So I’m talking tomorrow night at the inaugural meeting for the EE Seattle Meet Up. And, if you follow me on twitter, you’ll realize I’ve been doing nothing but coding-OMG-coding-HEADBANG for weeks now.This is also why you see a distinct lack of conversation about the latest Bachelorette (TEAM JEFF) or why all the freakin’ adorable stories of my children remain largely untold. Not to worry, I promise to bring up a variety of daily babble soon enough.

In the mean time, I have a confession: I’m speaking on the “Best (some # here) Tips for a Friendly Back-End in ExpressionEngine” and I’m not sure I’m qualified to give BEST TIPS. I mean, sure, after 8 years of working with EE I have some good tips. I have some experiences that I can share that I’ve learnt from. But BEST TIPS?

Dang, yo, that’s a lot of pressure.

So I’m doing what I do: Asking the community to offer YOUR best tips. See, I learnt in graduate school that you can never ever ever definitively make a statement unless you have researched the bejewels out of it. So in order for me to make a statement like “BEST TIPS” I need to do some research.

Consider yourself my subject.

What do you consider best practices for helping your back-end administrator or your website built with EE? Do you use any plugins or go all native? Do you have strong opinions about what tools should be available?

I spoke about this (a bit) last week on the EE podcast but I’d like to get a wider perspective than just re-peating my own blahblahblah. So if you have any tips, I’d gladly include them in my talk. Oh, and give me your twitter handle for credit.

And, just for those of you who don’t give a bunny’s ear about code: LOOK! TEH KUTZ!

KITTIES IN CUPS.

This is one of those nerdy posts I share that is based on experience and research. After looking for some answers and being very unsatisfied with the amount of information out there, I decided to share this here. If you’re looking for Brutally Honest Monday, I’ll be posting that in a bit. If you’re looking for my laugh-out-loud sense of humor and amazing writing ability, let me know if you find it. I’ve been working on that for years.

Let’s get started.

What you need

1. You’ll need advanced template access in Typepad.
2. A Share This script for your registered blog.
3. Some HTML knowledge.

Basics
The Typepad foundation uses Moveable Type tags. You’ll see a tag called

tag to close the post area. You’ll need to use these tags to place the ShareThis script in each post.

If you look in your Main Index Advanced Template, you will see a tag

tag actually lives on the front page. In other pages (Individual, Date Archive, etc) we’ll be modifying a similar, but slightly different, entry list module. So it’s not going to be as obvious about where to place the script. We’ll need to do a teeny tiny hack to get it to display at each post.

The Hack
Here’s where we get down and nerdy. (Again, see? I’m looking for my laugh-out-loud wit, I told you).

1. Log in to your Advanced Templates and choose your current design. Feel free to create a backup copy of your current design and mess with that one. This has saved me several (hundred) times.

2. Go to the Create New Template Module. Name it something helpful and obvious. We’ll be making two new modules, one for the main index page and one for the individual entry pages. I’m naming my main page module entry-list-addthis-main.

3. Open a new tab (or window) and copy the Featured Post code.

4. Paste your code in to the new entry-list-addthis-main module.

5. Copy your Addthis Script and place it just below the

Tag.

6. Publish your template.

7. Open your Main Index Template and look for the original

(be sure to put the name of your main module if you chose a different name! And there shouldn’t be any spaced in the tags.)

8. Save and Publish your templates.

(As an aside…. Feel free to place

tags (no spaces) around the script if you want it on its own line like this..)

Individual Archive Pages

Only slightly different since we’ll be using the Individual Entries tag, you’ll create another module (I called mine entry-lists-individual. Such Genius.) Copy and Paste the code from the individual entries tag in to the template. Place your script in the same location (under the

. (Click Save)

Publish your posts.

Viola!

(If you need to further help, I will do advanced typepad template editing. {encode=“leslie@catapultwebdevelopment.com” title=“Contact me”} and let me know and I can get you a quote. Thank you for understanding that I can not offer unlimited free support since I have paying customers in line already. Special thanks to Asha for the module tips.)

*What’s this? See below*

I was going to list out another slick way to raise your user’s traffic and technorati rank but then I was told it’s the great International Week to Delurk. This means two things: 1) I decided to provide methods of increasing your reader’s traffic through their comments 2) Why not comment and increase your own traffic here and 3) I really don’t comment enough and 4) I can’t count because that’s more than two.

So here we go!

Expression Engine:

One of the first things I got questions about when I first started blogging (four freaking years ago now) was “how do I list the most recent comments? I want to encourage people to comment and I want a list on my sidebar.” Back then, it wasn’t that common. Now, though, almost every major CMS (That Thing Which You Type On To Post Things) provides this option.

In Expression Engine, use the code from the docs. Since this is pretty self explanatory if you’re viced in EE, I won’t go further with detail.

But! If you want someone really different, you can use the newly acquired method here on Mrs. Flinger (dot US).

I recently found the joy of passing embedded variables. Holymother! This information has changed my design life. For example: Now I’m using a method similar to this to pass comment authors to the front page. There’s one exception, though. The code listed in the Wiki specified an entry_id variable. If you want to pass the comments for all entries, simply delete this variable like so:

Instead of:
{embed=“summer06/inc_comments” my_weblog_name=”{my_weblog_name}” my_template_group=”{my_template_group}” entry_id=”{entry_id}”}

use: {embed=“site/inc_comments” my_weblog_name=”{my_weblog_name}”}

(that code goes in your index template in the {weblog:entries} tag.)

In your inc_comments template, you should simply have:

{exp:comment:entries entry_id=”{embed:entry_id}”}
{url_as_author},&nbsp
{/exp:comment:entries}

You can, naturally, use all the paramaters available to the comment:entries tag from the documentation. I simply wanted to list authors and web links if applicable.

Are you glossing over yet? Great.

Wordpress:

I see a lot of people using the commentLurv plugin.  The concept here is to go fetch the commenter’s last blog post through their RSS feed and display it along with their comment.

EE already has the ability to read and fetch RSS feeds so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before someone who doesn’t have two small children and a job will create a plugin similar to this for EE. Ahem. Cough. Sneeze.

There is, naturally, a plugin for the top commenters found here. One nice plus is that people who end up in your list of top commenters get an additional link in technorati. Don’t forget to tell them so.

There’s also the DoFollow act. Izzy Mom explains it here and even provides lists for how to participate. There’s a movement to allow commentor’s links to register on Google and thus encourage (and reward) people in their google page-rank when they comment.

And, shortly before your brain explodes, I will leave you with this:

Wheeeeee!!!

KAPLOW

*This series started as I researched increasing blog traffic, for the first time ever, about three months ago. I spent almost four years keeping my web site out of google and when I launched a business/resource site I decided to learn why and how one would increase traffic to a new site. I was amazed at the number of “increase your blog traffic” sites there are out there and how selfish I started feeling reading them. MEMEME. So I decided it would be nice to spread whatever traffic I do have, which isn’t much. It’s a little like sex and road rage: If we all just Got Some, there wouldn’t be road rage. Let’s just all give blog luv and there will be no war or famine. This is only a theory, of course.

You know how I’ve been all I dunno if I want to keep blogging and all The Internet seems like a horrifically selfish place now and I just don’t have TIME, people? You know how it’s kind of like your friend in Jr. High who always says she’s fat and you always say, “No, no you’re not” and you know how annoying that is? Like shutthefuckupalreadyaboutthenotblogging. Because? I’m blogging about not blogging?

I even annoy myself sometimes. Trust me.

So I thought it might help to let you in on part of why I came to a head with my blog crisis:

A) Apparently I am a blog failure. According to several articles, I break at least ten very important blog rules. Namely, I don’t always answer comments (I’m so so sorry, Internet. I love y’all. I love your feedback. But damn if I don’t have some sort of shit to clean up ... I mean this literally… every time I want to reply. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s always me.). I don’t participating in social networks. (Facebook? BUHAHAHA. Haven’t logged in for about two months. Cre8buzz? Mia’sMom? Cafemom? All of them? It’s just. TOO. Damn. Much.) I don’t have good content (Farts? Girdles? Cussing?) and I do not update frequently (Per the two tiny spawn of mine who, in the end, I feel deserve more of my attention than faceless people on The Internet, however much I enjoy said faceless people).

B) While launching our Mamaspod.com website, I started doing some research on SEO because frankly, I’ve never done much with it and the goal of our new site is to be a resource some day, as opposed to my personal blog which is, well, personal. I’ve never researches ways to increase traffic. I’ve never really looked in to how to become google’s top bitch. I’ve never considered writing certain things. And that’s when it hit me: Every other single blogger is looking for traffic. I mean, sure, we all want exposure and that I’ve always been thankful for. I’ve enjoyed being linked to. I’ve enjoyed when people say really kind things about me. I giggle like a school girl because writers I respect and admire link and say nice things. But the self seeking traffic is only now becoming a focus for me, for the new website and it’s stressing me the fuck out. If I can be honest.

That’s when it hit me: You people? YOU people? The people who come over, stop in, say hi, read, give me a virtual chuckle here and then or slap my virtual ass? You are the people who deserve the traffic. The love. The attention. Because honestly? Without you? I’d be writing in my locked journal like the sixth grade pimply faced drama queen pondering hormones and boys and makeup. Instead, I do it here, with you, and we can have a good chuckle about my eyebrows together.

Everything is better when it’s shared.

So I’m starting a series on how to get your reader’s traffic. How to help the people who read YOU to have a higher technorati rank. How to be selfless with linking, how to be the one who isn’t afraid to say look! Look over here! I like her/him/them! Because I have a feeling some of the methods you might be using now aren’t as effective as you want them to be. Let’s change that together, shall we?

Next up in the series: Why blogrolling is out and how to help your reader’s technorati rank.

Questions you want addressed? Input you want posted? Got something to say? Let me know.

Also, for fun I added a “call me” button on mamaspod. You can call in and give us some input if you’d like. It goes straight to voice mail that I can use on the air but I did this on Jumping Monkeys and got all giddy when Leo answered my question and Megan remembered me. It was so fun, as if they were talking with me, that we decided to do it, too. So call in, yo. And don’t worry if your baby starts to scream half way through your message. It’s not like that ever happened to ME or anything… cough ... .