Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In WordPress
June 25th, 2007 by CourtThere is a crazy little WordPress trick that I found a while back that can really help you to get more traffic if you use it properly. You don’t have to install a plugin for this trick - it’s already built in to WordPress. I really don’t understand why the WordPress people hid this useful little tool, it would really be helpful to anyone that has a WordPress blog. Maybe they’re scheming against us. 
When you’re writing a post the regular way, you go to your ‘Write Post’ page, and normally use a box that looks like this:
There’s a simple keyboard command that will make your WordPress ‘write post’ screen look like this (I outlined the extra row of icons to make it easier to see):
All you have to do to get the extra bar to appear it hit ‘Shift-Alt-V’ on your keyboard. Go ahead, try it. You get a new row of icons that you can use to create better posts.
How This Can Increase Blogging Traffic
The key is the little drop-down labeled ‘Paragraph’. When you write posts, you should be trying to target keyword phrases - words and phrases that people search for. With this post I’m trying to target the keyword ‘blogging traffic’. When trying to target a keyword, it will really help if you place it in a special tag called a ‘heading’. The drop-down labeled ‘Paragraph’ will allow you to do this.
The first thing you will have do to is actually write a heading, just like I did when I wrote ‘How This Row Can Increase Blogging Traffic’ (it should be appearing as a large title above). It’s basically just a subtitle that you use on the page. Make sure you add you keyword into the heading. You will then highlight your heading and click the drop-down, selecting ‘Heading 2′. Don’t use Heading 1 because that is for the main title of the page, and in WordPress blogs it is already being used.
Using this little trick will help your posts to get ranked in a higher location in Google for the keywords you’re trying to target. (For best results you should also put the keyword in the title of your post.) A higher location in Google will always mean more traffic - a lot more traffic.
Save to del.icio.us
Digg This!
Post to Facebook
StumbleItRelated Posts:
Creating Landing Pages Worthy Of Getting Ranked #1
Landing pages are pages that are engineered to target certain keyword phrases. For a traditional sit...
10 Secrets Of Advanced SEO Copywriters
SEO copywriting is writing material that presents well to the reader and ranks majestically in the s...
What I’m Working On This Morning
Today I have several new ideas for posts, and I've started a few of them. Here are the ones I'm curr...
Increase Search Traffic With Effective Link Structure 2.0
2007 has been the biggest year ever for new blogs. At the current rate of growth, over 30 million ne...
5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Blog About Blogging
1. It's not that interesting. I'm really interested in SEO, so it's pretty interesting to write abou...
Do You Recognize The 4 Early Warning Signs Of Lame Duck Title Syndrome?
Although most of us try to produce quality material, we repeatedly fall into the same traps and our ...
June 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
This is an excellent trick! I usually code headings manually, but your way makes it much easier.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Thanks Simonne! I used to do it manually too.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
wow, nice…I thought wordpress does not have this thing! is it wordpress functionality or windows thingy?
June 26th, 2007 at 9:54 am
It’s a WordPress thing. They should make it so that everyone can see it.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Have you tried downloading the full TinyMCE installation, there are loads of extras you can use to add functionality to your text editor. Its a little fiddly and does involve adding to the TinyMCE text file but there is some good stuff there.
Andy
June 26th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I haven’t ever tried it because people say it’s buggy. I think I’ll give it a shot though.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Nice find…how did you find out about it?
June 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
I heard there was a plugin for it, so I was looking for the plugin when I found this.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Court, you never cease to amaze me. I always learn something new and informative when I visit your blog. How did you discover this?
June 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I found a thread in the WordPress blog where people were talking about it. I was actually looking for a plugin that did it.
I figured there was a plugin for it because most web builders have the drop down that lets you set headings.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
There is a plugin called tinyMCE Advanced which will enhance the tinyMCE Editor even more.
You can find it at http://www.laptoptips.ca/projects/tinymce-advanced/
June 26th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I’ll have to give it a shot. What kind of stuff can you do with it?
June 26th, 2007 at 10:53 am
It will give you additional features like for example Advanced Link, Advanced Image etc,. A plugin for tables also is available. You will have some more options to choose from in the dialog boxes. Alltogether it will enhance the editor with up to three button lines.
I didn’t try it out until now myself, will try it soon in another project. In the moment I am fine with the additional plugins I downloaded together with the whole package from http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/download.php
With these plugins you very easily can enhance the functions manually.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Sounds very cool Torsten! The plugin for tables sounds cool - that could be very useful for some people…hmm.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
hello.i have added you on my viral link.keep in touch!lets make our viral link expands!http://constructicle.blogspot.com/2007/06/increase-alexa-and-pagerank-instantly.html
June 26th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Ok I have you added constructicle. Good luck!
June 26th, 2007 at 2:06 am
yes, it is TyniMCE WYSIWYG addition, it’s their advance toolbar, not because wordpress hide it. please check the reference mentioned above
good post.
June 26th, 2007 at 2:34 am
Jack, actually this feature is included in the normal tinyMCE editor which is used in WordPress. Just it is not mentioned anywhere.
You can enhance it even more with the use of some more tinyMCE plugins by getting into the code manually or you can do this automatically with installing the tinyMCE Advanced Plugin.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Yep Jack, this is just the regular version. It’s hidden as in it’s physically hidden.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Thanks for sharing that with us. I read about this feature a while back, forgot where I read it, and then when I wanted to use it, I didn’t know how…until now!
I’m definately making myself a note this time!
Don
June 26th, 2007 at 10:05 am
You’re most welcome Don. I read about it the first week I had a WordPress blog, but thought for some reason that a plugin had to be installed to make it work. I wish I would have read more about it back then!
June 26th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Anyone know how to keep the extra toolbar there permanantly?
June 26th, 2007 at 10:07 am
I wish I did. I personally think it’s beyond ridiculous that it isn’t there permanently by design.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Nice find man. I’m glad I came across your site! First you go out and optimize my wordpress theme, then you keep showing me cool tips like this.
I wrote it down and I’m going to use it on my next post.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I’m glad that it was helpful for you J.D. I really don’t get why you have to do a keyboard command to make it show up though, it just seems stupid. I seriously doubt that very many WordPress users know about it.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Court, if you don’t want to use the tinyMCE Plugin you can edit the tinyMCE config file to make a button available for switching to the advanced menue instead of using the hotkeys.
Just open the /wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce_config.php in any text editor and lokk for the line where the buttosn are defined:
Change it to
And voila, there we go!
June 26th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Thanks Torsten! Having more options is definitely better for everyone. Sounds like a cool hack!
June 26th, 2007 at 11:37 am
wow lost of comments
i would love to see the results of this “trick” from the post
June 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I’ve been using it for a while - using headings definitely helps with traffic.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Thanks for this tip! Does this also apply to those older Wordpress versions?
June 26th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
I think I was using 2.0.x - somewhere in that neighborhood - when I found the trick and it worked for that version. What version do you have Alfa?
June 26th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Lovely! I’m not ready to install a plugin for it, so this is a big plus for me. (Still trying to get blasted nested comments to work for me).
Anyway, I wanted to add that though I got this keystroke combo to bring up the extra toolbar while in Explorer, it did not work in Opera. That combo drops down the view menu in Opera’s toolbar.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
That’s good to know Angie, thanks!
June 27th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Hey court, nice find. I’m always fannying around in the code for little extra options. This’ll save me a bunch of time.
Cheers
June 27th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Thanks Rob and I’m glad that it helped you. It definitely saves me a ton of time.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
this isn’t working for me. I press shift, alt, and v but it just goes to my ‘view’ tab on my internet bar on the top.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Sounds like you’re using Opera Glenn. Opera has a command to open view so it doesn’t let the trick work!
Give it a shot with Internet Explorer or Firefox and it should work for you.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Hmmm I don’t use Opera only Firefox. I just tried it in Internet Explorer as well and the same thing happened.
I have come to a conclusion that my computer isn’t like everyone elses, and has a mind of its own lol.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Hmm.. Are you holding both ‘Shift’ and ‘Alt’ when you hit ‘V’? You have to hold them both - if you only hold alt it would open up view!
Hopefully that’s it, it’s my best guess.
July 10th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
great….i just know it today!! sigh!!
July 31st, 2007 at 12:27 pm
[…] 4. They get the keyword into a few heading tags on the post or page. If you’re a blogger this means to make sure your keyword is in the title of your post. You can also add your keyword into headings within your post. WordPress bloggers can take advantage of this: Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In WordPress. […]
September 6th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Freakin’ awesome Court. I’ve been using Wordpress for a long time now and I’m embarassed to say that I NEVER knew that was there. I always did it by hand by editing the code. THANKS!!!
September 7th, 2007 at 2:23 am
[…] The h1 is meant to be the main heading, and should appear above the h2 tag on the page. (See my ‘secret traffic booster‘ […]
September 19th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
[…] Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In Wordpress - teaches you a little trick about how to use Wordpress to increase your traffic. I first read about this trick on Courtney’s site and use it in nearly every post. […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:26 am
Nice trick.. You can also do it using Windoes live writer ( WLW )
October 4th, 2007 at 3:57 am
Nice, shocking to see there was such a cool function all along.
Thanks for sharing.
October 31st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
It’s not working for me. I use IE and Firefox. The view menu of my browser keeps dropping. Is there another way of doing this?
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Hi there,
I thought I could let you know about our new SEO plug in for WF.
So far, UTW plug-in users had to manage tags manually. Bloggers had to add appropriate tags to every single post. What if you have got thousands of posts? Would you rather assign tags manually or automatically? Have you got that kind of spare time on your hands?
WordFinder plug in has been build on this new functionality, it automatically generate keywords and tags for the page and for the meta data. Optionally on the “write and edit post” page, when bloggers click on tags, they get added to the category list.
Not happy with Wordsfinder suggestions? You can add, remove, manipulate any keyword or tag. On the option page, bloggers would be able to limit the amount of tags retrieved by wordsfinder. Leaving them 100% in control.
Download and test the freeware http://www.wordsfinder.com/wordpress.php yourself.
December 12th, 2007 at 12:57 am
[…] don’t have the Advanced tinyMCE editor installed? Check this post out from Courtney Tuttle. Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In WordPress - also note the explanation re header tags and […]
December 14th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
[…] many of you already know this, but I figured I’d share anyway - just in case). This post - Secret ‘Blogging Traffic Booster’ In WordPress - taught me a nifty little trick that could go a long way to helping the search engines rank your […]
February 15th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Nice tip, now all I need is a mentor…….
February 20th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Court, Is this trick of making a subtitle into a H2 something we should do for your snipping theme(s)? What I am asking is “is this already done in your snipping theme(s)” or do we do this in addition to what the snipping theme does? Sorry if it sounds dumb but I still have a lot to learn about SEO and you are my hero. Thank you. Detro