Your meta description says a lot about your web page.  If you get a lot of visitors from Google, it could be the only thing you have to use to sell them on clicking that link to find out more information.  So what steps can you take to make your search engine snippets stand out? 

I have a few simple tips to share:

• Ensure each page has a unique meta description.  Each page has different content, so you should make sure your meta description reflects the content inside.
• How about length?  Ideally, your meta description should be kept between 70 and 160 characters long. 
• Make sure it is explicit enough and contains keywords relative to that web page’s content.

For more help with meta descriptions, check out these two resources:

• Improve Snippets with a Meta Description Makeover
• The Meta Element via Wikipedia

This should make for a fun weekend project, and I can promise you will see even more traffic from the various search engines out there.

The last time I used the web site commenting service Disqus, I was really less than impressed.  Back in July 2009, I tried it and for lack of a better term, it was sloppy.  While the core of the system worked, it seems as if nobody there paid attention to detail.  However, everybody deserves a second shot.

Fast forward to about a week ago, when I decided to re-install Disqus again on Mitchelaneous.com, FirefoxFacts.com and WebHostingShow.com.  As a reminder, here are the flaws the system had before:

Now I’ll cut to the chase, and tell you why.  It seems that no matter how I tweaked around with WordPress, I could never get DISQUS to pick up on all my trackbacks and comments.  One or two a day would get stuck going to the internal WordPress comment engine (which is practically blocked from you after you install DISQUS).

Now, while this is still true, Disqus does a better job now at picking up all the comments, so none get missed.  If you have trouble with Disqus missing comments or trackbacks, try these steps out:

1. Login to your WordPress administrator section, and go to Settings > Discussions.
2. Be sure to leave these unchecked:
   + Users must be registered and logged in to comment
   + Automatically close comments on articles older than X days
   + Enable threaded (nested) comments X levels deep
   + Break comments into pages with X top level comments per page…
   + Anyone posts a comment
   + A comment is held for moderation
   + An admin must always approve the comment
   + Comment author must have a previously approved comment
3. Under “Comment Moderation” be sure to bump up the link number to something ridiculously high, like 200.  This way WordPress won’t try to moderate the incoming comments and will leave that job to Disqus.

Also, be sure to save your settings after making those changes. Ever since I made those changes, I have had no problems with WordPress and Disqus, and hopefully neither will you.

The real benefit in using Discus is it gives your commenters a way to login to comment via multiple different services. For example, you can now login using these services to comment right here on Mitchelaneous.com:

• Disqus
• Facebook
• Twitter
• OpenID
• Yahoo

I also really like the fact that in the usual “trackback” section, you can show people’s recent tweets about your pages too.  You can skim Digg, Twitter, and a number of other social web sites. I can also stay in touch with all of you better too because Disqus gives me one place to check out all the most recent comments from across all my blogs.

So Disqus, I take back the bad things I said about you.  Just keep up the great work, and I’ll be a happy fan boy.

How can you do the same?

How to Create a Google Docs Form

First step, would be to go to the Google Docs web site.  Now click on the button labeled, “Create new” and select Form.

That should take you to the Google Docs form builder, where you can easily create a web site form to use.  You can add any number of:

• text boxes (single line and paragraph sized)
• multiple choice
• check boxes
• choose from a list

There are a lot of ways you can customize your form to fit your needs.  Now once your form has been created, and you are happy with the results – you will want to embed it onto your web site.

How to Embed a Google Docs Form

Click on the button labeled, “More actions” and then choose Embed.

Once you do this, a window will pop up with the code you need to copy and paste into your own web site to make your form work.

What does the final result look like?  You can see it in action here:

• Web Hosts on Twitter
• Submit a Question to the Web Hosting Show Podcast!

When somebody sends you a result, it saves it into a spreadsheet you can check out from the Google Docs interface.  A pretty neat way to save yourself on some e-mail and save your hosting account on system resources a hosted script might take.

Looking for a wiki script for your next great web site project? 

As somebody who’s built one from the ground up – I can tell you picking the right script for the job, is not an easy task to do.  With a surprising amount of flexibility and power, BoltWire might be one of the easiest to use wikis out there. 

It takes the cake when it comes to mixing the strengths of various script categories together.  Is it a CMS? Is it a wiki?  It is a little ‘bit of both.

The install process is simple.  All you do is download, unzip, upload and install.  It runs on just about any server with PHP4 (although PHP5 is recommended) and has a simple upgrade process too. The entire download is less than 100k, so should just take a couple of seconds to get started.

What about the Features?

Here are some of the best features about BoltWire:

• Easy to install and upgrade
• Run multiple sites off one installation
• Built in member and group management
• Easy to use wiki markup system
• Powerful search engine capabilities
• In-browser editing of skins & CSS
• Standards compliant
• UTF-8 and multi-lingual support
• One click installation of plugins

If you are new to the script, or you get it installed and start to wonder, “What’s Next?!” I would suggest checking out the documentation.  They also have a nice selection of tutorials to help you out too.

Customization?  Yes, you can customize BoltWire in many different ways.  It comes with both plugin and skin support so you are able to make it do the job you want it to do, and get it looking the way you need it to look. 

All in all, I would highly suggest checking BoltWire out, if you have a web site project that needs just a little ‘bit of wiki and a little bit of a content management system rolled into one. 

Far from being just another off topic service, in a world filled with them, the new Web Hosting Show Coupons and Deals page will deliver, and impress you.  This was a quick project I cooked up over the weekend, to better serve the public at large by delivering a better way to keep track of the latest coupons, deals and special offers from the entire web hosting world out there.

Point your browser towards: http://www.webhostingshow.com/coupons/

Once you navigate yourself to the web site, you can browse through 15 of the most recent offers that have been featured, as well as get a little description of what the offer is all about.  Then I try to link back to the source, so you can get instant gratification in the quickest way possible.

Want more web hosting coupons and deals? You can follow the Web Hosting Show’s coupons and deals on Twitter @whscoupons too.  The third content delivery method you have is the RSS feed, which you can subscribe to – to have all the deals streamed to you for free, into your favorite news reader of choice.

• Follow @whscoupons on Twitter!
• Subscribe via RSS to our Hosting Coupons!

Are you a web host? Good!  I need your help too.  Just like the Web Hosting Show podcast itself, I am looking to serve both the web hosts and the web hosting clients with this tool. Want to see your own special web hosting coupons and deals listed here? Contact me, with your web hosting special, coupon or offer and I will get it listed with the rest. For more on what went into building this new coupon tool, I would suggest you listen to podcast 198 of the Web Hosting Show where I go into a little more detail.

There are many services out there that offer widgets you can embed into your own web site layouts.  How do you know which ones are the best?  Well, I am not an expert. Since this is the Internet though, I can pretend.

Here are my top 10 favorite widget related web sites.

Widgetbox – Tons of free widgets to put on your site.

LinkWithin – Post related stories and thumbnails on your web site.

ShoutMix – Free shoutbox/tagboard chat widget.

Wowzio – A lot of random widgets to choose from here.

SpringWidgets – Web site tools for blogs and social networks.

YourMinis – Widgets for your blog, website, start page, and desktop!

Monitter – Real time live Twitter watch and badge creator.

Widgipedia – Your ultimate web site widget resource.

Widgiland – A social network based around awesome widget production.

FeedWind – The free online feed widget.

Know of another great place to grab online widgets or tools for your web site?  Drop in a comment and let us know.  I’m looking for the best of the best in online tools, embeddable items or fun sidebar distractions.

Sticky posts, will let you bump a story to the top of the homepage – without the need of editing the time stamp over and over again.  This is handy for me, because with the Web Hosting Show’s site, I wanted to keep the most recent podcast pinned to the top of WebHostingShow.com – with new content following bellow it.  With a little template editing, WordPress interface knowledge and some hard work – you can do the same.

How to Get Started with Sticky Posts

The best guide thus far on how to use this WordPress feature that was introduced back in WordPress 2.7 is Nathan Rice’s Definitive Sticky Posts Guide.  Here you can learn how to make a post sticky from within WordPress, and how to edit your theme’s templates to reflect the changes.

Show More Than One Sticky Post

What if you want to get more than just one sticky post in your WordPress blog?  Then you might need to check out how to get the latest sticky posts via WPRecipies.com.  That have a code snippet up that goes right before the loop, that retrieves X most recent sticky posts.

All in all, it is a fun weekend side project to try out – if your looking to add a little something special to your WordPress powered web site.

Free Vaga Icons – this set of 60 semi-transparent .png icons are all 16×16 in size are are ready to be download and used for free!

Free Web Dev Icons from IcoJoy – Icojoy team is happy to present you some free icon sets. These icons are free to use in any kind of project unlimited times.

Splashy Icons – 470 icons and counting, all free to use for any web site layout design.

Free Web Design Icon Set – There are 310 of them and they are designed to be used on web design projects, but some are also suited to be used as system icons. They are all 16 by 16 pixels, in PNG format and free to use in print and web projects.

Sizcons – This icon set is free to use for any way you see fit and is available in both 16×16 and 12×12 sizes.

Xiao Icons – This free icon set is alright to use without any permission.  They are simple, great looking and free!  Perfect for any web designer on a budget.

FamFamFam Icons – The FamFamFam icon sets (Silk, Flags and Mini) have been a favorite of many web site designers for a long long long time.  Most of these are free to use, as long as you show the creator how they are being used and you give them a link back – which isn’t too much to ask.

So in conclusion, the person who said you can’t have something for nothing was wrong.  Here is a LOT of something for nothing.  I would suggest though that if you use any of these icon sets, you do thank the designer in one way, shape or form.  I am sure they would appreciate it.  Have another set of free web designer icons you like, or you would like to share with the world?  Feel free to leave your suggestions and praise in the comments.

You might need to resize your browser window for a number of different reasons. 

Maybe you need to check to see what your web site looks like at a smaller resolution?  Maybe you want to take a quick screenshot?  Now, of course you can resize the browser by dragging the edges around till you get the perfect fit, but that is often tedious and if you are a perfectionist like myself, you have a hard time getting the browser back to the perfect shape and size it was before, until now.

How to Create the Resizing Bookmarklet

Thanks to a little JavaScript, and a very simple bookmarklet, you too can be saving multiple screen resolution sizes to change to at a moment’s notice, without the need of any extra Firefox extension. 

Right-click on the bookmark toolbar in Firefox, and select “New Bookmark…”

Here is how you will need to fill out the variables on the New Bookmark dialog box:

• Name: Could be anything, I would put Resize – 1024 x 768
• Location: Here, you want to put javascript:window.resizeTo(1024,768)
• Tags: Nothing, keep this blank
• Keyword: Type in r1 (when you type r1 into the Firefox address bar, your browser will be resized)
• Description: Nothing, keep this blank too

Now, hit the button labeled, “Add” and you are all done.  When you click that bookmark, your browser will be resized to 1024 pixels across 768 pixels up and down.  You can now repeat the steps above to create multiple bookmarks for other sizes you might want to keep handy when working on your web site’s design.  Just replace the 1024,768 in the Location text box on the New Bookmark dialog box with another size (for example, how about 800,600 ?).

Last thing for you to do would be to click the bookmarklet you created and make sure it works.

Example – Paying homage to the cooking show old TV cooking shows, I have created the same bookmarklet we created above right here.  Feel free to drag and drop this link (Resize – 1024 x 768) to your Firefox bookmarks bar.  Only thing that won’t work with this one is the keyword we used above.

Hope that helps as a very basic introduction to JavaScript and in quickly creating a bookmark to give Firefox a little more quick resize-ability. 

Searching the Web for a few great bookmarklets to make your web site coding a little easier?  I have found a great collection of them over at Squarfree.com.  You can drag and drop any of these bookmarlets to your saved bookmarks to use later. 

• test styles – Type in CSS rules to experiment or to create a temporary user style sheet.
• edit styles – Experiment with changes to the page’s style sheet.
• ancestors - Lists the ancestors of any element you hover over in the status bar.
• computed styles – Lists the computed styles of an element and of its ancestors.
• zap style sheets – Disables all style sheets.

Most of these bookmarks work for Firefox only, but a few will work with Internet Explorer and Opera too.  Go chec out the Web Development Bookmarklets page at Squarefree.com to check out the 18 other tools they have for you to use.