12.5 URLs to Rock Your World

In this edition: Untapped traffic resources. Tracking social media stats. Turning your blog into a PDF book. Expanding short urls to reveal the truth. And how to perform advanced keyword research.

1. 21 Untapped Traffic Resources

We all need traffic. The more you can get, the better. Ever tried video tagging or doing tutorials? Here are several little known traffic sources to boost your online business.

2. Getting Listed in the iTunes Store

Every day millions of people search the iTunes store for freely available podcasts. It means instant traffic for you. Here's the complete resource from Apple. Note the tutorials on the left hand side.

3. Track Your Social Engagement

Imagine knowing which blog posts of yours gets talked about the most. Wouldn't you want to create more content just like it? Now multiply that by the entire social media space.

4. Getting Content OUT of Wordpress

No doubt about it, Wordpress is a great content management system. But what if you want to get your content out. Not imported to another blog, or copy and paste. How about a one button click to PDF book format.

5. htaccess Tricks and Tips

You can do a lot with your htaccess file. You can make redirects for affiliate codes. Make custom 404 error pages. Control folder access. Set cookies and more.

6. Social Media Strategy Checklist

Everyone and their dog is jumping on the social media bandwagon. The only trouble is, social media is like a pile of bricks. You can fling them in all directions, or step back, plan and build a community around your brand.

7. Gather Feedback with Social Media

Want to know what your customers want? Just ask. Now its easier than ever to add a surveys and polls. Stick them on your websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter streams.

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The Best SEO Advice on the Planet

Last week Jerry West shared these gems:
* Analysis of the Google algo inside and out
* Three simple yet powerful SEO strategies
* How to improve rankings on a weekly basis
* Summary of SEO tools and Client Check List
* Spotting "NoFollow" links without using a Plugin

Week after week it's the best seo advice, tips, techniques and strategies. Implementing Jerry's advice rockets you to the top of the search engines and keeps you in orbit, high above the competition.

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8. 101 Tips from 50 Small Business Bloggers

If you're looking for inspiration, motivation, info on planning, hiring, leadership, marketing, sales or management, this post has tips on everything.

9. 20 Most Commonly Used Wordpress Plugins

Sure there are bigger lists of plugins. In fact, you might have plugins that already do these jobs. But ask yourself, are they the "best" tools for the job, or is this set better?

10. Database of Social Media Policies

Ok, so you've decided to take the plunge and add social media to your marketing mix. What kind of rules need to be in place, before you let your staff represent your brand? Here's what the other guys are doing.

11. Expand Short Urls for Increased Security

Ever wondered what's lurking beneath that shortened url? Here's how to avoid phishing, malware, and viruses by examining short URLs before visiting them. See exactly where it goes, before you click.

12. 10 Steps to Advanced Keyword Research

After you've picked a niche market, it's time to do your keyword research. Here's a list of resources and most of them are freely available.

12.5 Update Your Wordpress Blog

Right now there's a nasty worm going round that can trash 2.8.2 and earlier Wordpress installations. So it's a good idea to upgrade to 2.8.4 as soon as you can.

And no, you cannot just change the version number in the footer or some other silliness. The worm doesn't care.

You need to do two things first. Backup your Wordpress blog. Backup your Wordpress database.

There are a ton of screencasts that are freely available on how to do this. The Wordpress blog is easy. Finding videos on backing up the database - where you log into the cpanel of your hosting company - is a little bit harder.

Once the backup is done, you might be able to use the automatic upgrade button in the Wordpress Dashboard. Click the button and you're done.

If the upgrade didn't work, chances are you installed Wordpress using Fantastico Deluxe in your server's cpanel. If that's the case, log into the cpanel for your hosting account and use Fantastico to upgrade your Wordpress from there.

Good luck, have fun, and be sure to backup your data before you upgrade.