Have you seen those cool magazine style WordPress themes around this days? They are just cool. You might have noticed that they sometimes show a few words of the post, this is for sure not the default WordPress excerpt showing that because the default excerpt length is set to 55 words and manually excerpting every post would be a great time consumer. So, what are this guys putting together to get that cool effect on their sites by controlling the length of the content? Well, as a WordPress freelancer, I have been needing that feature myself and today I’m going to share with you how to have that feature on your site.

There are three different approaches to limit your excerpt or content in WordPress that you must know:

1. WordPress’s Approach

WordPress developers have provided us lately with a tool to limit the excerpt. I do not use it myself as I’m more conformable with another approach as I find this a little limited. To change excerpt length using the default WordPress excerpt limit approach you have to use the excerpt_length filter and add the following code to functions.php file in your theme:

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function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');

Every time you will use the_excerpt(); on your code it will output an 20-word text string for you. Right now you’ve got a question, don’t you? I know, I had it too. The question is: What if I want to use the 20-word excerpt in some places on my theme, but still be able to use the 55-word one? Or just have two or three different-length exerts to use on my theme? Well, if that is the case, the default approach is not for you, so continue reading.

2. StudioPress’s Approach

I don’t really know who came up with this approach originally, but I know that the guys over at StudioPress use it on their themes. This function is called the_content_limit(). This is how the code that will go into the functions.php file looks like – lengthy huh?

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function the_content_limit($max_char, $more_link_text = '(more...)', $stripteaser = 0, $more_file = '') {

$content = get_the_content($more_link_text, $stripteaser, $more_file);

$content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);

$content = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $content);

$content = strip_tags($content);

if (strlen($_GET['p']) > 0) {

echo "

";

echo $content;

echo " <a href="";</p> <p>      the_permalink();</p> <p>      echo "">"."Read More →</a>";

echo "

";

}

else if ((strlen($content)>$max_char) && ($espacio = strpos($content, " ", $max_char ))) {

$content = substr($content, 0, $espacio);

$content = $content;

echo "

";

echo $content;

echo "...";

echo " <a href="";</p> <p>        the_permalink();</p> <p>        echo "">".$more_link_text."</a>";

echo "

";

}

else {

echo "

";

echo $content;

echo " <a href="";</p> <p>      the_permalink();</p> <p>      echo "">"."Read More →</a>";

echo "

";

}

}

Now we have to call that function because, off course, we are not going to use the default the_excerpt(); function. Here:

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<?php the_content_limit(20, "[Read more]"); ?>

Pretty simple to use and offers you the possibility to auto-generate a Read More … of you choice.

C.bavota’s Apprach

C.bacota – I don’t know his real name – has produced a couple of great code snippets to limit the content for both the_content() and the_excerpt(). As you may already know, the_excerpt() gets 55 words from the_content() but get rids of all the HTML tags on it, be it links, images or whatever. So, this guy produced a script that allows you to choose to use the text-only version or the html-rich version to limitedly display. I find this functions really cool and easy to use and I have been using them ever since they were produced. This is how the block of code that goes into functions.php looks like:

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// Limit the content to certain number of words.

function excerpt($num) {
$limit = $num+1;
$excerpt = explode(' ', get_the_excerpt(), $limit);
array_pop($excerpt);
$excerpt = implode(" ",$excerpt)."...";
echo $excerpt;
}
// Limit the content to certain number of words.

function content($num) {
$limit = $num+1;
$content = explode(' ', get_the_content(), $limit);
array_pop($content);
$content = implode(" ",$content)."...";
echo $content;
}

The above code is quite cool, but has two limitation: The first block of code, will not allow you to have a custom excerpt longer than 55 words, the same as the_excerpt() does, and the second one will bump image into your shorten content if you are using images in the original one. However, Mr. C.Basoda eventually thought about his and produced later a revised version of the code that will allow you to use more than 55 words and not get images on the wrong place there. Here is the revised code:

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function excerpt($limit) {
$excerpt = explode(' ', get_the_excerpt(), $limit);
if (count($excerpt)>=$limit) {
array_pop($excerpt);
$excerpt = implode(" ",$excerpt).'...';
} else {
$excerpt = implode(" ",$excerpt);
}
$excerpt = preg_replace('`\[[^\]]*\]`','',$excerpt);
return $excerpt;
}

function content($limit) {
$content = explode(' ', get_the_content(), $limit);
if (count($content)>=$limit) {
array_pop($content);
$content = implode(" ",$content).'...';
} else {
$content = implode(" ",$content);
}
$content = preg_replace('/\[.+\]/','', $content);
$content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);
$content = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $content);
return $content;
}

And finally here is how you use this fantastic piece of code:

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<?php excerpt('20');?>

// or

<?php content('20');?>

The end

We are finally done.  I would also like to make clear that the approaches I presented so far are not necessary all the existing or possible ways to achieve content limitation, however this is what I know and what I thought was of value to share with you. Thanks for reading.

Many WordPress themes, especially those in magazine style, need to have some configurations in terms of category IDs in order to show things properly. They will often ask you for a Category ID in the theme option panel. And you might be wandering how on earth to find those IDs.

That is, in fact, a quite easy task – even though it might be a little tricky. This post is all about those IDs and how to find them in no time. Here we go:

1. On your dashboard, under the Posts menu, click Categories;
2. Keep the mouse over the category whose ID you need;
3. Look at your browser’s status bar and you will see something like this in the shown URL: tag_ID=160 – all you need is the number.

So that you know, this is true for WordPress tags and other custom taxonomies you might be using in your site – the ID finding process is the same.

This is all for this time. I hope you enjoyed it. And good luck!

As you may already know, WordPress the rel=”nofollow” attribute in comments. That makes any comment with a link on it have no significance for Google when they ranks websites. Getting rid of the rel=”nofollow” attribute is one of the tactics that many WordPress bloggers follow to get more people comment on their blogs. And in my view, this is quite fair – comments add content to a certain blog, the blog pays them back with a link that will be counted by Google, will rise their pagerank and make their way up in Google searches. So, let’s begin.

There are two ways through which you can turn off rel=”nofollow” attribute in your blog:

1. Changing WordPress Core

Editing WordPress core might not be a good idea for bloggers who are not very familiar with coding. For others, like me, who can do any code editing, online through FTP or offline, this is something that they do everyday. That would save the time of downloading, installing and making work another plugin. However, keep in mind that you need to redo this action every time you do an upgrade.

There is only one file you need to edit and all you have to do is remove the word nofollow. This word is located at wp-includes/comment-template.php on line 148. It looks like this:

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$return = "<a rel="external nofollow" href="$url">$author</a>";

All you have to do is remove the word nofollow only and save the file.  This is it!

2. Employing a Plugin

If you do not feel comfortable with editing the WordPress core, you can employ a plugin to do that for you. Keep in mind that you will have the plugin too, when new versions are released. Below you will find a list of such plugins. Chose the one that is good for you and install it.

1. DoFollow 4.0
2. NoFollow Free
3. Lucia’s Linky Love
4. Sem NoFollow
5. Link Love
6. Remove Nofollow

Time for publicity: By removing the nofollow attribute you are giving something away for free to your visitors, tell this to your visitors. You will motivate more people to comment for sure. Good luck!

PS: Don’t forget that WPlancer is a DoFollow blog and I love to hear what you think. Thanks!

It came to my mind to write an easy and short how-to to explain for not very techy people the way to upgrade their self-hosted WordPress, when one of my clients asked me why her admin interface was showing that she should upgrade WordPress to the latest version. She thought she had already done that. In fact she had, but to the version 2.5. Now it is a long time WordPress version 2.5.1 is available. Well, this can help my client to upgrade WordPress herself, but I would love also this this help hundreds of others. Enough with the words, let us begin.

Step 1 - Create an FTP account: Many know what FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is and already have their accounts. Well, those who do not have one can create it in their Administration Panel that their web host has provided them with. I hope you FTP-have-nots find this process easy.

Step 2 – Download an FTP application: There are many. To keep it short I recommend FileZilla , free/open source and easy to use. After you download it, you enter your FTP account info in it and have the files of your WordPress listed in it. To use it is very easy, as i previously said. You have there two environments, the online and the offline one. To upload or download by FTP just drag and drop files or right-click and use the menu.

Step 3 – Export the information to XML: This is done in case something goes wrong with the upgrade. This is not a real database backup, but you have your articles and comments at safe after you do so. To do that you just have to go to Manage => Export . Than follow the easy steps that it provides and export a copy of your content.

Step 4 – Deactivate all plugins: In your admin panel, under the Plugins menu, deactivate all plugins that you have there. Some plugins may conflict with the upgrade process because of the changes to WordPress, so this is another must.

Step 5 – Download the latest version of WordPress: To do so, just go to wordpress.org download section and get the latest version of WordPress in .tar or .zip. Make sure that you download goes fine because if not all the files are downloaded or there have been problems, you might have problems to run the new version properly, if not have errors all around.

Step 6 – Delete the old WordPress Files: You have to do so, unless your upgrade will not be successful. If you try just to overwrite the previous files, you will have problems as not every single file gets overwritten correctly. Keep in mind, you should not delete or overwrite in any way this files and folders :

• wp-config.php file;
• wp-content folder; Special Exception: the wp-content/cache and the wp-content/plugins/widgets;
• wp-images folder;
• wp-includes/languages/ folder–if you are using a language file;
• .htaccess file–if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess;
• robots.txt file–if your blog lives in the root of your site (ie. the blog is the site) and you have created such a file.

Step 7 – Upload the New Files: Upload the right files from your computer’s hard drive to the appropriate WordPress folder on your site. Make sure that you do not overwrite the files and folders mentioned at step 6.

Step 8 – Upgrade Database Structure: Do not be afraid, this is very easy. Just do so: If WordPress is installed in the root directory, point your browser to: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php. If WordPress is installed in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, point your browser to: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/upgrade.php. And wait for the upgrade success message.

Step 9 – Update Permalinks and .htaccess : Update your permalink structure, if you like it, into your .htaccess file. In your Options->Permalinks panel update your Permalink Structure and, if necessary, place the rules in your .htaccess file. This will happen when the .htaccess is not writable; you should have a tool to paste the code into it or otherwise it should be writable.

Step 10 – activate your Plugins: Now it is time to activate your plugins that you need or like. You can do that the same way back as you deactivated the plugins. It will be a loss of time to go on with this point.

And we are done. I hope you find this little effort of me to serve the community a good one. Any feed back would be very appreciated. Thanks!

Every blogger has to promote their blog to get into the market and reach their goals. Blog promotion might seem a little scary, but it is not that difficult to promote your blog. Find below ten promotion strategies that will work for you to make your blog well-known and profitable.

1. Write fresh, qualitative and unique content to make visitors read, comment and refer to your articles. Not only will worth-reading content keep visitors coming back, but it will make others come at your blog through referring links. Good articles will rise the authority of your blog and will make you a well-known author.

2. Post at regular bases to keep the interest of the visitors active and make them come back to get more form your blog. This will find it worthy to subscribe by email or get the RSS feed of your blog to stay tuned. And the most they subscribe and come back to your blog, the greater will your blog grow and so will your fame and revenue.

3. Interact with your visitors through fanatically responding to their comments. They will translate this into a welcome and will feel comfortable at your blog. Once you give them pleasure and make them feel important, you will have them come back, if not for your posts, for your good company. This is a good way to make keyboard (the time of pen is done) friends; remember. friends are there in good and bad times.

4. Comment in other blogs of the same niche regularly and try to say as much worthy comments as you can. This will make you an authoritative commenter out there and curiosity will push more and more people to visit your blog through the link under your commenting name. This will bring you a good number of visitors, including the blog owners. The same as you do with your commenters, don’t you? As a matter of fact this is a social give-and-take relationship.

5. Run a contest at your blog and give away some money, free ad space or something else valuable for bloggers. Make this in exchange to a blog post in their blog about the contest you are running or ask them to subscribe to RSS feeds or by email to your blog or both. This will boost your traffic and bring a lot of people at your blog. Remember, do not run a blog contest yet unless you have a good number of articles that visitors can browse through the content and not be the contest post the only post that they read.

6. Get your blog reviewed by someone who has a niche blog and offers blog reviews. Make sure you ask this to someone who has a well-known blog and gets a lot of traffic. Don’t forget that generally you get what you give, so prepare for different prices in different authority blogs. This will bring to your blog a lot of traffic and brand your blog a little bit out there.

7. Submit your blog into directories to have some extra traffic time and again by people interested in your niche. This is a good away to get traffic and it it mostly free, even though there are some payable directories. Choose what you think is best for you and submit.

8. Blogrolling, link and banner exchanging is another great way to get traffic. While blogrolling might be a natural result of your good content and/or the good friendship you have with other bloggers, you can always ask blog owners in whose blogs you have an interest for link exchanging or banner exchanging. I would consider this a very good way of promotion and branding. Also there are several sites out there that offer banner exchange so prepare some banners for your blog and go hunt there for niche blogs.

9. Use your blog URL in your signatures such as forum signatures and email ones. After you do that go posting in your preferred forums and reply to emails even to say thanks – thanking is virtue. This will be helpful.

10. Make use of relevant keywords and description Meta tags. Go to your template files in which case 99% you will be using WordPress so go directly to header.php file and edit the META keyword and META description with the right info about your blog. This will help you get indexed in search engines. Also, when posting a new post, make sure to chose the most piquant keywords of the post and submit them to the tags field just below the post text area. The tags will be individually indexed by Google, isn’t this a great news.

Now move you lazy guy, get to work to implement these strategies and boost your traffic, your income and your authority out there. Good luck and do not even think to NOT give me a feedback of what you read here; this would be the implementation of strategy number 4, right?