had come up with, and it does work great. Yet, like anyone who likes to tinker I had to make a few modifications for better SEO purposes.

/* Custom Categories */
function custom_archive_info() {
if (is_category('apples')) {
?>


< ?php single_cat_title(); ?>



YOUR CUSTOM APPLES TEXT HERE



< ?php
}
elseif (is_category('oranges')) {
?>


< ?php single_cat_title(); ?>



YOUR CUSTOM ORANGES TEXT HERE



< ?php
}
else
thesis_default_archive_info();
}
remove_action('thesis_hook_archive_info', 'thesis_default_archive_info');
add_action('thesis_hook_archive_info', 'custom_archive_info');

What I found was that once you went to page two of any of your categories, you ended up with the same body of text that appeared on the main category page.

By changing the code to this:

if (is_category('insert-your-category-here') && !is_paged())

It eliminated the text from being displayed on page two, three, etc…

… But then it reverted back to the original ugly “From The Category Archive:” By adding this to the code:

elseif (is_category() && is_paged()) {
?>




< ?php _e('Even More Great Posts on:', 'thesis'); ?>

< ?php single_cat_title(); ?>







< ?php
}

I was able to easily change what was displayed on page 2, 3 etc... Now instead of displaying "From the category archive:" I set mine to "Even More Great Posts On:"  While still not perfect it gets me a little closer to what I'd really like to see for the categories. ]]> http://www.network-marketing-works.com/blog/modifying-the-wordpress-thesis-themes-custom-categories-further-1639/feed/ 0 http://www.network-marketing-works.com/blog/decrease-your-network-marketing-landing-page-load-time-151/ http://www.network-marketing-works.com/blog/decrease-your-network-marketing-landing-page-load-time-151/#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:38:44 +0000 Glenn Burks http://www.network-marketing-works.com/nmwblog/?p=151

As websites become more sophisticated, bloat becomes a major problem, yet there are many cures that we can implement to take care of this problem.

Graphics, css files, javascript all add up to make your landing pages load slower and slower. so what is the answer to finding these offending files and why would you want to track them down in the first place?

Back in March, I wrote a post about how landing page load times where going to begin take more money out of your pocket. What was the driving force behind these changes? Today I believe these changes that they implemented really had to do more with not only giving the visitor better load times resulting in better user experience.

This action would also reduce the overall energy consumption for everyone involved. It is amazing what can be accomplished and seeing the differences a few simple modifications can make.

The Yahoo Developers Group really has helped in this respect with their Best Practices For Speeding Up Your Web Site. Now to really make this effective you must have the Firefox Web browser in order to get started.

With the Firefox web browser we have access to a wide range of plugins, covering just about everything imaginable to make your web browsing better.

What we are concerned with are the plugins that will help us to reduce the load times for our network marketing landing pages.

The plugin we want is called Yslow, what it does is analyzes your web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on Yahoo’s rules for high performance web sites. Now this is exactly what we want.

Yahoo! has 13 basic “rules” of “front end performance” and there is even a book “High Performance Web Sites” over at Oreilly.com which discusses each of the 13 rules below.

1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2. Use a Content Delivery Network
3. Add an Expires Header
4. Gzip Components
5. Put CSS at the Top
6. Move Scripts to the Bottom
7. Avoid CSS Expressions
8. Make JavaScript and CSS External
9. Reduce DNS Lookups
10. Minify JavaScript
11. Avoid Redirects
12. Remove Duplicate Scripts
13. Configure ETags

It should be noted that the majority of these 13 steps maybe beyound the skills of most network marketers. But running Yslow will tell you what is wrong and what you need to do in order to correct it.

After applying many of these rules here, the score for Network-Marketing-Works.com is now a “A” or 90. The Blog on the other hand ranks in there at 87 for a “B” rating, the drop comes from the Calendar plugin and it’s javascript not being gzipped.

Yet I really don’t think your going to have a calendar on your landing page!

There are many factors that go into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but where should you get the most relevant information from?

The one answer I’ve always used is follow what the search engines tell you to do. You can’t go wrong when you follow their advice. One of the things they caution about is linking to link farms.

Over the past few days we’ve been getting requests for a link from a site jeffpaulreview . com when you look at the site where they would place your link you can realize that it truly is a link farm.

They indicated they’ve put a link to us in the internet marketing category, well that kind of makes sense in away since we are in network marketing and do have a strong web presence.

Yet within that page they also include links to so many things that are not even related, for example

• Baby Shower Gifts
• Software Development
• Dubia Real Estate
• PBX Phone System
• Real Estate Investment
• Cat Furniture, Cat Trees, Cat Condos, Cat Gyms
• Celtic Engagement Rings

Now what do any of those have to do with Internet Marketing? You’re right absolutely nothing yet these links are mixed in with dozens of other links that are relevant to the subject.

This is exactly what the search engines tell you not to do, yet many new web masters will fall into the trap just because it’s a link to their site. They will wonder for years why the can never be found.

When you really think about it what we are looking for is focus, just like we should be with our respective network marketing businesses. The tighter the focus the better off we’ll all be.

Over the past couple of years there has been a shift to try to game the system by taking shortcuts. If you know how to do your research and most don’t you’ll find out that what many guru’s are telling you to do will not work.

I was reading a page just the other day about how a guy got his hub page to #1 on google for a specific term. Well that is all well in good if your only competing against a couple hundred thousand pages and you do a specific search for it.

Over the years there has only been a few sources of information that I’ve come to trust, with the majority of the information not being earth shattering. Still every once in awhile along comes a golden nugget that solves a problem you may not have even known you had yet alone how to look for it and solve it.

So if your a new blogger, have your own web site really take a look at the sites your linking to from your network marketing site.

Now why would you want to do that you ask? Yet it happens everyday by unsuspecting network marketers. Most if not all offer links off to other companies and or services we think are appropriate, that are related to our web sites theme.

And those whose services we are linking to are really thanking you not only for the traffic but also the naivety that you display in your website marketing.

So why is this important? Well for starters your already bringing the company new business, but did you also know that your helping them to out rank you in the search engines.

This essentially cuts you out of the potential profit you could have made and they do this all on your hard work and creativity.

Why is it that most if not all affiliate type programs rank so well? It’s because of the way they setup the program, so that each link you provide to them ranks them higher while pushing you further down in the rankings for your search term.

So how can you stop this bleeding from your sites? If your going to link to any affiliate or any other program do it from an internal page and use the “nofollow” tag in your links.

You can do a search and find a wealth of information on this attribute in linking on sites like wikipedia, google, yahoo etc…

Sending traffic to a site for a sale should be your goal in marketing, but helping them cut you out of the picture should not be!

So get busy and stop sabotaging your network marketing web sites! After all it’s your business and only you can make the changes!

If you take a look at the top web sites in any search most of them, you will find are very customized and original both in content and look.

One of the top web sites in our industry is a free web site so this clearly blows that theory right out of the water that you need a professional service.

Now the question is why is this site in the top ten? It’s because search engines really don’t care if it’s free or costs ten’s of thousands of dollars. What they look for is original and relevant content.

Today we have so many out there just throwing content with no real though, anything to build pages etc… That’s what the guru’s are telling you to do, How do you know it’s true.”

They become so focused on this because every guru out there tells you this is what you have to do. Of course, their selling you the tools you’re going to need to be successful and oh by the way it’s going to take 4 to 5 years.

How many of us would like to have a customer for 4 to 5 years? I’m sure that answer is all of us.

Why is it that, there are so many in network marketing that have risen to large six figure incomes within network marketing without even having a web site?

They have all learned what this business is all about, connecting and relating to people. The internet is an extension of that, one small piece of the puzzle not the answer to our dreams.

Leadersclub has always taught a balanced approach. When you can take your leads “those that qualified” and get 50% or higher to a follow up call and are closing them, then and only then does it make sense to spend a fortune on marketing.

In the latest Marketing Power newsletter “Will Google’s New Rules Put an End to the Cookie Cutter Ad Systems?” Well the same applies to web sites in general as well!

I’ve often been asked the question who do I trust when it comes to information about the internet! The answer is myself, and that should by yourself as well. If you have any doubts about anything, you really need to think it through before you act on any advice you’re given.

And always keep this in mind, anytime you try to manipulate the system your playing with someone’s baby.

Yes that’s right someone’s baby. If they even think your trying to manipulate their system, they will find a way to not only stop it but stop you forever when it comes to a search.

The rage a few years ago and it’s still out there today was the three way linking. Trying to beat the system again.

Excessive article writing, with poorly written content all designed to manipulate the system. I watched one of the top trainers in our business do this several years ago and it did not make one bit of difference. And yes he was following the advice of the internet marketing guru’s.

Everyone want’s more sales, but no one is willing to pay price. We all want to beat the system but in the end it’s the system that will beat us.

Build your business with balance, each part has a place and knowing when and how to put them together is so important.

If your not working leads and learning to deal with the rejection and the no’s you’ll never become successful! You’ll get the same effect from the leads you generate as well, don’t believe the hype and myths out there base everything on what you know to be true!

If your in network marketing or just about any company out there you had better be on guard.

Do you look at your log files from your web site? If not you should start. You probably will not like what you find.

What you’ll find over time is company tools like the one from sitesell that harvests and analyzes your web site.

While you may not need this in the beginning you will need it as you achieve a ranking to where your site is analyzed multiple times a day.

Your probably asking why be concerned about it? Well for one it’s really a theft of your bandwidth that you are paying for!

So how do you prevent this theft it’s quite simple if your web host will allow you to place a .htaccess file in your root directory.

This is the example to block sitesell’s brainstorm software: “Note – nothing against Ken but I cannot have 10 to 15 people a day analyzing dozens of pages on my site’s”

RewriteEngine on
# Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} sitesell\.com [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} brainstorm2.sitesell\.com
RewriteRule .* – [F]

To learn more about .htaccess files here are a few good.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html

http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml

After you’ve applied the .htaccess files the visitors you are blocking will recieve a forbidden message when they try to access your pages.

Another popular use is to prevent the hot-linking to your graphics, I’ve found my graphics hot linked in places like ebay.

I don’t know about you but hey the bandwidth I’m paying for is for my visitors not someone else’s. It’s almost like pulling up out front and siphoning the gas out of your car.

It’s clearly evident that Wikipedia has a lot of trust with the search engines when it comes to the ranking of the site and pages within all the major search engines.

Yet, Wikipedia is chock full of disinformation! They know it, and hopefully you do as well. Anytime you can rewrite history in your personal view it will be tainted.

Today we have website owners using this popular web site to increase their rankings as well as having them seen as credible sources in this industry. “Note Wikipedia does place nofollow tags on their out going links, but do all of the search engines follow this?”

Here is a link to a site that details just how to go about doing just this.

5 Effective SEO Uses Of Wikipedia

What is really frustrating as a network marketer is, the information on Multi-level marketing / Network marketing is written in a negative light with information that has been repeated tirelessly again and again by the same few people.

The one question that comes to my mind is just how long Google and Wikipedia will all this to continue.

Is it time for network marketers, unite and complain to both companies to have the site’s external links removed from their pages.

With a few million networkers, a day complaining to the search engines about irrelevant information being found in their index when it comes to Wikipedia they just might remove it.