Tech Support

One Thing All Bloggers Need to Do

January 23, 2016 by Katie Clark Leave a Comment

Okay, there’s a lot of things that bloggers should do. But today, I’m focusing on one that I sometimes forget, and it can really affect your traffic!

Most of us probably just use one browser – and perhaps have a backup browser, just in case. Because of this, you may not see how your site displays in a different browser. As nice as it would be to have our sites look and function exactly the same across all browsers, it’s just not that simple. For me, I rarely leave my Google Chrome browser (because, well, most others pale in comparison.)

Any time you make ANY kind of change to your blog – check it in every browser you can on both mobile and desktop/laptop computers.

This is important with design changes but also just with adding a piece of code to your site.

For example, a few months ago, I started a new partnership with a company. They sent me a simple piece of code that would add a recipe/shopping list to my recipe posts. It seemed simple enough, and when nothing seemed to break on my site in Google Chrome, I went on my merry way.

Well, a few weeks later, I was helping someone on their computer, and the only browser they had was Internet Explorer. I was trying to to show them something on Clarks Condensed, when I got to the site and realized two glaring issues:

My header was completely cut off
Even worse, the scroll bar on the browser would not scroll.

Considering the fact that one of the top used browsers by my readers was Internet Explorer, I realized this was a big issue. When I looked at my traffic, I noticed a decrease over the past few weeks, but I had initially attributed that to Pinterest being weird and changing their algorithm. I wasn’t totally sure if this was a browser issue, or a computer issue, so when I went home, I checked on our PC. Just as I feared, you couldn’t scroll. I then asked around in some different blogging Facebook groups, and everyone who checked in Internet Explorer had the same issue. Not good news!

How to Install Google Analytics on WordPress and Blogger

June 19, 2015 by Katie Clark 3 Comments

Last week when I shared 5 simple steps to starting a blog, I mentioned the importance of installing Google Analytics. This is a great (and powerful) tool that can not only gauge your growth but give you valuable insight into your readers, traffic sources, and much more. There’s lots of reports you can generate that can really help increase your traffic if you interpret them correctly. However, this post is just for those of you looking to get started on how to setup Google Analytics in WordPress AND Blogger (I’ve gotten several emails about setting up Google Analytics, so hopefully this is helpful to a few of you!)

In this post, I will show you how to correctly sign up for Google Analytics, and then correctly install it in both in Blogger or WordPress.org.

Signing up for Google Analytics

Anyone can sign up for Google Analytics. First off, go to http://analytics.google.com, and in the upper right corner, select “Access Google Analytics.”

As long as you haven’t set up a Google Analytics property before, you will be brought to this screen. Click on the “sign up” button.

Write all your information here – the name and URL of your website, industry, time zone, etc. After you fill out all this information, you will be able to create your new profile at the bottom of the page.

Once you click on “Get Tracking ID” you will be prompted to accept the Google Analytics Terms of Service agreement. Press “I Accept” (assuming you do!)

Then you’ll be brought to this page where you will be given both your tracking ID number and the tracking code. Depending on what method you use to install Google Analytics on your site, you will use one of these codes. The tracking id is the shorter version, and the tracking code is longer.

Don’t feel like you have to write these down right away – you can always access them again by going to Admin (at the top of the page, pictured in blue below.) After you click on that, in the center column is something that says “tracking info.” That’s where the information you need can be found!

Installing Google Analytics in WordPress

Now that you are all set up, it’s time to install your tracking code on your site. In WordPress, there are a couple of different ways to do this – it may vary depending on your theme.

Installing Google Analytics in site <head>

Your code needs to be installed in the <head> of your site. This can usually be found in the header.php file of your site (which can be access through Appearance – Editor.) However, unless you feel comfortable editing your website’s files, this can be tricky.

If you are using a StudioPress/Genesis Theme (which I highly recommend doing – it makes life easier), then you can easily paste the Tracking Code (not the tracking ID – the tracking ID is just a few numbers) here. Just go to Genesis – Theme Settings an scroll to the bottom of the page. There is a section that is called “Header and Footer Scripts.” Paste the code there, press save settings, and you should be good to go!

If you don’t have Genesis, your theme may have something similar. Just search Google really quick to see. Otherwise, you can install the plugin Header and Footer, which is similar in function to the Genesis header and footer script boxes. Once you install this plugin, it will appear under the WordPress “Settings” section of your site. You can place the Google Analytics tracking code in the <head> section, and you should be good to go.

Google Analytics Plugin

As a general rule, I think that if you can avoid using a plugin on your site, you should. The one I mentioned previously, Header and Footer, is generally pretty lightweight, and it can be very helpful for putting other code in your site. However, many people prefer to use a Google Analytics plugin – some of the ones out there will show you directly on your post dashboard how many page views you are getting, and they can be helpful. A plugin might just be the simplest choice for some.

I would recommend using Google Analytics by Yoast (the free version is just great!) After you install this on your site, it will show up toward the top of your WordPress dashboard, like this:

Select Dashboard. When you get there, it will say “We need you to authenticate with Google Analytics to use this functionality. If you set your UA-code manually, this won’t work. You can authenticate your Google Analytics profile here to enable dashboards.” Click on the part that says authenticate your Google Analytics profile here. This will give you the option to connect directly to your Google Analytics profile (assuming you are logged into the account connected to it!) There are some other settings in this plugin, but for now, you should be set.

Installing Google Analytics in Blogger

One of the biggest issues I see when I move people from Blogger to WordPress is that they have Google Analytics installed twice on their site. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you! There are a couple of different ways to install Google Analytics, and these are the two I recommend. Remember to pick just one! Often people will install it in their layout area in a widget, which I really don’t recommend doing…so use one of these methods instead!

Installing via Settings

This is by far the easiest method. For it, you will need your tracking code (which looks like this -UA-xxxxxxxx-x…with numbers instead of x’s.)

Go to your Blogger Dashboard and from the dropdown menu, select settings:

It will take you to the general settings page, but there will be several options underneath settings on the left side of the page. Select “other” and scroll to the bottom of the page. At this point, you can post your tracking ID. Just put it there, press save settings, and you’re done!

Installing Google Analytics in site <head>

The next method involves using your tracking code (not the ID). Login to Blogger and in the drop down menu next to your site, select “Template”

On the next page, you will select “Edit HTML”

And on this page, you will want to find the <head> tag in all this code. You can either scroll, or you can click in the box with all the code and press either ctrl+f (in Windows) or command+f (in Mac) and search for <head>. Directly underneath that opening tag, add your Google Analytics tracking code, as seen below.

Now hopefully you were able to successfully install Google Analytics! Let me know if you have any questions!

Why Your Traffic May Have Dropped After Moving from Blogger to WordPress

May 1, 2015 by Katie Clark 2 Comments

Did you recently switch from Blogger to WordPress and see a huge drop in stats? Here’s a few reasons why that may have happened (and how to remedy it.)

Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone on Facebook talking about how their traffic plummeted after they were moved from Blogger to WordPress. This can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you are trying to grow your blog and make money!

When I moved from Blogger to WordPress, my traffic increased. I didn’t see the big drop others had warned me about. I think I may have given up if I had. While I’m sure some of that was luck, I also believe it’s because I spent time making sure I did everything right. Since then, I’ve transferred tons of other blogs to WordPress, and fixed botched migrations. So, I thought I’d share a few reasons why your traffic may have dropped when you transferred from Blogger to WordPress

1) Mobile error

Did you have the blogger mobile site enabled? Then this is definitely an error you need to be aware of. It’s something that only started happening recently (as far as I can tell), but it can have a major impact on your traffic! Redirect plugins, such as Blogger 301 Redirect, are supposed to prevent this error from happening, but they haven’t. Basically, if a link ends with the =m?, it won’t redirect to the correct page. Instead, it will result in a 404 error. Fortunately, it’s an easy fix that I describe over here. You will need to access your .htaccess file via cpanel, but it’s not too hard. If you need help with this, I charge $10 to do it!

2) Redirection not set up correctly (or at all)

This is almost always the first thing I look for. Many times, people haven’t set up the redirect correctly, and in several instances, even at all. If you are moving from Blogger to WordPress, you need to make sure you are redirecting your old traffic. There are quite a few different plugins out there, and they aren’t all great. The one that I always use is called Blogger 301 Redirect. It works the best, in my opinion, and seamlessly redirects the traffic. A lot of redirects I’ve seen set up show up with a message on blogger saying, “This site has been redirected, click here to see the new site,” which probably will lose you a lot of pageviews, or it just redirects to the home page.

So, I recommend using Blogger 301 for your redirect. All you have to do is install it, go into the settings, select all the boxes except for the top two, and then copy the code. Then, go to Blogger, select “Template”, scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click on “Revert to Classic Template.” At that point, you’ll remove all the code in the template that is there, and paste the code from the plugin. Press save, and viola!

3) RSS Feed not redirected

This is a big one if you have a lot of subscribers to your email list or just subscribed via a feed reader like BlogLovin’. When you move to WordPress, you MUST go to feeds.feedburner.com, click on the site you are working on, then edit feed details, and make sure the original feed address is http://yoursite.com/feeds. If it is not, it will not pull new posts. This is essential, even if you don’t have any subscribers via Feedburner, because it will help update the many different feed readers that are out there.

If you are sending out your emails through something like MailChimp, you will need to manually go into the newsletter you have setup, and change the feed address. This will ensure there is no drop in your readers via emails!

4) Permalinks not the same

The default Blogger permalink structure and the default WordPress permalink structure is not the same. If you don’t change the WordPress permalink structure to match Blogger, it will cause a lot of 404 errors for your site. So, when you are logged into WordPress, go to Settings — Permalinks, and make sure you have this custom permalink structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

Then, you’ll need to download Maintain Blogger Permalinks. Go to that site, download the plugin, and then install it on your WordPress site. Then go to “tools” and and “maintain blogger permalinks.” You just have to run this once, and it will change the post name in your permalink to what it was on Blogger. Just delete the plugin once you’re done, because you won’t need it again!

5) GA Double Installed on Blogger

This is usually one of the saddest situations I encounter when it comes to a drop in traffic, but it’s very common. For some reason, people often have Google Analytics double installed on Blogger. Typically, they have it installed in their layout (via a widget) as well as under settings where you can paste the code, or in their template files. This will cause an inflation in your page views.

6) Relied on Blogger Stats

If you only ever used Blogger Stats, you’ll be in for a big surprise when you start using Google Analytics or even WordPress stats via JetPack. Blogger stats are infamously inflated – I’d say close to 3x what your actual stats are. The reason for this is because it tracks bots, crawlers, etc., which really shouldn’t be considered traffic. I always recommend having Google Analytics set up

7) Temporary URL

When you switched to WordPress, did you set it up using a temporary URL, so your site could remain live in Blogger? While this isn’t the best method to switch, it is often the most preferred (editing your host file is the best, but that requires a little more technical knowledge.) If you did use a temporary URL, it is very important that you update all the URLs after your site is live in your domain name. I always recommend using the Velvet Blue Update URL Plugin to do this.

8) Bad Luck

I hate to say this, but it’s true – sometimes, you just get some bad luck. I switched a few people right after the holidays, and while it may have looked like their traffic dropped due to the WordPress migration, it was actually more likely because most everyone sees a drop in traffic. Other people just have a drop in traffic for no apparent reason – and honestly, it may have happened if they had stayed on Blogger! All in all, I think that most people do not regret switching to WordPress (after the initial “ah, what did I do!” period), and I think it’s an important move to make.

What you can do:

If you’ve checked all the above, and everything still seems to check out, here are a few things you can do:

Submit sitemap to webmaster tools – this will help index your site faster.
Install WordPress SEO plugin and follow these instructions to set it up
Promote your content like crazy – social networks, blog directories, link parties!

Visual Post Editor not Working after WordPress Update? Try this.

April 29, 2015 by Katie Clark Leave a Comment

If there’s one thing I tell people, it’s to not update WordPress right when the update comes out. WordPress is notorious for having major bugs and conflicts with new versions. Typically they have to do with a plugin that hasn’t been updated to work with the new version of WordPress, but sometimes, the issue goes much deeper.

For instance, my friends at the Double the Batch were having some major issues with their post editor. They could only edit in text mode, and they couldn’t get the visual post editor to work. After deactivating plugins several times, we ruled out a plugin incompatibility. I tried a few other things with no luck. It was pretty much the most frustrating thing (more so for the girls at Double the Batch, than me, but I hate when I can’t get something figured out quickly!)

Well, one of them did some digging and found a forum where someone described the issue. One of the people suggested some different ideas. For her, she ended up needing to use a Cloudflare plugin (not sure why?) However, one of the other suggested fixes worked for Double the Batch. So if you are going crazy looking around for a solution on why your visual editor won’t work…try this one.

You are going to need to login into Cpanel and access file manager. You can also FTP in if you’d rather. For the sake of simplicity and this tutorial, the screen shots will be from file manager.

So, as I said, login to Cpanel, and then navigate to the File Manager option. Select the radio button for “Document Root for” and select the site you are working on. Press go.

Scroll down until you see the wp-config.php file. As with all editing (especially of php files) make sure you download a fresh copy to your computer in case something goes awry. After doing that, select code editor toward the top of the page.

Once you are in the code editor for the file, scroll down until you find this text:

/** MySQL hostname */
define(‘DB_HOST, ‘localhost’);

put a space, and then insert this code:

define(‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false);

Put another space below that, and then press save. Go to your site and make sure that it hasn’t crashed or anything (and if it has, you can remove the code.) Then, clear your cache, go to your site, and your visual editor *should* be working!

Good luck! I know there’s nothing more frustrating than a site that just doesn’t want to work. Just remember next time to wait probably 1-2 weeks to update to the latest WordPress!

How to Fix the ?m=1 Blogger Mobile Redirect Problem

October 1, 2014 by Katie Clark 18 Comments

One of my areas of expertise are Blogger to WordPress transfers. As such, I’ve encountered just about every problem and error that can come from moving your blog to Blogger from WordPress. In short, you should not see a drop in traffic. If you do, something has gone wrong with the transfer.

The single most common issue I find people having is that their Blogger Mobile Redirect (Blogger adds a ?m=1 to the end of these links) is not redirecting correctly. This never happened until a few months ago, but every blog I have transferred lately has, even with the help of the Blogger 301 Redirect Plugin (my redirect plugin of choice.) I finally was able to figure out how to solve this problem, and it’s a pretty easy fix! I found this post, which is great, but I thought I would provide a more step-by-step tutorial for those of you who have no idea how to find your .htaccess file!

First, go login to Cpanel via your hosting account.

Navigate to File Manager. Click File Manager, press the radio button for “document root”, and then check the box for “show hidden files.” Then press “Go”.

A new page will open, which essentially has all the files your site contains. This is where I always go if a file needs to be fixed or edited.

You will want to find the .htaccess file. You can see it at the very end of the screenshot above. Click on that, and then the code editor option at the top of the page. It will give you a warning about saving a backup, and then you can click on edit or cancel. Obviously, press edit.

A new window will open. Sometimes there will be a lot of text here to sort through, but if you just migrated to WordPress, you probably will be able to find this piece of code pretty easily:

After you’ve located it, you will take this code:

[code language=”css”]
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^m=1$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /$1? [R=301,L]
[/code]

And place it directly below the RewriteBase / part of the code above. It should look like this:

Press save changes, and you should be good to go! Go check your posts and see that they are working. If you need any help or want someone to do this for you, I charge $15 for mobile redirection fixes. Good luck!