However, I don’t like negative talk that points out marketing mistakes others have made; so, I flipped a recent article titled  7 top mistakes when offering a free promotion. Read on and comment at the bottom of the page if you like this better.

 7 Characteristics of a Great Free Promotional Offer

What The Heck is MySQL Database Optimization?

A lot of smart people will go on and on about this topic but, bottom line is this simply means getting your database to respond quicker so, your website performs faster. We speed up our database by doing one thing, setting up caching.

MySQL caching will save in memory your common database queries so, the database can “bam!” return your database information quickly from memory instead of having to do a database query of the same. The second type of caching is file system caching but since that is another topic were going to stick to MySQL caching for this post.

How To Optimize Your MySQL Database

You will have to find your “my.cnf” configuration file for MySQL because you need to add some variables in this file, often located at /etc/my.cnf. Then you will add some configuration settings, restart mysql and, then watch your database performance. Based on the performance, you will have to tweak you’re my.cnf configuration setting. Let’s begin:

First, Get Memory and Database Sizes

Step #1 – get db sizes

You need to know how big your database MYISAM and INNODB table sizes are. The best way to get this is to login to MySQL as root with the command:
>mysql -u root -p
Then run the sql command:

mysql> Select sum(data_length)/1024/1024 as data_size, sum(index_length)/1024/1024
as index_size, sum(data_length+index_length)/1024/1024 as total, engine from
information_schema.tables group by engine;
+--------------+-------------+--------------+--------+
| data_size    | index_size  | total        | engine |
+--------------+-------------+--------------+--------+
|   0.00000000 |  0.00000000 |   0.00000000 | CSV    |
| 320.70312500 | 46.71875000 | 367.42187500 | InnoDB |
|   0.00000000 |  0.00000000 |   0.00000000 | MEMORY |
|   7.22693157 |  2.39062500 |   9.61755657 | MyISAM |
+--------------+-------------+--------------+--------+

Note: the above results tell you your InnoDB size is 367.4Mb and your MyISAM size is 9.6Mb.

Step 2 – get your total memory size

Now enter this linux command:

# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1728        927        800          0          0          0
-/+ buffers/cache:        927        800
Swap:            0          0          0

Note: you have 1728Mb total of RAM

My.cnf Starting Variables

query_cache_limit=1M
query_cache_size=16M
query_cache_type=1
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=0
innodb_buffer_pool_size=448M

Initial Variables Explained

#1. query_cache_limit (max size of any one query result, 1M is usually a good setting for WordPress)

#2. query_cache_size (Total amount of memory to use for cache)

#3. query_cache_type (#0=off, #1=on)

#4. innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=0
(default = 1): The default “1″ behavior flushes the log buffer to disk with every commit plus by default the system also writes commits every second. Setting to “0″ makes the system not write commits to disk at transaction time at all. This means if the system crashes you could loose at most one second of data…who cares? I don’t care enough to double my disk writes which can make a big difference on a VPS which has slow disk I/O.

#5. innodb_buffer_pool_size
(the value must be at least as large as your InnoDB total size per step #1 above, and is recommended to be 50% – 75% of your total RAM)

Now what – monitor performance

Restart MySQL: Typical Linux command is “service mysql restart”.

Wait a few hours: This allows the system to build up some performance data.

Check MySQL Performance: Do this by following these instructions.
1. Login to MySQL with command: mysql -uroot -p
2. Run this query:

show status like ‘%qcache%’;

mysql> show status like '%qcache%';
+-------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name           | Value  |
+-------------------------+--------+
| Qcache_free_blocks      | 146    |
| Qcache_free_memory      | 378816 |
| Qcache_hits             | 40313  |
| Qcache_inserts          | 5739   |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes    | 1109   |
| Qcache_not_cached       | 2036   |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 2838   |
| Qcache_total_blocks     | 6143   |
+-------------------------+--------+

Tweak your settings

Notice in the example that Qcache_lowmem_prunes = 1109. This means that the cache memory was not large enough to hold all the queries in memory; so, 1109 cached queries had to be thrown out, “pruned”, to make room for new ones. This is bad because we are essentially not caching enough queries and have to keep throwing out good cached queries just to make room for new ones. Let’s up the cache_size and make sure we allow for enough tables opened by setting table_cache=1000!

Change:

cache_size=32M

Add:

table_cache=1000
(NOTE:should be = number of tables in any query * # max_connections by default=100 max connections * 10 tables per query = 1000. This should be more than enough)

Check Performance again

mysql> mysql> show status like ‘%qcache%’;

+-------------------------+----------+
| Variable_name           | Value    |
+-------------------------+----------+
| Qcache_free_blocks      | 13       |
| Qcache_free_memory      | 21251312 |
| Qcache_hits             | 15313    |
| Qcache_inserts          | 2521     |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes    | 0        |
| Qcache_not_cached       | 677      |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 1878     |
| Qcache_total_blocks     | 3931     |
+-------------------------+----------+

There are plenty of other database caching settings to consider but this is looking much better. Here are some more resources for further study:

• MySQL Optimization from MySQL documents.
• MySQL Optimization for WordPress guide from another WordPress enthusiast.
• WordPress.org Optimization General Guidelines.

I will be writing in January and February, covering SEO key topics that you need to understand to increase your Google search engine placement. Join the mailing list to get these articles in your inbox, follow @moodynet on twitter, or become a fan on facebook to get in the loop!

Among other topics, we will look at what Google says about:

• Domain name choices and SEO
• Article marketing and SEO
• Identifying the causes of your page ranking
• The why’s, when’s, and how’s of redirects
• Keywords and Adwords demistified
• Will “rich snippets” make you rich?
• nice marketing -> social marketing -> successful marketing!

“Back in the day”, when there were only a few smart phones and very few other web page viewing devices, it made sense to design a completely different theme for the iPhone, blackberry, or the handfull of other mobile devices; but, this is a new day!

Different screen sized web page viewers are pouring into the market, design for them or be left behind. The http://WordpressWebmaster.net recommends leaving the mobile plugins like WPtouch behind and moving on to “Responsive Web Design”…like yesterday! If you have not done this yet, don’t feel bad; we are just beginning to move our blog into a responsive design theme too. Watch the video and review the resource lists below:

Dale at BNC offered some very good comments regarding the validity of still sticking with WPtouch for mobile delivery. Below is Dale’s stated response which I greatly appreciate:
***BNC Response Below***

Resource: Responsive Design Articles

• The AlistApart article that started this craziness .
• A quick example of responsive images.

Resource: Responsive WP Themes

• ElmaStudio WordPress Themes
• Free Yoko Theme
• Free Ari Theme
• SimpleMarket Theme by WPMU Dev
• ResponsiveTwentyTen Theme by Dan Gavin and Sara Cannon
• Twenty Eleven Theme
• Scherzo Theme
• Whiteboard Framework
• LabSixtyFive Responsive Theme (Meerkats Theme)
• ConstellationTheme.com (responsive theme)
• Skeleton Theme (responsive theme by SimpleThemes)
• LabSixtyFive.com responsive theme

If you have need of WordPress or Drupal Webmaster services, we would be happy to evaluate your need for free. Contact WordPress Webmaster.

• http://www.site5.com/wordpress-themes/ (11 themes)
• http://wpcrunchy.com/tag/free/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/18/100-amazing-free-wordpress-themes-for-2009/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/08/19/100-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes-for-2010/

Do searches with “product name + city,state” or “service interest + city,state” and find all the local listings in the presented google tabs. Pay particular attention to:

• Discussions
• blogs
• news
• images

Then look for possible listing resources. Remember to follow the rules.

search as described above then, click on “reviews” and see who is hosting the review. Then make sure you are listed there.

Now you can change your sitelinks by setting up your site in Google Webmaster Tools and simply choose “Site Configuration” > “Sitelinks”. Here is a screen capture of Google Webmaster Tools showing you where you do this:

It is as simple as entering in the URLs to the pages you do not want to show up as a site link. Thank you Google for making this change.

This may become important if your primary site action item is not showing up in your sitelinks. For example if your analytics tell you that your site users convert to customers immediately after seeing your pricing table then why not give them a direct link to your pricing page in your sitelinks.

So, what happens if you are redesigning your site and you have a page in your old site that rocked Google search and came up #1 in the list when searching something like “business coaching”? Consider the old page is at http://mysite.com/bizcoaching.html and the new site the page changes to http://mysite.com/services/biz-coaching/. Well, you could lose your #1 Google ranking for this page if you don’t setup 301 redirects telling Google that:
http://mysite.com/bizcoaching.html —now lives at—>http://mysite.com/services/bizcoaching/.

When using WordPress, a good plugin to mange this is “Redirection“: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

See Google’s discussion below about their take on redirects:

Adding a PayPal button to your site is very easy. Below is a quick video showing you how to do this for a donation button, the buy now button follows the same process. Start accepting donations today.

Add a PayPal button to your site

(attributes to WordPress.tv for this tutorial)

Optimize Google Places Tip #1

Research clearly shows that people like special offers; so, offer one for free with your Google Place listing! Just follow the instructions under the “Offers” tab.

Optimize Google Places Tip #2

Fill out all fields making sure you have a 100% score. Remember Google is interested in leveraging as much local information as possible so, help them!

1. Unsure your operations hours are correct
2. Include correct payment options
3. Add a photo of your business or at least your logo
   • Upload up to 10 images (they allow it)
   • Upload your logo
4. Add a video
5. Add any additional details if you have any. Think search-able!

Optimize Google Places Tip #3

Include service keywords and product keywords. In the business description and other fields like “additional details”, think search-able. Use words that through search will drive people to your business, don’t just state your business mission statement!

Optimize Google Places Tip #4

Follow the Google rules. Google states that violators will loose their placement. Ask anyone who has lost their search listing or any other listing in Google and they will tell you to avoid getting on the “bad boy” Google list or you may never see your business on the web again…ouch!

Optimize Google Places Tip #5

Create action items at every opportunity. This primarily applies to your video at this time but, as Google Places expands keep this in mind. Your video should include an action item, phone numbers, web address, email address, and encourage the next step. Let’s face it, you want people to participate with your business, not just watch a video. Always leave them with the next step to take to become a participant with your business.

The Most Important Google Places Tip #6

Ask for reviews. Not only will more reviews get you placed higher in search algorithms but, research clearly states that reviews drive business. People trust people, not computers!

Finally, if you want the experts at WordPress Webmaster to help you, fill out our request form and describe your internet marketing need. Our experts can get your business and site ranked at the top for local or global internet placements!