this post will show you how to setup and test the new author tag so that google can (at their discretion) show a picture of you next to your site in the serps!

firstly, you need to setup your site.

you need the syntax for the author tag:

jonathan

that is my author tag. it goes on every page that I have published.

on my about page, i have the following code

google plus

you need to have your google plus account as the url, and you need the ?rel=author at the end.

once you have your site setup then you need to edit your google plus acocunt.

go to your google plus account,
click on ‘profile’
click on ‘edit’

add a link to your website to the ‘contributor to’ box in your profile.

save your profile, and then go here to check it all works.

1) twitter official client
pros
works with lists
multiple accounts
looks excellent

cons
can only view one thing at a time, eg you cant have a live stream of two accounts at once
no sync support

2) tweetdeck
pros
works with lists
multiple accounts
can view multiple live streams concurrently

cons
looks rubbish
no sync support

3) janetter for twitter
pros
works with lists
multiple accounts
can view multiple live streams concurrently
theme support

cons
no sync support

4) echofon lite for twitter
pros
works with lists
multiple accounts
can only view one thing at a time, eg you cant have a live stream of two accounts at once
syncs between iphone and mac so you dont read the same tweets again and again

cons
ad supported, there is a paid version available though

to check your own backlinks and the backlinks of your competitors

http://blekko.com search for “yoursite.com /seo” note the space between yoursite.com and /seo
http://blekko.com search for “yoursite.com /domainlinks” note the space between yoursite.com and /domainlinks
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

for checking the backlinks to your own site:
http://www.google.com/webmastertools > Your site on the web > Links to your site
http://www.bing.com/webmaster > index summary > incoming links

:D

that said, there are always things to watch out for. dont just take things as read, what someone finds works for their site might not actauly be attributed to the thing that they think it is…
experimentation is the key.

anyway, here are some cool things to try

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-new-tools-every-seo-should-check-out

• goto google.com/webmastertools
• click on manage
• it will have an entry for ‘google analytics profile’ in the dropdown
• when you click on the google analytics profile it lets you pick the profile to associate.

all done.

basically you need to have a brand, a UPC / EAN and a manufacturer part number for everything, and if you sell clothes then you need a google product type and a google product category added to your existing feed.

here is the announcement
(http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/upcoming-google-product-search-feed.html)

*Understanding Changes to Product Search UK: http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleECommerce#p/u/1/RICDQm29iUw
*Providing High-Quality Data: http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleECommerce#p/u/4/FrW5BrMqziA
*Troubleshooting Tools: http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleECommerce#p/u/3/f8KoiuKnl00

this is what they will do to you if you dont
http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=188484.

full spec is available at
http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=188494&expand=GB.

there is also a ‘submit test feed’ option in the merchants dashboard > data feeds
you can upload a file and google will check that it works and has all the required attributes and will even give you a csv with the errors in it.

it checks the security of your wordpress installation.

WPScan is a vulnerability scanner which checks the security of WordPress installations using a black box approach.

Details
Username enumeration (from author querystring and location header)
Weak password cracking (multithreaded)
Version enumeration (from generator meta tag)
Vulnerability enumeration (based on version)
Plugin enumeration (2220 most popular by default)
Plugin vulnerability enumeration (based on version) (todo)
Plugin enumeration list generation
Other misc WordPress checks (theme name, dir listing, …)

http://code.google.com/p/wpscan/

wpscan is included in backtrack5 r1
if you dont have it then you can do

sudo apt-get install wpscan

to install it

COMMANDS

–url (The WordPress URL/domain to scan.)

–version (Only do version enumeration.)

–wordlist (Supply a wordlist for the password bruter and do the brute.)

–threads (The number of threads to use when multi-threading requests.)

–username (Only brute force the supplied username.)

–generate_plugin_list (Generate a new data/plugins.txt file.)

-v (Verbose output.)

EXAMPLES

Do ‘non-intrusive’ checks…

ruby wpscan.rb –url www.example.com

Only do version enumeration…

ruby wpscan.rb –url www.example.com –version

Do wordlist password brute force on enumerated users using 50 threads…

ruby wpscan.rb –url www.example.com –wordlist darkc0de.lst –threads 50

Do wordlist password brute force on the ‘admin’ username only…

ruby wpscan.rb –url www.example.com –wordlist darkc0de.lst –username admin

Generate a new ‘most popular’ plugin list… ruby ./wpscan.rb –generate_plugin_list 150

XSS protection
SQL injection protection
htaccess protection
wp-config protection, etc

for the full list of things please see

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bulletproof-security/

go to your self hosted wordpress admin
goto plugins > add new
search for ‘jetpack’
install it.

you have to connect it to a wordpress.com account [it will let you register a new one if you need to]
once its connected then your site stats will be saved on wordpress.com servers, so it doesnt bog down your database

if you use the iOS apps for ipad and iphone then you will be able to see site stats on your iOS device too :)