Steve’s Blog

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to place a Twitter feed inside a block. You can then display that Twitter feed anywhere around your theme. There are many different Twitter options out there but most have a couple of limitations:

• They post tweets as nodes rather than in a block.
• If they post to a block, they require very complex setups normally involving creating Views.

• Step 1: Click here to download the latest version of “Admin Menu”. Choose the top link under “Recommended releases”.
• Step 2: Extract the files into a folder on your desktop. The folder will be called “admin_menu”
• Step 3: Login to your site’s files via FTP and navigate to /sites/default/. If there isn’t a folder called /modules/ here, create one.
• Step 4: Upload the “admin_menu” folder to /sites/default/modules/
• Step 5: Go to Administer >> Modules >> Administration menu and check the box.  
• Step 6: Click ‘Save Configuration” at the very bottom of the screen.
• Step 7: Go to Administer >> Site configuration >> Administration menu and there are some settings you can edit.

Once you’ve followed those seven steps, your dropdown menu should appear at the top of the page.

Why Add a Sitemap?

I’ll be honest and say that I don’t believe sitemaps improve your ranking in search engines. However, they do make sure more pages get indexed and that they get indexed more quickly. This article presents evidence that the difference is astounding:

• Google with a sitemap: 14 minutes
• Google without a sitemap: 1375 minutes
• Google with a sitemap: 245 minutes
• Google without a sitemap: 1773 minutes
  

How to Add a Sitemap to Your Drupal Site

• Step 1: Click here to download the latest version of “XML Sitemap”. Choose the top link under “Recommended releases”.
• Step 2: Extract the files into a folder on your desktop. The folder will be called “xmlsitemap”
• Step 3: Login to your site’s files via FTP and navigate to /sites/default/. If there isn’t a folder called /modules/ here, create one.
• Step 4: Upload the “xmlsitemap” folder to /sites/default/modules/
• Step 5: Go to Administer >> Modules >> Administration menu and check the box next to “XML sitemap” and click “Save Configuration”.
• Step 6: After saving you’ll presented with more options. Checking all the boxes would be a good choice.

Submitting the Sitemap to Search Engines

• Step 7: Go to Administer >> Site Configuration >> XML Sitemap and you’ll have more options to choose from.
• Step 8: Inside the screen on Step 7 you’ll see that XML Sitemap allows you’ll see a box entitled “Search engines”. This will allow you to submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo and Bing (plus some others, if you care). Here is where you go to register and collect the data you’ll need:
  • Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
  • Yahoo: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
  • Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster

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Why Block Spam Comments?

If you site is new, this might not be too much of a problem. However, as your site grows, it will increasingly be seen as a valuable target for spammers. If they succeed in placing links on your site, they may get a couple of benefits:

• Search engines may rank the spammer’s site more highly
• Unsuspecting users may click on the link and visit the spammer’s site.

What is a WYSIWYG Editor and Why Do You Need It?

So your site users don’t have to use code. Its as simple as that.

WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get” … if you select some text and click the “bold” button, that text will be bold. If you select some text and click the “italic” button, that text will be in italics. There’s no messing around with HTML. That will be a relief to some of you and more particularly … your clients and site visitors.

Continue reading “Adding a WYSIWYG Editor to Your Drupal Site”

In this tutorial we’ll show you how to place an RSS feed inside a block. You can then display that RSS feed anywhere around your theme. We don’t need any extra modules this week as we’ll be using the core Aggregator Module:

Setting up the Aggregator Module

First of all, we’re going to set up the Aggregator module so that it can handle the RSS feeds for us.

• Step 1: Go to Administer >> Site building >> Modules. Check the box next to “Aggregator” and click Save Configuration.
• Step 2: Go to Administer >> click “By module” at the top.
• Step 3: Find the “Aggregator” area right at the top and then click on “Feed aggregator”:

Continue reading “Showing an RSS Feed in a Drupal Block”