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This post if about a “CDN for WordPress”, or “Content Delivery Network” – consider it my CDN review. Using a CDN for your WordPress blog is easy, and I will explain how to configure WordPress to use a content delivery network through a plugin that you can setup in literally about 2 minutes. When I get through you may just want to delete WP Super Cache forever, because the WP plugin CDN method is not only the easiest to use – it makes WordPress sites load faster than anything I’ve ever seen!

What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

A CDN is an online service that caches your content across the globe. While WP Super Cache would cache your WordPress powered site to HTML files on your server to reduce CPU load and db queries, the files still have to be served from your web site. The CDN service actually caches your images, CSS files, javascript files, and page content across the globe at hundres of data center nodes.

The CDN’s data center has much faster servers than your web host, and by serving the files from the data center node closest to each web visitor – your site comparitively becomes much faster as a whole. No local caching plugin you could ever use would be as fast as a (good) Content Delivery Network.

How do I use a CDN with WordPress?

The easiest way is a wordpress plugin with CDN integration. The best I’ve used to date is W3 Total Cache. First install and activate the W3 Total Cache plugin.

Once you activate the plugin, in the general settings you can control what is cached. I’ll go through each of the general settings, one by one.

Page Cache: This works much like your WP Super Cache Plugin, caching a copy of your WP pages to the local disk in your web hosting account.

Minify: This feature is AWESOME to say the least, because once you add a bunch of plugins, and an enhanced theme, the head of your HTML code is usually littered with scripts and stylesheets. Even if you are a coding guru, consolidating them can be a nightmare. W3 Total cache can do this AUTOMATICALLY!

Database Cache: Cache common items form the db to the local disk.

Object Cache: Caching database objects reduces the amount of time it takes for common operations (queries that happen all the time, that seldom change).

Browser Cache: Making best use of the users local browser cache as they go fromm page to page of your site.

Content Delivery Network: The option you’ve been waiting for, the ability to integrate the WP caching plugin with a CDN. You can’t see it in this image, but the dropdown has options for push or pull caching. Pull caching is where files are pulled from the closest node to the user using a mirror – such a a service like NetDNA / Max CDN. You can also use a push service such as the Rackspace cloud network, Amazon Cloudfront, or even Amazon S3.

What are the Benefits of Using a CDN for a Blog?

You would be surprised. I was amazed at how much the overall affect benefited by blog(s). I’m running W3 Total Cache on this blog right now with MaxCDN integration.

The benefits of using a CDN for a blog or web site are:

• Faster page load times
• Visitors get content more quickly (and may stay longer)
• Your site seems more professional
• You get better google rankings
• You save bandwidth at your web host
• Reduce CPU load at your web host server
• Crawlers can index you faster

I have noticed that this site (which was a little sluggish due to the amount of plugins I have installed) is now loading about 10x faster than before. Mysteriously enough – since I installed W3 Total Cache with the CDN, I now get more traffic. The load of the web server at my web host is better as well. I use the CDN and the plugin on about 5 of my sites now, and some are hosted on my dedicated box, and others are hosted on traditional shared hosting. I have the same results at both.

You shouldn’t think that “just because I use a CDN I will get better rankings”, because in google – there are 200 “ranking signals” for web sites, and speed is only one of them. However, it WILL help, and if you have a decent active site with online authority – you WILL get better indexing, and the potential of raised pagerank in the future.

What does a CDN cost?

Personally, I believe the service (that I’m about to tell you about) is pretty cost effective. I use MaxCDN – which is about $39.95/mo….BUT, that’s for 1TB per month of transfer (1,000 gigabytes), and you can use the service with as many web sites as you want for that price (just like unlimited shared hosting). For me, I have 40 web sites, and believe me – they are ALL going on W3 Total Cache with MaxCDN!

Disclosure

I am an affiliate for MaxCDN – as well as a customer. If you purchase the service through the links in this blog post, we do get a small commission – but that’s how we pay the bills around here (and provide future tutorials).

John Pratt is CEO of JTPratt Media and a working WordPress Consultant. If you would like to have caching and a content delivery installed on your web site or blog, please visit our corporate site: JTPratt Media

I’m going to give you a few helpful links, just some great articles I’ve come across in the past week. Some are about blogging, design, WordPress, twitter, and there’s one about some geeky gadget stuff.

Now, you might just think that I’m trying to be nice, or post something (because I haven’t been posting a lot the last few months) – but there’s a definite REASON why I’m posting these particular 7 links. A very methodical, useful, and purposeful reason why I’ve selected THESE links over any other.

If you can tell me (either in comments or through my comment form) WHY I used these links in this post – then I’ll give your blog a FREE blog review AND a permanent link in my blogroll in the sidebar for at least 6 months.

Here’s the list of links:

Blog designs that work

How to Make Money from your blog

WordPress trackback tutorial

How to Comment on Blogs: Beginner’s Guide

17 Must Have WordPress Plugins

10 Twitter Hacks

Build Your Own Wifi Radio

Now can YOU tell exactly WHY I used those links?

Are you inundated by ads for “backlink building packages”? You can’t surf the net anymore without relevant ads hitting you. If you are a blogger, or someone that’s trying to make money online – you’re going to see all kinds of things that seem like they are too good to be true (and they usually are).

In the past I hadn’t paid attention to most of these ads or web sites, but lately I’ve been asked by a few clients whether or not “this” or “that” was a good deal. Every now and then I see something cool – but usually it’s the same old thing.

I’m not going to give you the URL, but I want to show you this web site I saw yesterday. They seem to be spamming a lot of sites with a big graphic through adsense saying you can “Get 1,000 Backlinks for only $9.99″. Once again, sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Take a look at this picture from a web site selling only one service: backlink building

Now first of all, wouldn’t you be a little suspect of a web site offering no other service but backlinks? I would, especially if it didn’t have any personal or business name, country, or address on it at all. So, I’m already suspicious, and then I see the content on the homepage in the image above. See how these are all “profile backlinks”? See in the green text where it says “permanent forum profile links”?

What they’re doing is taking automated software and creating 1,000 accounts for you in web site forums all over the world. You get 1,000 for $9.99 because they aren’t doing anything more than entering your profile name, web site URL, and maybe a keyword or two – and clicking “submit” to spam forums with new accounts.

Now the green text says “Permanent forum profile links”. What they don’t tell you is, nearly all modern forums have tools to remove unused accounts. Most profile owners are used to spammers creating profiles just for links – and the regularly deleted unused accounts.

Now, they have a package where you can get 10,000 backlinks for 49.99. Check out what it says on their FAQ page:

Your site will NOT be penalized for getting so many links? What!? Are they insane?

I’ve been working online for 15 years now, and I think I’ve had about every single penalty google has to offer at one time or another. You most likely WILL get penalized, and I’ll tell you why.

RELEVANCY

Of all the STUPID things that you could do with a web site, getting 1,000 or more non-relevant links to your web site is probably the worst. Google is pretty smart – and the biggest tell tale sign that you’re trying to “game the system” is getting a bunch of unnatural links QUICKLY. Not only do I know this for a fact, I saw it in action this very year.

Back in Jan / Feb 2010 I had an intern building links for a brand new web site and he just went nuts. He did some awesome work, building links by blog commenting, on forums, many high pagerank places, social media – the majority were just average links. He built many looking for dofollow blogs with top commenter blocks in the sidebar, places where if you comment enough you get a sidebar link sitewide.

This paid off in spades, because within a month he had 5,000 backlinks built to the site. In two months that increased to 12,000 backlinks, and after about 3 months it went all the way to 26,000 backlinks+. Sounds awesome doesn’t it? Guess what, the site was never sandboxed, but during the ENTIRE 3 months of backlink building the site average about 10-20 pageviews per day. The backlinks were USELESS, because they were built too quickly, and because nearly all of them weren’t relevant to the web site. They weren’t permanent either, and dropped down to only 426 as of today – only 4-5 months later. To this day google only shows “3″ backlinks.

Check this out from further down the homepage of that same backlink building web site:

They want 25 bucks to build 5 permanent relevant links. Wait a minute – you could get 1,000 permanent forum links for $9.95 – what gives? Well, first of all – that was automated, and people have to manually get these links. Also, as I just pointed out – RELEVANT backlinks are worth about 5,000% MORE than useless ones. I mean, my gosh – they want $2,499 for 500 permanent relevant links.

My advice to you is, learn how to build backlinks slowly and methodically. Build 20-25 per week, and take your time. If you’re not sure how to do this, you could always hire or consult with someone who does: JTPratt Media

How to Use WordPress 3.0 Multisite for a Blog Network

Wordpress 3.0 is now available and it has a lot of great new features. One of these features is what is now called WP 3.0 “multisite”. There are many things you can do with multi site.

In the past, WordPress had 3 versions.

1. Free WordPress Blogs: signup for for a free blog like: yoursite.wordpress.com
2. Self Hosted WordPress: download and install wordpress on www.yoursite.com
3. Self Hosted WordPress MU (wordpress multi-user): download and intstall the official “wordpress.com” software to create a blog network on your www.yoursite.com

Over the last year behind the scenes, wordpress core coders took the capabilities and functions of WordPress MU (WPMU), and folded them into the self hosted version of WordPress. That means if you’re reading this, and you have a WordPress powered web site (that’s updated to 3.0) – you have the ability to create a “blog network” on your domain (and you didn’t even know it).

What is a “Blog Network” Anyway?

Well, normally if you install wordpress on a web site you get a single blog on a single domain. What WordPress MU used to allow you to do was create an installation of wordpress that allowed people to setup free blogs on your site like crazyblog.yoursite.com, music.yoursite.com, etc.

The advantages of doing something like this are inumerable. You could have different sites for a company for different products or divisions. You could build a community site for your business or organization – allowing people internally to have their own web site (great for realtors, car dealers, insurance agents, teachers, students, etc.).

Think about the potential possibilities of this from an affiliate marketing point of view. If your used to buying up keyword-laden domains because of their value, think about the capabilities of WordPress MU for an SEO blog network.

I’ll give you an example. The other day I was doing linkbuilding, which at that time consisted of some article marketing, and press releases. As usual, an idea crossed my mind – “I should start a press release site!” I did some quick research, and quickly found the words “free press release” were what I wanted to use. Of course, all the normal domains were already registered. I toyed with the notion of registering 1freepressrelease.com – but I don’t like sites with numbers in them (for things like this) much anymore. I’m also not a big fan of free-pree-release.com for projects like this either.

I thought of a domain I’ve had sitting around for awhile called “websitewhore.com”. My intention was to enable people some “shameless self-promotion” through either an article directory, standard directory, classifieds – or something like it. But with the new multi-site feature of WordPress 3.0 I can setup as many blogs as I want like:

freepressrelease.websitewhore.com
freedirectory.websitewhore.com
articlesubmit.websitewhore.com
backlinkbuilder.websitewhore.com

Those are all examples – but you get the picture. This may be a bone of contention with some SEO’s, but I can get just as much URL juice out of a subdomain with exact match keywords, as I can from the main domain name. Creating a “blog network” like this will enable me several things at once:

1. I can created multiple blogs on a theme
2. I can use keywords in the URL without having to buy multiple domains
3. I can use one version of WordPress to manage it all
4. I can upgrade wordpress and all plugins from a central location

Multisite Domain Mapping: Also, one thing I hadn’t mentioned is that you can also use one installation of WordPress now to manage multiple domains within one WordPress instance. Let’s say you own 10 WordPress powered sites. That’s 10 versions of WordPress and plugins to keep upgraded. You “could” install WordPress 3.0, then enable the “Network” of sites, and create 10 web sites – and then use “domain mapping” to keep all your web sites in just one wordpress install. I would only recommend this to advanced users, but if you’re interested in this scenario – read more here: WordPress 3.0 Multisite Domain Mapping tutorial

WordPress Multisite Choices and Setup

One of the first things you have to do is decide whether or not you want to use WordPress Multi-site as subdomains or subdirectories. You only get to choose this once during installation, and then you’re stuck with it.

This is subdomains:

newblog.yoursite.com

This is subdirectories:

www.yoursite.com/newblog

Personally, I prefer subdomains for all installs – but the final choice is yours on your site. Once you have a wordpress 3.0 installation, all you have to do is place this line of code in your “wp-config.php” file:

define(‘WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE’, true);

Once you do this you should see a new “Network” options under “Tools” in the left hand sidebar in dashboard admin.

Now, the directions I read said that you didn’t need to do this before installing wordpress, you could add it to the wp-config.php file of any WP 3.0 install. The site I’m testing this on now was upgraded from 2.8 to 3.0, and for me – I had to take the wp-config-sample.php file from a newly downloaded 3.0 zip file, and update it with my connect info. Then I upload it to the site and it worked. In other words, for my test – using a wp-config.php file from previous wordpress installs didn’t work – there was no network option. Once I updated my wp-config.php to the latest version, it worked fine.

The first time you visit “Tools->Network”, you’ll see that you’re supposed to deactivate all your plugins before starting. Once you do that you’ll see this screen:

Then you can install and enable your network.

The following screen gives you the exact code to copy and paste into your wp-config.php and .htaccess files in order for your new “network” to work properly. Once you make those changes, you’ll have to login to the admin dashboard again.

Once I logged back in, WordPress asked me to add 4 more lines of security code to my wp-config.php file:

The codex directions say to remove the “wp_allow_multisite” line you added to your wp-config.php file earlier, but during the install WordPress had removed it for me. You’ll also notice when you log back in that the “Network” option under “Tools” has disappeared. This is normal, and you should now also see a new section in your dashboard side bar, like the one at left that says “Super Admin”.

Using WordPress 3.0 Multisite “Super Admin”

The main site will tell you how many sites, and how many users you have:

In the sites screen, this is where you can add sites to your “network”. Just add in the name, title, and admin email.

Just like in the old WPMU (wordpress multiuser), the “Themes” section of Super Admin allows you to enable or disable any theme for use in network sites. If it’s not enabled for use here – it won’t be available for use (even by you) in any of the sub-domain sites.

*Item to remember*: There’s a fundamental difference between using themes in a single WordPress intallation and the new WP 3.0 multisite. The themes you install (when enabled), are available to be used for ALL subdomain sites. So, if you customize your theme code for the main site (or a subdomain blog) – those changes will be in every site using that theme. This could be good or bad. Let’s say that you decide to add adsense code in the homepage of one theme. It would show on every site using that theme. If your intention was to have adsense ads on all the blogs on the network (because you can edit theme files and they can’t) – then this worked out just fine. But if you were using the theme on the home site only, and then another sub-blog user enabled it, they would have the theme with all the customizations you’ve made for just the home site. As far as I know, there’s (currently) no way to disable a theme from use in the network (and still use it as the home theme). So, keep that in mind when using themes…

The options tab under Super Admin has some very important features. One of which is the “dashboard site” option. Normally, every single wordpress site gives the ability to prompt login by adding in /wp-admin to the end of the URL. This is your chance to change that to something different! Change it to “dashboard” or “panel”. You can also choose if regsitrations for users (and new sites) are enabled or disabled, and whether admins can add new users. You can even setup the welcome emails and first post, pages, and comments to each new blog when they’re setup (if you’re building a community). You can also choose what people upload, how much they can upload, the the types of files they can upload. You can choose whether users have the ability to use and configure settings (individually for their blog) for plugins as well.

So, once you have all your options setup, and you create your first “subdomain” site in WordPress 3.0 multisite – what if it doesn’t work?

1. Submit a ticket and ask your webhost if they support “wildcard DNS subdomains” (for WordPress multsite / multiuser)

2. When going to your first “subdomain” site – do you get a “Forbidden You don’t have permissions to access / on this server. Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.” message?

The problem is wildcard DNS isn’t setup yet. Using Hostgator as an example, if you login to your web control panel and go to “addon domains”, look for an entry like *.yoursite.com. If you don’t have one you’ll have to set it up like I did in this image:

Here’s the thing to remember. Let’s say that you have a hostgator account with multiple domains installed in it. If that’s the case, then the “main” account is the one that owns the /public_html root. Then the sub-directories within it are mapped to “addon domains”.

I mention this because if you’re installed WP 3.0 multisite in the main site for your hosting account, then the “document root” will be public_html. But if your installed wordpress on a sub-directory “addon domain” to your hosting account then the document root will be /public_html/yoursite.com. If you do this wrong, then when you visit your new subdomain site, it will probably bring up your main hosting site instead of the newly created subdomain.

If you see your new subdomain site in a browser, then you should be able to add new sites in the future with no problems.

When I was describing the features, I did mention that you could control in Super Admin->Options whether or not to allow users to configure plugins. If you checked “yes” to allow that – then in the image below you’ll see that you can also choose when activating plugins whether or not to allow them to be activated for just the main site, or for the entire network of sites.

One of the problems that WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) was always plagued with in the past was that it had 2 separate directories for plugins – one for the main site, and one for all sites. This meant that many (if not most) plugins failed to work properly in WPMU because of the changed directory path. Most plugin authors count on plugins always being located within the /wp-content/plugins directory. Now, with all plugins and themes in their normal respective folders, nearly all should work within WordPress multiuser (fingers crossed!). At least, the chances are now better, but your mileage may vary.

For further reading:

Migrating Multiple Blogs into WordPress 3.0 Multisite
Created a Multisite Network

Visit JTPratt Media if you’d like to hire me for WordPress or Multisite Work

The “About Me” page is a specific section on your website that establishes who you are, why you are there, and why your readers should be there. Unfortunately, even though it is one of the most important pages on a website, an About Me page can be a bit difficult to write sometimes. The following tips should help you come up with an exceptional page about yourself.

1. Who You Are and Why You’re There: For a more personal feel, write in the first person. Establish who you are, what you do, and who your site is aimed at. Outline your experience and passion. Let your readers know what sets you apart from everyone else, and keep this information relevant to the topic of your website.
2. What You Can Do For Your Readers: This is the part where you get to sell yourself. Outline what your readers can gain from your site. Perhaps you are selling a product that they need or can improve their lives. If you’re an expert on a certain topic, let them know. List any achievements and accomplishments that are relevant to the topic of your site.
3. Don’t Be a Bore: This section of your website should be interesting and a little creative. Don’t make it dry and boring. Keep it entertaining, and engage your readers. Make them want to know more and read more.
4. Keep a Positive Attitude: No one wants to read depressing things, so keep it positive. Most importantly, never sound like you doubt yourself. If you sound as though you doubt yourself, that will make your readers doubt you.
5. Give Yourself an Edge: Be a little competitive, and scope out some other About Me pages written by similar websites. You don’t have to prove, beyond a doubt, that you are better. Instead, your goal should be to make yourself seem more unique, and to stand out of the crowd in the readers mind.
6. Honesty is the Best Policy: Keep your information accurate, and stay honest. Never lie, as this can come back and bite you where you don’t want to be bitten. If you provide less than true information, people WILL find out. After people start finding out that you’re being dishonest, you can kiss your credibility goodbye.
7. Show a Great Photo: A great photo is the icing on an otherwise great About Me page. It puts a face behind your words, and it shows that you’re not just hiding behind a website. While it doesn’t have to be a professional shot, it should be a good one, which shows you doing something related to your topic.
8. Link to Yourself: The About Me page is a great place to include links to your other pages or great posts. Add links for your readers to follow you on sites like Facebook or Twitter. Insert links to your best posts or products, or, if you have one, your mailing list.
9. Stay in Touch: Provide an easy and convenient way for your readers to contact you. Email links are nice, but contact forms are better. You can get these for free from a number of sites, and they can be embedded right into your site.
10. Keep it Current: The About Me section on your site should be kept as up to date as possible, and it should always be considered a work in progress. Make it a habit check it every few months. Rewrite or add any new information or accomplishments if needed.

Even though the About Me page can be hard to write, it should never be overlooked. It is essential. This section can make or break your site. Write it wisely.

This is a guest article by James Adams from Cartridge Save, an online supplier of HP 350 ink cartridge and other office supplies.