Visit the site at http://www.richharvestfarms.com/

A few features:

• Many types of repeating events.
• Easy to set up.  Let the plugin know what page name you want to use and your good to go.
• Exclude events from certain dates every year such as holidays.  You can also include dates to an event if it doesn’t fall on a specific repeat pattern.
• Each event has its own page.  Great for SEO and direct linking to events for more information.
• Add unlimited events.  Great for fitness centers, schools, organizations, and companies.
• Create categories for easy viewing and sorting.
• Automatic print view to for easy printing and saving ink.

Please let me know if you find any bugs or have some suggestions.  I’ve built it from the requirements of my clients and am always looking to improve it.

Install

• Unzip the `cgm_calendar.zip` file.
• Upload the the `cgm_calendar` folder (not just the files in it!) to your `wp-contents/plugins` folder. If you’re using FTP, use ‘binary’ mode.

Activate

• In your WordPress administration, go to the Plugins page
• Activate the CGM Calendar plugin and a subpage for CGM Calendar will appear in your Settings menu and also as its own menu.

Display

There are three ways to show the calendar on your site.

• Go to Settings -> CGM Calendar and change the settings to what to you.  Set the page name to the url you want to display the calendar and visit http://www.yoursiteurl.com/pagename and it will appear. No page or post creation required
• Add the short code [ cgm-event-calendar ] (with no spaces) to your page or post content you wish to display the calendar
• Use the php function call <?php cgm_event_calendar(); ?> to display the calendar where you wish.

To display upcoming events:

1. Go to Settings -> CGM Calendar and set the Calendar URL to the full url where the calendar resides.  Default would be http://www.yoururl.com/calendar
2. Modify the List Format setting if desired.  Note that you will still need to wrap any list in a ul/ol when called.
3. Use the function echo cgm_list_upcoming_events(array(‘num_events’ => 5, ‘tag_id’ => ’1,2′)); and change the num_events to how many you want to show and the tag_id list to the tagged events, or remove it to show all.
4. You may also use the short code [ cgm-upcoming-events num_events=10 tag_id=1,2 ] to display the list.

If you wish, you can override the default css and print view template by copying the files, css/calendar.css and print_view.php to the base of your template directory.

Settings

Go to Settings -> CGM Calendar

• Page Name – Sets the default url to display the calendar with no page or post creation required
• Default View – Sets the default view of the calendar, by Month or Week when visitors view your calendar
• Start Time – Sets the time that the weekly calendar will start on.  If you set the start time for 8am and have an event at 7am, the event will not show on the weekly calendar.
• End Time – Sets the time that the weekly calendar will end on.  If you set the end time for 5pm and have an event at 6pm, the event will not show on the weekly calendar.

Download it here.

If you like the plugin, do me a favor and rate it too!

If you have trouble with the plugin, please make sure you reread the directions above before leaving a comment.  If you do make a comment about an issue you are having, please provide as much detail as you can about the issue and what you’ve done.  Saying it doesn’t work, doesn’t help and your comment will go unanswered.

If you would like custom additions / changes, please use my contact form to inquire about freelance services.

Thanks!

Visit the site ->

Visit the site ->

Any changes that are made to a website should be done with the customer in mind. Do not sacrifice rankings for customers. What we want are targeted web visitors. Visitors that are looking for the business you provide are likely to turn into customers. We could make any site rank first in Google for “10 pound yellow bananas” but how many customers will you get? Our goal, along with any great SEO company is to optimize your business to show the search engines and your potential new customers, the best you have to offer.

Here are some on-page optimization tips you can take advantage of now to help your search rankings:

• Create unique and accurate title pages. The title tells search engines what that page is about. Listings in the search engines will usually include this title tag. The home page title tag will describe your business in a few words. Deeper pages often have your business name and a short description of the information on that page.
• Fully make use of the pages Meta title tags. These tags are beneath the main title page and describe more about the page. You should write a few sentences for the search engines to better tell what you have to offer. Avoid just using keywords or repeating Meta tags from other pages. You want the search engines and new customers to be able to find your business.
• Create nice looking URL’s. The URL of a webpage is its address. No one wants to click on a link that is way to0 long and contains strange letter formations and numbers. Change your URL’s to reflect the information on that page. This will help the search engines and customers click through to your site.
• Make your site easy to navigate. Is your site easy to get lost in? Can you get back to the home page or find the information a new customer would likely need? Making your site easier to navigate and cleaner in simple terms helps build your business and allows search engines to find your content and get it listed high in the results.
• Examine your sites content. Does all of the content (articles, products, and services) have a common theme? Or are you trying to offer too many services and items to too many people.  Is your content unique or did you copy from your competition? Keeping your site focused with what a customer would expect to see and having fresh, unique content builds new business and is what the search engines also expect to see and reward with higher rankings.
• Use relevant anchor text. Anchor text is that highlighted text that tells users to click here to view more about a topic. Search engines also use this to tell what information lies behind that link. Anchor text should use keywords relevant to your products, not just CLICK HERE which does nothing to help the user or the search engines.
• Use header tags correctly. Head tags are headings for a section on your websites page. A large header tells the user what they will find below. Just as newspapers use large headlines to attract readers. You should do the same to tell visitors and the search engines what is below and add to its importance.
• Optimize your pictures.  There may not seem like much you can do with pictures on your site but they can be optimized to help search engines learn more about what you are offering. Tags for pictures are called ‘alt’ attributes.  This helps users who are surfing on platforms that do not support pictures and will allow your site to show up in rankings for image search engines like Google Image. This is great for online retailers.

All of these on-site tweaks and changes should  be done whether you have an existing site or are building one from the ground up.  Ask your web developer or designer if they are making use of these SEO factors that will affect your rankings and ultimately your checking account.

Even with a well optimized site, it still may be hard to get visitors and new customers from the search engines if you are facing a lot of competition. Here are some off-site SEO tips that are easy enough for the beginner to accomplish and see results with.

• Start a blog. Adding a blog to your website allows new content to be continually added to your site for the search engines to crawl and rank your site with. You don’t have to go crazy, just even a new article or short paragraph about a new product or promotion will help. Blogs can also be syndicated, allowing your new content to be shuttled off across hundreds of sites immediately through RSS feeds. This is free and will allow the search engines to find links back to your site all across the web.
• Promote your Web address. Do your business cards and marketing material display your website. This is an easy way to let customers know they can go online and learn more about your services and products.  More new customers will like to research more about you before first contact and this allows just that. We are sure you can think of at least 20 places to add your web address to right now. From newsletters, advertising and local BBB directories.
• Get active in social media promotion. Social media sites, or Web 2.0 are where people gather to learn about the newest, latest or greatest of the internet. Taking advantage of social media allows potential customers to view your site and information in a social media platform that is targeted to your audience.
• Search Engine business listings- Gone are the days of paying to be listed in the yellow pages. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have free business listings. It is easy to submit your business and details for inclusion and it is free.
• Get involved in Internet communities. There are websites and forums for every topic imaginable. Find these forums and online communities to promote your company and contribute with your area of expertise. This is another easy and free way to gain new customers.
• Use and know how to examine the results from Google Analytics and Webmaster tools. Google provides these free tools to help web site owners examine their visitors. You will know where they came from, how they got there and what they did inside of your site. This information is highly valuable and can help you make changes to your on and off-site optimization to gain new business and increase your sales from existing customers.

You don’t have to be an expert to make these changes and the results you will see can happen very quickly. Even if you already have a site, go through these steps and make sure you are taking advantage of them.  If you need help, Creative Grey Matter is as always, only a phone call or email away.

Next week we will talk about what to look for in a SEO company and common pitfalls business owners make when hiring a company to increase their search engine rankings.

Shane, the Creative Grey Matter in house SEO/ Internet Marketing guy

function clean_input($data) {
    $return = array();
    foreach ($data as $key => $value) {
        if (is_array($value)) {
            foreach ($value as $key2 => $value2) {
                if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
                    $value2 = stripslashes($value2);
                }
                if (!is_numeric($value2)) {
                    $value2 = mysql_escape_string($value2);
                }
                $return[$key][$key2] = $value2;
            }
        } else {
            if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
                $value = stripslashes($value);
            }
            if (!is_numeric($value)) {
                $value = mysql_escape_string($value);
            }
            $return[$key] = $value;
         }
    }
    return $return;
}

To use the function you can call

$clean = clean_input($_POST); // or $_GET

Then you can use $clean['whatever'] in your code.

A couple notes:

• I am not using mysql_real_escape_string, the updated version of the php function.  I can’t assume that you’ve opened a database connection before calling the function.  This wouldn’t be needed for things such as contact forms on a static site.  If you have a database connection open, I’d change the mysql_escape_string to mysql_real_escape string.
• This doesn’t do any checks for proper type and format of any input, you’ll have to do that on your own next.

It can handle two dimension arrays so if for example you have a multiple select box, it will correctly cycle through each value.  Hope this helps you out there.

First determine what page or pages you need to limit access to.  Luckily for me, all the pages had a single parent which made it real easy.  Also I will go through the steps to limit access to pages.  For posts or other elements such as sidebar information, the steps would be similar, just the theme files would change.

First, I am using the plugin Sidebar Login by Mike Jolley to create a nice login form inside the page.  Download and active that.

Next, open up page.php in your themes folder.  I first check to see if the current page is one that we are protecting.  To do this I use

if (($pos = strpos($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], 'protectedpagename')) !== false) {
   // This is a page we are protecting
}

Now for the site I was building, all the pages that needed to be protected where children of the parent.  In other words they all had urls such as http://www.testsite.com/protecdpagename/childpagename.  If you where protecting many pages with different names you’d have to extend the if statement to check for them all.

Now, if the user comes across a page whose access is limited, we need to check whether or not they are logged in using:

if (@is_user_logged_in()) {
    // user is not logged in
}

If they are not logged in, we can display the login form from the Sidebar Login plugin and set a flag to say they are not logged in. using:

$can_view_page = false;
sidebarlogin();

If they are logged in we can continue.

Now we can display the page content as normal if the flag $can_view_page is true.

Here is the entire code:

$can_view_page = true;
if (($pos = strpos($_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"], 'protectedpagename')) !== false) {
    // This is a page we are protecting
    if (!is_user_logged_in()) {
        // user is not logged in
        $can_view_page = false;
        sidebarlogin();
    }
}

if ($can_view_page) {
   // place page loop here
}

You can stop here if you wish but I used another technique to clean up the process a little more.  Using the technique from http://nathany.com/developer/redirecting-wordpress-subscribers/ I was able to redirect the user to the protect page after they logged in.  This also works when if they happen to log in by forgetting their password and logging in that way.

It should be mentioned that the site I did this on does not allow people to register themselves.  This would be a problem and you’d have to modify the script to accommodate that.

Let me know what you think.

Installation is very simple, unzip the package and upload to your plugins directory.  Then under the “Settings” Menu, go to “GA Configuration” and enter in your accounts details.  The plugin can optionally add the Google Analytics code to the footer of your site if its not already included.

A few FAQ from the readme file:

Why do I need to enter my username and password?
The google analytics api requires authentication and this is the cleanest way to accomplish that.

What’s my site’s Profile ID?
The sites Profile ID can be found by viewing the Google Analytic’s reports for the site. Then in the URL the Profile ID can be found after id= such as id=1234567. 1234567 would be the sites Profile ID.

What’s my site’s Web ID?
The optional Web ID is found in the list of your site profiles after the name of the site. It will look something like UA-1234567-0. You only need to enter this if you wish for the plugin to include the google analytics code into your sites footer to begin tracking stats.

Here are some screen shots of the plugin in action:

A few notes:

• Please consider this a beta version.  There are still a few bugs to work out.  If you come across one let me know in the comments.
• There is currently a JavaScript error in IE.  If you figure it out, please let me know so I can update the plugin.  Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon.
• This plugin does NOT work in environments using php4.  The class to gather the Google Data is written using php 5 functions and can not be changed.  If I find a good alternative or have the time to rewrite the class, I’ll update the plugin.
• Someone has said they can’t see the graphs.  I can’t replicate this issue but it might have something to do with not uploading the swf files in binary mode.  If someone else has the same problem let me know.

I’ll be adding more reports and more details when I get the time.  Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Download the plugin here.

// VALIDATE EMAIL ADDRESS TO CHECK FOR CORRECT FORMAT
function check_email_address($email) {
	// First, we check that there's one @ symbol, and that the lengths are right
	if (!ereg("^[^@]{1,64}@[^@]{1,255}$", $email)) {
		// Email invalid - wrong number of characters in one section, or wrong number of @ symbols.
		return false;
	}
	// Split it into sections to make life easier
	$email_array = explode("@", $email);
	$local_array = explode(".", $email_array[0]);
	for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($local_array); $i++) {
		if (!ereg("^(([A-Za-z0-9!$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-][A-Za-z0-9!$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~\.-]{0,63})|(\"[^(\\|\")]{0,62}\"))$", $local_array[$i])) {
			return false;
		}
	}
	// Check if domain is IP. If not, it should be valid domain name
	if (!ereg("^\[?[0-9\.]+\]?$", $email_array[1])) {
		$domain_array = explode(".", $email_array[1]);
		if (sizeof($domain_array) < 2) {
			return false; // Not enough parts to domain
		}
		for ($i = 0; $i < sizeof($domain_array); $i++) {
			if (!ereg("^(([A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9-]{0,61}[A-Za-z0-9])|([A-Za-z0-9]+))$", $domain_array[$i])) {
				return false;
			}
		}
	}
	return true;
}

then you can check any email address using:

if (!check_email_address($email)) {
	$error = 'This email is invalid!';
}

Hopefully this helps, I use this a lot in my coding. If you see something it might not catch, let me know.