Category: Personal

Interviewed on Rise Forums

Recently I was interviewed by Kevin Muldoon on Rise Forums discussing all things SEO, Internet Marketing and WordPress. The interview covers my career, including how I got into Internet Marketing, my transition into WordPress development, and also some insight into my work structure, and the tools I use on a daily basis.

You can read the interview here.

Rise Forums is a paid forum aimed at Internet Marketers and Bloggers. It is designed to be affordable, and has some great members (myself included!). You can join Rise Forums here.

Check Search Engine Visibility on Migration Released

I read a blog with interest recently, from fellow Manchester based SEO Neil Walker on State of Digital entitled “Why I Hate WordPress Websites!“. Neil made the fairly quick conclusion that whilst he doesn’t really hate WordPress websites, he does hate developers who don’t really understand WordPress.

His single biggest bugbear is those who forget to click the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”.

check-se-visibility-1

I must admit, I’m quite glad Neil didn’t write something along the lines of “it’s something bad developers do”. Largely because, errr, I’ve been guilty of it in the past.

It’s easy to forget. And that makes it a bit sucky. So I’ve decided to do something about it.

Check Search Engine Visibility on Migration very simply prints a big warning on your site should you block search engines. That warning you can dismiss. However should the site url for WordPress change it reappears. So, say, if you move from a domain to another, or from a dev site to a live site, then you may want to change your visibility settings. This plugin will make you aware of this.

check-se-visibility-2

The warning is difficult to miss, so you kind of have to deal with it. Making it perfect for not forgetting to switch off the “Discourage Search Engines”. If you are anything like me, this plugin will probably save your arse a few times.

So to download this plugin, please click here. I am also in the process of putting this plugin on Github, so that’ll appear in the next day or two.

Suggestions, comments and bugs welcome!

The Bay on Bing

Okay, I’m struggling with blog posts this week, and although I’m not technically a search guy anymore since the launch of FireCask, I’m still interested in search news.

One such story which appeals to me, my mum and a few others was the appearance of Colwyn Bay on the home page of bing yesterday.

Although I moved out about 3 and a half years ago, I’ve a massive affinity with the town and the football club (the last link is what you see when you let me design a website – for better or worse!), so it was an incredible sense of pride I felt when I saw the Bay on the home page of a major search engine on an important day in the British Calendar.

baybing

I used to attend the Eirias Park bonfire night celebrations regularly growing up, though towards the end of my time in the Bay I discovered if you headed to the (then still opened) Colwyn Bay pier you could watch the fireworks with a beer and a pie and not have to queue for hours to get out of the festivities.

It should be added (cheers Mark!) that it’s an old photo of the Bay. The dome you can see in the picture isn’t there on the account it blew onto a nearby motorway during a storm.

Still, cheers Bing! Much appreciated! I expect mention of this to be in a few papers this week!

Featured on The GroupHigh Blog on Blogger Pitching Advice

Recently I was featured on the GroupHigh Blog on how to pitch to bloggers. I took some advice as taken from the “We Need To Talk About Alan” post a few weeks ago and curated on their blog. It’s great to be featured along with a lot of other bloggers. Cheers GroupHigh!

Click here to read “Pitching Tips Straight From the Bloggers You’re Pitching”.

Hello WordCamp Europe, I’m Rhys

I really not been blogging much here, so in an format blatantly stolen from Jeremy Felt. I have thought about doing an introduction post about me for WordCamp Europe attendees.

Hello everybody! My name is Rhys Wynne. I work for 3 Door Digital as a Digital Marketing Consultant and also make my own WordPress Plugins which are hosted on Winwar Media.

I’m traveling to WordCamp Europe with my partners-in-crime Alex, Shane & John, staying in an apartment in Amsterdam for the duration of the trip.

I’m super excited for attending the first ever WordCamp Europe, after attending WordCamp UK Lancaster earlier this year (you can read my notes here), so I’m looking forward for meeting as many of you as possible. However I’m particularly looking forward to attend and speak to the following people.

  • Any premium plugin developers – there’s 3 of us who are attending who have produced premium plugins in WordPress, and would like to talk about such topics as marketing, upgrading advice and generally share notes.
  • Anybody who works with bbPress – I’ve a few ideas that I want to share for possible plugins.

So if you fall into the following categories, send me a tweet or drop me an email, I’d be keen to meet up!

Furthermore, we’ll be knocking around Amsterdam on Friday, so if anybody fancies meeting up for a cheeky drink and a natter of all things WordPress, it’d be great to hear from you!