UpdateWall 1.3

UpdateWall is now stable with no known bugs and is undergoing a major update which will bring in a lot of new features! As soon as this update is out the price will go up to it’s normal pricing (instead of the current 50% off) so get it while it’s cheap if you’ve been hesitating.

There will be a lot of new features included in the next update such as a full plugin system allowing you to easily install extra plugins to add even more functionality to the UpdateWall! Some of the other new features include Like buttons, Video embedder compatibility & custom styles! You can offer suggestions on the thread here: 1.3 feature proposal.

A SEO pack for PHPmotion v3

Yes, PHPmotion V3 search engine optimisation has improved over previous versions. But why not make it even better? I’m working on a lightweight plugin which will give you full control over page titles, meta tags and other parts of the website.

Facebook Connect

After many requests on the forum for this feature I think it’s finally time something was done about it. Now that I’ve had some experience with the Facebook API I’ve decided to get working on what will be a great addition to any social website.

I’m not going to make any promises on a release date yet but I will be working on these in my spare time and will let you know when they’re available!

The script is available for download at the end of the post, this only works for people who have the seo pack. If you are upgrading from v2 to V3 but never installed the seo pack you do not need this and it will probably cause problems trying to use it.

Installation:

The installation is really simple but requires one thing, that you still have the add-on. For the script to work the add-on must be available in the /addons/seo-pack folder. It does not need to be installed on the site though. If during the upgrade you removed the addons folder then simply re-upload (I repeat you do not need to re-install it) the seo-pack folder into it from the backup you made before upgrading, you did backup first right?

Once the folder is in place you need to upload the file in the .zip (there’s only one) at the end of the post to the root of your PHPmotion installation. And finally one change is required in the .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.php

Should read:

ErrorDocument 404 /upgrade-seo.php

If PHPmotion is installed in a sub folder you may need to include the sub domain in there like so:

ErrorDocument 404 /subfolder/upgrade-seo.php

Now you may check to see if the redirects are working correctly, try visiting yoursite.com/featured_videos (or any other url you setup on the seo pack) and if you are redirected to the correct page on your V3 website then congratulations you just saved your traffic!

Please note: this script is provided as is and I cannot be held responsible for any possible loss or change in search rankings. I have created the script and offer it for free to help those with the Seo Pack who wish to upgrade. I do not guarantee any support but will do my best. Should you wish for better support or customisation of the script I can do so at an hourly rate, please contact me through the form on the website.

Download the upgrade kit here.

To www or not to www

Choose which ever you prefer and redirect all the others over to it.

To redirect from non www to www

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomainname.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomainname.com/$1 [R=301,L]

To redirect from www to non www

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Adjust the audio/video/image/blog listing pages

If you use a duplicate content checker to check the following urls:

• http://v3.phpmotion.com/videos
• http://v3.phpmotion.com/videos/load/recent

You will see they are both identical. To correct this you could (should) change the links in the template files (themes/yourtheme/templates/main_1.htm) to point to videos/load/recent or vice-versa.

But we don’t want to lose any existing value on the old links do we? So we’ll just add a 301 redirect so everyone knows to use the other link from now on. Add the following line after RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule ^videos(/?)$ videos/load/recent [R=301,L]

If you chose to replace all videos/load/recent links with just videos you should use this code:

RewriteRule ^videos/load/recent(/?)$  videos [R=301,L]

Now you just need to do similar for each of the media links in the main menu (audios, blogs & images). You only need to do this for the load/recent links the other load/featured, etc… should be fine.

If done correctly (once you make the changes make sure that they work!) then you’ll have just done yourself a favor. Also if you don’t already use Google Webmaster tools then make sure you check it out! It will help show issues with your website and also give you some info like the top search queries, etc..

I think it’s about time to unveil my latest PHPmotion addon, which will be available for v3. No price or ETA yet but it will be released within the next month at latest.

So what is it?

It is possibly one of the most useful addons you could ever buy for your website (and I’m not just saying that because I made it ).

Think Facebook activity wall with search engine benefits. And it doesn’t stop there! With the update wall you will see an increase in user interactivity, people will see groups friends create, the friends they add, videos they upload, comments they leave and a lot more (full list & screenshots soon!).

Why will search engines love this?

Not only does each user have their own update wall listing updates from their friends, there is also a public timeline which is basically a live feed to everything happening on your website in real time!

Once search engines index this they will be back all the time to find out what’s new, crawling links to new videos & audio files within seconds of them being uploaded!

Why will your users love this?

Why do they love facebook? Because they can see what people are doing as they do it. Once a user logs in they can go to their update wall and see what their friends latest actions where. Allowing them to join groups they have created, watch videos they’ve rated & commented on and much more!

Why will you love this addon?

Did you read the above two paragraphs? What more is there to add? Search engines will love it, users will too. Add this to a smart bit of marketing and some optimized seo and watch your site grow!

I will be posting screenshots & more of the features soon, I may even time permitting put up a demo. Let me know your thoughts & ideas in the comments below. Good ideas may see their way into the addon!

Update: I’ve taken a quick screenshot, if you think it looks a bit plain at the moment remember not all features have been added yet. Wait until you see it in action.

PHPmotion UpdateWall beta screen shot

Let me know if you find it useful and I’ll get started on more posts!

Do not use duplicate title & meta tags!

This is easily missed as the keyword & description tags are invisible to regular visitors, they only show up within the source code. Having the same titles on different pages is missing out on a great opportunity for getting some keywords picked up in search engines.

For example the featured, recent, most viewed & most commented videos all have the same title & meta tags! This is not good!

Here’s a simple way of fixing this and can be used in pretty much any of the .php files:

$page_title = "Your page title will go here! - $site_name";
$description = "Enter a description for the page here, descriptions are often used as the small part of text that shows in search results and shouldn't exceed 150 or so characters (the amount Google display in results).";
$keywords = "comma,separated,words,or short, search keywords";

Meta keywords aren’t used so much now as the search engines prefer to scan the actual content of your page rather then trust what you enter.

So where do you stick this code into your files? Most of the time anywhere before this will be fine except in certain files (more on that in a bit):

$TBS 			= new clsTinyButStrong;

Try it out now in category_home.php.

But wait I hear you say, I want to display the name of the category! Good thinking! So here’s how you go about it, take the code had earlier with a few minor adjustements:

$page_title = "Watch $channel videos – $site_name";
$description = "View all videos in the $channel category, watch, rate and comment on $channel videos.";
$keywords = "$channel, $channel videos, popular $channel vids";

Now that’s much better. Of course you can (and should) take this a lot further. Remember you will need to replace $channel with other variables (and don’t forget to change the descriptions & keywords around a bit). Some pages not to miss are seemore.php ($see_more_title), audio.php (also $see_more_title).

If you find this useful let me know below! Any questions just ask!

Update: How to add this for sub categories
At the bottom of the file just before adding the above code add the following:

if($sub > 0) {
	$channel = $channel_name;
}

#1 Finish your information pages

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve visited people’s websites from the showcase section in the PHPmotion forum to see the default “demo” content still on the About, Contact & Terms pages. If you’ve just finished your website, double check to make sure you haven’t forgotten this!

#2 Check it all works OK

This seems obvious right? Well even though the script should work out of the box I’d recommend checking it out in different browsers just to make sure that everything works as expected. A few times people have contacted me or posted on the forum because of javascript errors or blank pages caused by a missing file. This goes for all websites not just PHPmotion ones

Do not expect visitors to inform you of any errors on the site! They won’t, if something doesn’t work then they will just go elsewhere. Wouldn’t you do the same? Every now and then check your server error logs to see if any user actions are causing problems on the site.

#3 Customize your website

If your site looks just like someone else’s, visitors may think that you’ve copied the others site (or vice versa) or that you are the same & therefor have the same content. Now the chances that your visitor has been to another PHPmotion website are slim but with an ever growing number of downloads, it’s getting more and more likely every day.

The easiest option is to buy a pre-made theme or hire a professional to do the changes for you. The costs will vary a lot based on the theme or the designer you hire. If you didn’t plan on spending any money or don’t have any to spend before the launch, you can change stuff fairly easily yourself.

Being template based means most logic is kept outside of the templates so you only have to deal with actual code which will effect your layout/design. This makes it easier to edit, just take a look into your themes/default/templates/ folder to see the files that make your website look like it does currently. It only takes a few minutes to change your logo & upload it (provided you have one of course). But spend a little extra time changing the css files and you’ll be able to easily change the main colors & images used in the theme.

#4 Optimize your site for search engines

The latest version of PHPmotion is an improvement compared to v2 but there’s still room for improvement (there always is). In the near future I will try to post some articles on improving the rankings of your PHPmotion based website.

#5 Install extra features/addons

The only free addon I can think of for v3 that should not only be installed but should also become a default part of the script is RSSmotion. This is a must have if you plan on getting your site well known. Created by the forum member LennonNZ this easy to install addon will allow you to add RSS feeds of your videos to various different websites such as Google Video & Truveo.

There are plenty of addons available, most of them come at a cost though. Depending on your budget, you may want to be careful when choosing which commercial addons you buy. I’d recommend the video embedder for a quick way to get videos on the site & the invite my contacts addon to help grow your community faster. It’s also a good idea to remove the branding by purchasing a license.

That’s all for now, hopefully this short post will help any new users out there.