I’ve been developing WordPress SEO themes for so long that the vast majority of SEO features I use are built into the Stallion Responsive theme (best WordPress SEO theme available) because so few WordPress plugin developers get the SEO spot on. Basically I find an interesting plugin or code hack and adapt it to exactly what I want and add it to my SEO theme, been working this way for over half a decade so my SEO theme includes a lot of SEO features from various plugins and code snippets I’ve found over the years. Occasionally I stumble on a WordPress plugin that’s either perfect SEO wise and so requires no modification and/or is so well supported by the plugin […]
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Post Teaser Plugin
Hello David,
Could you help me about post teaser plugin? I tried to edit it into as short word as possible but it seems not change anything.
What is the problem?
Thank you
WordPress Post Teaser Plugin
If I recall correctly the post teaser plugin breaks the content at a paragraph level, so won’t go smaller than one paragraph. Also means if you wrote a 10,000 word post with no line breaks it wouldn’t break the content at all.
I don’t use the post teaser plugin anymore (still a good plugin) because I use the Stallion thumbnail feature and the post teaser and Stallion thumbnail features don’t work well together when posts have images high in the content.
David
WordPress Post Teaser Plugin
Post Teaser WP Plugin
Thank you so much. In fact, if I deactivate the post teaser plugin, your theme has deducted already the paragraph for being easy to read.
Again, thank you so much.
SEO WP-PageNavi showing fonts too big
Hi David,
for some reason the characters are showed too big. I wonder if it’s customization or I need to edit the actual plugin?
Thanks
Héctor
WP-PageNavi Plugin pagenavi-css.css file
It’s the WP-PageNavi CSS file “pagenavi-css.css” adding to the Stallion Responsive CSS code that’s built in.
I added built in support for the plugin to my themes years ago, but personally no longer use WP-PageNavi: trying to reduce code I don’t monitor to a minimum.
On the WP-PageNavi plugin options page there’s an option to disable the plugins CSS file, set it to not load the plugins default CSS file and it will fix the issue.
Each of the Stallion Responsive colour schemes includes CSS classes for the WP-PageNavi plugin so the WP-PageNavi CSS file isn’t needed. Saves loading an additional CSS file which is good for performance and since I created specific CSS code for each colour scheme the paginated links don’t look out of place.
On a side note: I had to increase the size of the paginated links to be quite large to not trip a Google PageSpeed Insights Usability check related to tap size targets on mobile devices. When you turn the “pagenavi-css.css” file off they will still be a little on the big size, but not as big as they are on your site right now! If you look at the paginated comments links on this page that’s the size they should be (they look H2 header size, yours look like a H1 on steroids :-)).
David
Update: The setting is
“Settings” >> “Pagenavi” : “Use pagenavi-css.css” – Tick “No”
Unfortunately doesn’t work as I expected with Stallion Responsive 8.1, looks like I’ll need to add a fix to the next release of Stallion Responsive. Issue is I’ve added a div with a class called “wp-pagenavi” and didn’t realise WP-Pagenavi adds that class again, so I’ll need to remove mine when WP-Pagenavi is active.
For now it’s either search for the Stalion PHP files (10 of them) that include this line:
Change to
The above will break the design if WP-Pagenavi is ever deactivated, when I create a fix it won’t be the above as use the WP-Pagenavi class for paginated links.
Or deactivate WP-Pagenavi until I create an upgrade, no time frame for the next update: might do a quick 8.0 zip file update, so add a few small fixes to 8.0, but not generate an update notice, users can manually upgrade using the zip file and FTP. Basically can easily update the zip file with new features, bug fixes etc…, but takes a lot of changes to update the version number from say 8.1 to 8.1.1 (poor design on my part for the auto update feature).
WP-PageNavi Plugin pagenavi-css.css file
Hi David,
I just turned off the plugin.
Thanks
Héctor
Recommended Plugins
1. Where do I find the — Stallion All In One WordPress SEO Plugin settings? What settings do I need to make? Is this automatically installed and all settings generated for optimum SEO?
2. W3 TOTAL CACHE – what settings do you recommend checking off? You recommend turning this on only once a month — how — by deactivating or is there some other way to do this?? Can you explain this one please.
I am also installing EWWW optimizer, Broken Link Checker and Subscribe to Comments — would you also please explain all the necessary settings required to make for each of these plugins so my site is complete.
Thanks
Susanne
Recommended Plugins
How to Use WordPress SEO Plugins
The Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin is a small stand alone plugin for those not using the Stallion Responsive WordPress SEO Package.
The Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin features are also built into Stallion Responsive under “Stallion Theme” >> “SEO Advanced Options” : “Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin”.
If you run the Stallion SEO Defaults setting you’ve probably got the best SEO settings. There are instructions on the options page what the recommended settings are and more information in the link above.
You’ve misread what I wrote about the W3 Total Cache Plugin. Keep this performance plugin active at all times, it’s the “Broken Link Checker” and “WP Optimize” plugins I manually activate once or twice a month: this is literally manually turn a plugin on, use it, turn it off until next time. you can leave them active at all times, but there’s no reason to keep them active since they are only useful when you are willing to do something proactive with them like fix broken links or optimize the database. If you don’t fix broken links not much point having a list of broken links you aren’t going to fix.
For the sort of W3 Total Cache Plugin settings I use see: https://stallion-theme.co.uk/technical-support/comment-page-6/#comment-45017
I don’t have preferred settings for EWWW Image Optimizer, Broken Link Checker or Subscribe to Comments plugins. I didn’t develop the plugins, for detailed instructions you’ll need to check with each plugin to see what works with your setup for example with EWWW Image Optimizer there are levels to the image optimization that you will need to test to find out how much your setup can cope with: the image optimization process is resource intensive and if the level is set too high it will timeout.
David
How to Use WordPress SEO Plugins
W3 Total Cache Plugin and Stallion Responsive
Just finished installing, activating and tweaking W3 Total Cache to use with Stallion Responsive as per your suggestions. I went through the W3 tutorials and You Tube videos and adjusted my settings for the W3 accordingly.
Since doing so my site it looks awful — not at all the way it is supposed. Have a look yourself please! :( It looked fine before this.
Would you have any idea what might have gone wrong or is there perhaps a compatibility issue that I am unaware of?
Thanks for the help.
W3 Total Cache Plugin and Stallion Responsive
Learning to Build Websites
I don’t see anything seriously wrong, you need to be more specific as I assume you didn’t stop working on your site after making the comment and could have fixed issues by the time I looked.
I see things you’ve done that you shouldn’t suggesting you’ve been turning Stallion features on without understanding how they work. Same with W3 Total Cache Plugin settings as well.
Takes time to learn how to build a website that looks good and takes SEO and performance into account. There’s a lotto learn with a steep learning curve to get the most out of WordPress especially with a package as versatile as Stallion.
Until you understand what you are doing it’s best to run with the SEO defaults with minor changes rather than what looks like randomly changing options.
Under “Stallion Theme” >> “Child Theme Options”
You’ve turned on the example layout and the example colour scheme?
Unless you’ve gone to the trouble of editing the relevant CSS files for those examples it doesn’t make any sense using them, they are just copied of other layouts/colours. Suggests randomly setting features without understanding them.
I guess you didn’t read this on the child theme options page:
Note the part bolded, Example Colour is a copy of Default Basic. By setting the example colour scheme you’ve set the Default Basic colour scheme which as the name suggests is basic (not really meant for use, it’s a starting point for making new colour schemes).
Turn them back to “Use Original Options” and use the original options for those two setting under
“Stallion Theme” >> “Layout Options” : “Sidebar Layout”
That sets your layout.
“Stallion Theme” >> “Colour Options” : “Stallion Theme Colour Scheme”.
That sets your colour scheme.
Under “Stallion Theme” >> “Colour Options” you’ve turned the “Featured Posts Slideshow” on, but appears you haven’t set any featured posts. that’s why under the header area you seethe left and right arrows, but no featured posts. That feature requires multiple JS files which have a performance hit. If you don’t set featured posts you are loading JS files for no reason!
If you want featured posts (I don’t use the feature due to the SEO performance hit) you have to edit say 5 posts and give them a Stallion Featured Thumbnail so there’s something for the feature to use and tick the “Use in Featured Slideshow” box.
If you have been randomly changing options without understanding what you are doing I’d suggest running the stallion_defaults_seo.php option on the main “Stallion Theme” options page and start again.
With W3 total Cache looks like you’ve not used the options I suggested since CSS and JS files aren’t minified and combined into one CSS file. There shouldn’t be any issues with minifying and combining the CSS files, depending on the JS files you use some JS minfify options are not suitable: it’s a try and see what works for you I’m afraid.
Note you are using Vibe SEO Pack, not reviewed the Vibe SEO Pack Plugin, looks like it can cause SEO damage the screenshots on the WordPress plugin page shows noindex and nofollow options, I’d turn that plugin off. It’s adding an additional CSS file to your site which based on the rules within looks like it’s only meant to load when you are logged into admin: basically I shouldn’t see this CSS file when I view source, so looks like the developer messed up their code.
BTW you’ve got code errors in your custom widget, for example added body tags (the opening and closing body tag shouldn’t be there). edit the widget and remove the body and /body bits with the surrounding signs >.
If you use Firefox browser. “Right click” your home page followed by “View Page Source”. Pay attention to blocks of red text (not all red text is bad), tends to be broken HTML code like having a set of body tags in your widget code (they are highlighted red) and two broken image codes.
First one is no space before src, this (Shipping”src=”) should be (Shipping” src=”) missed a space. And the second is (1/?quot; title=”) should be (1/?” title=”).
David
Learning to Build Websites
Custome code insert
I need to insert a sort of analytics code (but not a Google). What is the easiest way to do that? Can I insert it in the same window with GA code in Promotion Options?
Adding Analytics Code to WordPress
Yes you can add other analytics type code to the “Full Google Analytics Code” box.
Anything added there will be loaded verbatim sitewide within the head area of every page WordPress creates. So doesn’t have to be Google Analytics code.
If your custom analytics code is meant to be added to the head it’s a good solution.
If you are supposed to add the code to the footer area you could pop it in a Text widget and add the text widget to the “Below Main Footer Area” widget area.
David
Adding Analytics Code to WordPress
Subscribe to Comments Plug for Stallion Responsive
You speak about the “Subscribe to Comments Plugin” above. I have found several. Are there any specific recommendations to the one you find the best to use?
As usual, thanks for the insight Dave.