She didn’t want a cookie-cutter implementation (same location for every page) but instead she wanted full control in the placement of her AdSense code as well as whether or not it would even be used on every page/post.

For this request I decided to create a WordPress Shortcode with a custom styling attribute in order to control where the ads would be displayed within her content.

Before we get into the tutorial, I want to answer two questions in case everyone isn’t yet familiar with Google AdSense or WordPress Shortcodes.

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is a free, simple way for website publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their websites. AdSense also lets you provide Google search to your site users, while earning money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.

Learn more here.

What are WordPress Shortcodes?

A Shortcode is a piece of code that turns a lot of complicated code into small snippets. With Shortcodes you can write your code/functions once and then use a Shortcode to interact with that piece of code over and over again. Think of a Shortcode being a shortcut.

Learn more here.

On to the tutorial… Easy stuff first!

Show Me the Shortcode

The Shortcode is listed below. Take note of the attribute named float. The two values supported are left or right. If you need the Google AdSense Ad to float left, simply add float=”left” for the float attribute. If it needs to float right, then switch it to right.

[show_AdSense float="left|right"]

Show Me the CSS

You will need to write two style definitions. One to float the AdSense code left and the other to float it right. I also had the adjust the margin in order for her AdSense code to display properly on her website. Fine tune it for your implementation.

.adsense-left {
    float: left;
    margin: 0 20px 20px 0;
}

.adsense-right {
    float: right;
    margin: 0 0 20px 20px;
}

Shortcode Php Code

/**
 * Shortcode for including AdSense into page/post content
 *
 * How to Use: [show_AdSense float="left|right"]
 *
 * @author Rick R. Duncan
 * https://twitter.com/#!/RickRDuncan
 * http://www.buildbrandbelieve.com
 */
function get_AdSense($float) {
	require(ABSPATH.'/custom/php/adsense.php');
	extract(shortcode_atts(array("float" => '0'), $float));
	return getAdSense($float);
}
add_shortcode('show_AdSense', 'get_AdSense');

In the Php code above you’ll see a few things happening:

• I’m passing the float value into the function named get_AdSense(). The value of $float will either be left or right.
• I’m including the file adsense.php which contains the client’s Google AdSense code.
• I’m extracting the float attribute variable from the Shortcode.
• I’m calling the getAdSense() function and passing the float value which will be left or right into the function. This will then return the AdSense code.

The AdSense Code

The AdSense code below simply returns the AdSense code with the proper CSS style attached. Look for the HTML of “class=adsense-” and you can see where I’m placing the float position entered into the Shortcode. When this code gets returned to the calling function it will have a class name of either “adsense-left” or “adsense-right” in order for it to be placed on the page where the user needs it.

<?php
function getAdSense($position){
	$strHTML = '<div class="adsense-'. $position . '">
		<script type="text/javascript"><!--
    		google_ad_client = "pub-XXXXXXXXXXX";
    		google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXX";
    		google_ad_width = 250;
    		google_ad_height = 250;
    		//-->
    		</script>
    		<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"></script>
		</div>';
	return $strHTML;
}
?>

Closing Remarks

All of this code can be added into your themes folder. You can edit Style.css to include the custom styles mentioned above. All of the Php code (Shortcode & getAdSense() function) can be added into your Functions.php file. I don’t do that…

For my implementation, all of this code lives outside of WordPress and within a custom functions file, custom.css and custom folders. You can read the article titled How to Create a Custom Functions File for Genesis to see how easy it is to separate code functionality like this from your WordPress theme. Once you switch to this method you’ll wonder why you hadn’t done it sooner!

Happy Coding.

If you’re anything like me or worse yet, Brian Gardner, you’ll find yourself changing themes more than you change your socks. Just kidding Brian. You do change your theme frequently. Maybe saying that you do it more often than changing your socks is a slight exaggeration.

Why Custom Functions Files Make Sense

In most cases, whenever you decide to use a new theme chances are you’ll have to do a fair amount of customization to get things just right. By the time you do this three or four times you start second-guessing your decision to use a new theme.

Lucky for you, I’ve suffered through this problem enough times and have created a user-defined functions file that will work with any WordPress theme, including the Genesis Framework. The idea behind creating a user-defined function file for WordPress is that you can place all of your common, custom designed elements— JavaScript, CSS, Affiliate API code, for instance—within functions that reside outside of your theme files and file structure.

Creating a user-defined functions file is a great idea for a couple of reasons:

1. Your common design tweaks are isolated in a non-theme file so you won’t risk overwriting them whenever you change or upgrade your theme. An example is my alert message after the second paragraph in my article titled “How to rename a Genesis Child Theme.” If the image and styles used on that page were contained within the existing theme and not in my user-defined file, everything would be lost when I switch to a new StudioPress theme.
2. Creating user-defined function file and custom directories outside of your theme creates a more organized and less intimidating work environment for customizing your current theme. You can easily add and subtract HTML, Php, CSS, etc. from your user-defined functions file without fear of “breaking” your theme, simply because you aren’t trying to edit the theme files directly.

Old School Method of Coding

Before I created my user-defined functions file I would make all of my functional and design tweaks directly in the themes folder. No more. Well, OK, you do need one line of code to begin using a user-defined functions file.

New Method of Coding

Going forward I’m only writing one line of code inside of functions.php and then my custom user-defined functions file will contain all of my WordPress customizations which lives off the root of my site in a folder named custom.

Folder structure off the root of my website:

A peek inside of the custom folder:

A Working Example

Lets use an example in which I customize the Genesis breadcrumb.

Step 1

Create a folder named custom in the root of your website. Refer to the image above for the exact location if you’re not clear where it goes.

Step 2

Inside the folder named custom, create four directories named css, js, img and php. These are just folder name suggestions should you begin using this method for your future projects.

Step 3

Create your custom_functions.php file and place it into your folder named custom.

Add the custom breadcrumb code to custom_functions.php that you will use for your website. Follow this tutorial if you need assistance.

The code below is what your file named custom_functions.php should contain at this point.

<?php 

/**
 * Customize breadcrumb display
 *
 * @author Rick R. Duncan
 * @link http://www.buildbrandbelieve.com
 * @param array $args Default breadcrumb arguments
 * @return array Amended breadcrumb arguments
 *
 */
add_filter('genesis_breadcrumb_args', 'custom_breadcrumb_args');
function custom_breadcrumb_args( $args ) {
    $args['home'] 				= 'home';
    $args['sep'] 				= ' &raquo; ';
    $args['labels']['prefix'] 	= '';
    $args['prefix'] 			= '<div id="crumbs-wrapper"><div id="crumbs">';
    $args['suffix'] 			= '</div></div>';
    $args['labels']['category'] = '';
    $args['labels']['tag'] 		= '';
    return $args;
}

?>

Step 4

Add one line of code into your existing functions.php file. This is the code:

if (is_file(ABSPATH. '/custom/custom_functions.php')) { include(ABSPATH. '/custom/custom_functions.php'); } // Include Custom Functions

That’s all. You’re done. See how easy that was? This example should help you see just how powerful this technique really is.

Bonus Lesson

Up above I mentioned how you can use this technique for CSS. You won’t need the user-defined functions file for this example, but you will use the directory structure I recommended above to make this happen.

From your admin page in WordPress, look for Genesis -> Theme Settings. Once you’re on the theme settings page, look for section labeled Header & Footer Scripts and in the first box (the top one) you will past the following line of code into it.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.buildbrandbelieve.com/custom/css/custom.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />

Change the domain name “buildbrandbelieve” to your domain. Now create a .css file named custom.css, toss it into the folder named “css” and add your custom styles to this file instead of Style.css that’s included in your child theme. Again, the goal is to not have your customizations (the ones that remain no matter what theme you’re using) added to your existing child theme. Keep them separated so you can easily change themes whenever you want with little fuss.

Let me know if you use something similar to what I’ve outlined above or have suggestions on making this code more robust. I’m always looking for better ways to code and save time.

I had difficulty trying to figure out how to exclude a category from the Genesis grid loop function but finally found a solution. Since it was so difficult to find, I wanted to share my solution with everyone that’s searching for the same thing.

One Line of Code

No, it’s not a typo in that you are seeing a double underscore in between the word category and not.

'category__not_in' => '72'

In my example above the category I want to exclude is 72. You will need to change that value to suit your implementation.

The Entire Function

genesis_grid_loop( array( 'features' => 2, 'feature_image_size' => 'full', 'feature_image_class' => 'alignleft post-image', 'feature_content_limit' => 220, 'grid_image_size' => 0, 'grid_image_class' => 'alignnone', 'grid_content_limit' => 200, 'more' => __( '[Continue reading...]', 'genesis' ), 'posts_per_page' => 6, 'category__not_in' => '72' ) );

As of this writing, it’s currently what’s being used on my homepage.

I recently read an excellent tutorial published by Brian Gardner that details the steps involved in creating a blog page with a single category. It got me to thinking… what if I wanted to create a blog page for a single tag? Well, that’s possible too!

I assumed I could just switch out ‘cat’ for ‘tag’ and use the ID of the tag I needed. Wrong!

I spent a few minutes searching for WordPress query_args tags trying to determine how to use a tag instead of a category. I finally stumbled upon someone claiming it to be a bug in the system that makes the ID not work with tags. It was stated that you must reference the tag by name when using query_args.

The Code

Look at the image below. Where the value of ‘query_args’ was ‘cat=X’ in Brian’s tutorial, simply replace ‘cat’ with ‘tag’ but instead of using the ID of the tag you have to use the tag name for the value.

Like they say at Staples; That was Easy!

Before we get started on the tutorial, click this URL http://www.buildbrandbelieve.com/fred.php and you can see what I’ve created for this website.

Grab a Copy of 404.php

The first thing you need to do is grab a copy of 404.php which is located in the root of the Genesis folder.

Edit 404.php

Now open 404.php in your favorite text editor (I use Coda) and make whatever customizations you need for your custom 404 page. For my site you can see that my changes include:

• Custom H1 page title
• Custom messaging at top of page
• Added imagery to the page
• Listed the 8 most recent posts published on my website

Save your changes and upload your file into your active theme folder and your custom 404 error page will now be used when a user encounters an error 404 on your website.

Keep reading to see how easy it was to list my most recent 8 posts at the bottom of my error page.

How to List Recent Posts

The code I used to display the recent posts is as follow.

wp_get_archives( 'type=postbypost&limit=8' );

That’s it! You’re done. See how easy it is to make WordPress customizations when using the Genesis Framework?

Wait There’s More?

If you want a custom 404 error page without having to do any coding at all, check out this plugin from David Decker. I have not tried this plugin but in taking a quick glance at the source code it looks pretty solid and gives you some nice flexible options.

Show Us Your 404 Error Page

If you have a custom error 404 page on your site or a site you created for a client, drop a link below. I’m especially interested in the error pages that add a light touch of humor to the messaging.

Recently I wrote an article titled Has Your htaccess File Been Hacked in which I described how a client’s site was hacked through the .htaccess file. This week I’ve encountered another small business owner’s website running WordPress that has been hacked. This time it was totally preventable. Read on to see how this could have been prevented.

Google Analytics

As an Internet Marketing Consultant with RVA Media, the first thing we look for on a client’s website is analytics software. If the site doesn’t have analytics software installed, we recommend installing Google Analytics immediately. Without knowing how a website is performing through the use of analytics software, it would be reckless of us to make recommendations when it comes to a cohesive internet marketing strategy.

On this particular site, there was no analytics software installed. It was my job to get it installed as soon as possible in order to create a baseline. As soon as I received the credentials to log into the WordPress admin panel I knew I would find trouble. Why you ask? The credentials I received to administer the site was admin/admin. Yep, the username was admin and the password was also admin.

WordPress Updates

After logging into the site, the first thing I noticed was that the site was running WordPress 3.0. The current version is 3.3.1. Also, the version of Php is 4.4.9 which is not compatible with the latest version of WordPress. In order to upgrade WordPress to 3.3.1 I would need to upgrade Php to 5.2.4 or higher. Even the plugins and the theme itself was outdated and had newer version available.This is the time in which I would like to remind everyone that it’s important to keep WordPress and all plugins updated to the latest version as most hacking is done through older versions of both WordPress and plugins. For this particular case it wasn’t the older versions guilty of allowing a hacker in, it was the extremely weak password/username combination. Even so, please follow best practices and keep everything up to date.

WordPress Pharma Hack?

At first glance I thought the site was hit by the infamous WordPress pharma hack. I found links pointing to http://atlantic-drugs.net, http://cvsmailorderpharmacy.org/ and http://cvsonlinepharmacystore.com/, using terms like viagra, rhinocort and others. These link-hackers were trying to get as many back-links to their sites as possible in the hopes of increasing their Google rankings and manipulating their link profile in a positive manner.

Lucky for me and the client this wasn’t the infamous WordPress pharma hack. Instead, it was a beginner hackers delight. The .htaccess file was fine, nothing uploaded into the “uploads” folder, nothing in the plugins folder or database indicated anything was hacked. This was a case of someone gaining admin access into the WordPress site and manually adding hyperlinks to some pharmacy sites. This is why I said earlier it all could have been prevented.

Their are numerous articles posted online that guide you on how to secure WordPress. Recently, the crew at StudioPress wrote an article titled 4 Simple Ways to Secure (and Maintain) Your WordPress Website that I recommend you read. You should also read Hardening WordPress which was written by WordPress themselves to learn about the different methods in which to reduce the likelihood of having your site compromised by hackers.

How Much Damage?

According to Google the word rhinocort appears over 20 times on the client’s website. You can find out this information from an advanced search query in Google. Simply type the following query into Google. site:www.DOMAIN.com “rhinocort”. Substitute the word “domain” with your actual domain and the word “rhinocort” with the term you’re looking for. If you’re checking your site try switching out the term rhinocort with viagra, cialis, nexium, etc. to see if Google spots any of those terms on your site. Hopefully not!

Everything with this hack involved manual work. The hackers edited footer.php in order to add a rhinocort link onto every page of the site. Then they manually went into every post of the site (there were only 7 posts) to replace words with viagra, cialis and others making them a link to their pharmacy sites. Once I realized how they did it, I was able to fix everything in less than 30 minutes.

Lesson Learned?

1. Never set your username and password to admin/admin
2. Never set and forget your website – If you’re a small business and you feel it’s necessary to have an online presence with your own domain and website, please pay attention to your website by receiving daily, weekly and monthly reports. You wouldn’t run a television commercial or a radio spot and not want to identify the ROI. Same holds true for your website. Your website should be working for you, not against you.

In only a few minutes a day you can keep an eye on the health of your website. Please, don’t have prospective clients visit your site only to find that you’ve been hacked and your content has been compromised.

I recently wrote an article titled Has Your .HTACCESS File Been Hacked. In that article I mentioned a daily report that details the number of visits (organic search referrals) your site receives from search engines. In today’s article I’m going to show you how to create this report in Google Analytics in order to have it sent to you on a daily basis.

Before we begin. As many of you know, there are two versions of Google Analytics to choose from. The old version and the new version. As of this writing it’s not possible to have reports emailed to you from the new version. I’m going to first show you how to get at the report in the new version, then I’ll show you how to do the same thing in the old version in order to have it emailed to you on a daily basis. Here we go…

Google Analytics: New Version

1. Open Google Analytics

2. Click on your website and look in the left navigation bar for Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic.
(view image below)

Now look in the center screen for the setting labeled Viewing and click on Source.
(view image below)

You can now see how many organic visits over the last 30 days you have received from the search engines. Look towards the top right of your screen and change the date to yesterday’s date. Now you’ll see what you got yesterday from the search engines. This is free, organic traffic numbers.

As I said above. At the time of this writing you’re not able to have the report emailed to you. The Google Analytics team is working on it, so please be patient. In the meantime, add it to your dashboard so you have it saved once the email functionality has been added.

If you don’t want to log in to view this on a daily basis, it’s time to switch to the old version and create the same report. Once you’re done, you can have it emailed to you. Here we go…

Google Analytics: Old Version

From within Google Analytics, scroll to the top of the page and look towards the top right for a link labeled Old Version and give it a click.

Click on your website and look in the left navigation bar for Traffic Sources > Search Engines.
(view image below)

Now look in the center screen for the setting labeled Show and click on non-paid.
(view image below)

You are now viewing the amount of free/organic traffic sent to you from the search engines. Now let’s get this report sent to us in an email on a daily basis.

Scroll to the top of the page and look for the icons labeled Export, Email, Add to Dashboard and Visualize.
(see image below)

Click on Email to have the email form pop-up for you to fill out. Click the tab labeled Schedule. I kept the check mark Send to me checked, filled in the subject line with the value of Organic Search Referrals and selected to have a .PDF file sent to me. Then for Date Range/Schedule: I selected Daily (sent each morning). Click Schedule and you’re done.

By having this report, you’ll know if all of a sudden you have lost all your organic traffic from the Google Gods and/or other search engines.

Would you know if your .htaccess file was hacked?

The other day I was asked to look at an .htaccess file from a WordPress site belonging to a small business owner. His fear was that the .htaccess file had been hacked. He mentioned that his site was up and running and he couldn’t see anything wrong, but thought it best to get a second opinion.

I opened the .htaccess file with a text editor and was amazed at the code that had been placed within the file.

.htaccess 301 redirect

The image below is a snippet of the code placed into the .htaccess file.

As you can see, the code is basically saying that if you come from a search engine (i.e. Google, Ask, Yahoo, etc.) then send the user to http://bannortim-emisac.ru/upday/index.php using a 301 redirect.

Analytics to the Rescue

So, how long would it take you or one of your clients to know if the .htaccess file was hacked in the manner described above? If you’re getting daily analytic reports that included organic search referral traffic, you would have known within 24 hours.

How would you know? You would have seen a drop to zero referrals from Google and thought the world ended. After you pick yourself up off the floor you probably would have performed a search for your domain in Google, seen the result then clicked on the link to visit your site. At that time you would have been redirected to a different site thereby alarming you that something was wrong on your site and not with Google.

It’s beyond the scope of this article to detail the ways in which you should harden your WordPress install. A few pointers on how I like to do it include:

• Changing file permissions on key files
• Keeping WordPress up-to-date
• Only installing plugins that are required to run your site. Also knowing who created the plugin by reading the reviews
• Using strong passwords
• Move the wp-config.php file to the directory above your WordPress install
• Change WordPress table prefix
• and more

How Did This Happen?

You might be wondering how this hack occurred. We cannot prove it, but we think it was caused by a WordPress plugin named Easy Comment Uploads. Again, we’re not 100% certain, but a Google search for Plugin: Easy Comment Uploads hacked turns up a ton of hits about how to use this plugin against site owners.

Information on WordPress.org also indicates sever vulnerabilities with this plugin. Luckily Easy Comment Uploads is no longer available on WordPress.org. Problem is; other sites could be hosting this plugin enabling users to still use it.

My advice… stay away from it.

For those unaware of the term “behavioral retargeting” it’s defined by Wikipedia as a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous Internet actions, in situations where these actions did not result in a sale or conversion.

In theory it’s a giant leap forward in trying to get consumers back into the sales funnel. Some people in the industry have reported that a company needs to have seven different ‘touch-points’ with a customer (on average) before they make a purchase. So in theory this sounds like it’s right on target, right?

The Flaw

Before I go into the details I want to admit that I’m a happy subscriber of DIRECTV and have been since 2006.

Here is an example in which I will be driven into DIRECTV Banner Ad Hell due to the current implementation of behavioral retargeting. Last night I saw a television commercial informing me that Pandora has been added to the list of features for DIRECTV subscribers. I grabbed my iPad, opened my browser and typed DIRECTV into Google. I clicked the first link on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and was taken to a PPC landing page since that link was a paid-link. I searched the DIRECTV site for information on the new Pandora feature in order to figure out how to use the service. I couldn’t find anything so I logged-in with the hopes of finding the information in my dashboard of new features. Ah, there it is. I accomplish my goal and head on over to a few of my favorite websites.

Wait, what is this? DIRECTV ads on every single site I’m now visiting. Why are you retargeting me? I logged into DIRECTV.com which means you clearly know I’m a happy paying customer. Maybe not the happy part, but being a paying customer is now a certainty. Why isn’t the technology available to disable the retargeting ads? As a current paying customer I’m not going to convert so please stop showing me the ads.

The same holds true for after making a purchase. I recently purchased Rackspace web hosting which I highly recommend. After signing up and paying for the service I had to endure Rackspace Banner Ad Hell for about two weeks. Again, I’m a paying customer, stop bugging me.

Show Me Relevant Ads

Remember that I said it takes an estimated seven touch-points before a consumer makes a purchase? With the wasted page views on me there is another advertiser out there losing out on a possible sale. I’m no longer seeing relevant ads and other advertisers who should be in front of me are not.

How much longer must we wait and how much money will be wasted until Behavioral Retargeting is taken to the next step and becomes smart enough to know that a conversion has taken place? Soon I hope.

As a marketer, I never stop thinking of how and where a business can further their reach to promote their brand or products.

By pure chance, or at least I’m assuming it was by chance I think I found a place no one thought of.

Introducing marketing by CAPTCHA!

CAPTCHA for Advertisers

For those that don’t recognize the name CAPTCHA, I’ll define it for you. A CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot.

The other day I was conducting keyword research for an SEO project and had to enter a seemingly random string of characters before I could enter into the Google AdWords website. Usually the text is so random you never think twice about what you have to enter in the text-box. This time it was different.

Check out the image below for a real live CAPTCHA that I had to enter.

Now, I’m no math genius but what are the odds of having the string of characters ETrade showing up? Now, dig deeper and tell me the odds of getting it to ask for E*Trade. Notice the asterisk in between the E and the letter T? I would love to know the odds. Anyone care to guess?

I think it’s only a matter of time before we see marketing through CAPTCHA on public websites.

So there you go. If you’re a developer reading this, go build it and get to market first. You just might have a golden egg in your hands. Or, it’s a fluke that I saw it (maybe 1 in a trillion) and it’s a silly idea to think that companies will start promoting their brand using CAPTCHA.