Here’s a true fact of weblogging: Sometimes you decide you want to do something that requires you to go back and edit 30 or 40 posts. As an example, imagine that you decided you wanted to add a new category. You would have to go back and re-categorize all the posts that should be shoved into that mental drawer.
I did something like this when I created the Weblogging 101 category. I went back and added that category designation where it was appropriate.
Tonight I decided to go that one better, by highlighting the more important posts in that category in such a way that I could reference them repeatedly from other posts. You’ll see me do this from time to time, where we have multiple posts on one important topic. I’ll link back to all the others from each post so that no one misses anything.
There are two ways of doing this. One is manual coding, pasted in to the affected posts again and again. The other is to use PHP, the web-based programming language WordPress itself is written in. I can write my links into a separate file, then include that file when I want to reference the links. The advantage is that I have one canonical version of the links. Moreover, the list of links is dynamic; every time I edit the list, all the posts referencing that file of links are changed accordingly.
WordPress will run PHP unaided in many places on a weblog, and BloodhoundBlog runs on a lot of PHP. But within what WordPress calls “The Loop,” the software that displays weblog entries, running PHP requires a plug-in. I use the runPHP WordPress plug-in by James Van Lommel.
So, what happens? At the end of a post like this one, I append this code inside angle brackets:
?php include ("REWL101.php"); ?
The file named REWL101.php, my file full of links, is opened and inserted at that point. When I make a change in that file, the change is instantly reflected in every post that “includes” it. I can add my set of links to dozens of posts — even making them self-referencing, like this one — and update them all in bulk just by editing that one file.
Wanna see? Watch this…
< ?php include ("REWL101.php"); ?>
Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate, real estate marketing
Teri Lussier says:
Questions I keep forgetting to ask: How does one begin to develop catagories? Are there basic catagories that every hyper-local RE blog should have? Do they develop organically, over time? Do you write to fill catagories on occassion? TIA
April 13, 2007 — 7:13 am
Greg Swann says:
> How does one begin to develop catagories?
I might be the wrong person to ask. I don’t like rules. I do what seems right at the time. If I later change my mind, I go back and edit the posts. Early in the life of a weblog, you can look at what you’ve written, think about how it might be categorized, then build your categories on that analysis.
April 13, 2007 — 7:26 am
Brian Brady says:
Teri,
I’m a bit of an anarchist here, also. I think the rules stifle creativity. I had the hardest time writing a financing series for a Realtor’s blog last week because it was a specific assignment.
I think that’s one of the challenges in a career as a MSM reporter; structured assignments (which are a necessary evil). The MSM reporter may be interested in a certain topic that has nothing to do with say, the Imus/Rutgers basketball scandal. So, while the best writing would come from the reporter’s passion, it is sacrificed for more pragmatic topics.
>Are there basic catagories that every hyper-local RE blog should have?
Yes but only your audience knows them. Tinker with them. They’ll probably look a whole lot different in 2009 than they do today
April 13, 2007 — 7:50 am
Tony says:
now just add some additional metadata fields and you’ll be able programatically filter contextually similar posts regardless of when they were written.
We’ve written quite a bit about this over a series of posts – the most relevant being http://forsalebylocals.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/linking-real-estate-content-with-user-context-matching-content-with-a-known-context/ and implemented it on a number of our sites.
April 13, 2007 — 8:02 am
Teri Lussier says:
Anarchy works for me.
April 13, 2007 — 2:21 pm