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Changing the Font & Style of Your H1 Tags

QUESTION: (Rhonda) I am having problems changing the font size of my H1text. Is this very important? If so, how do I go about changing it?

Changing the text and/or style of an H1 tag is simple in CSS.  It does not affect anything other than how the visitor sees it though (i.e., if you use a large font, it means nothing more than a smaller font, in SEO terms or how Google sees it).

You can change the H1 tag locally or in the CSS definition file.

If you want to change all of the H1 tag settings in your entire website, you would do this in the CSS file:

h1 {
font-size: 24px;
}

You would use the h1 tag as you normally would:
<h1>This is my H1 tag</h1>

You can define a class in the CSS file which allows you to define your new style whenever you wish anywhere on the site:

.h1style {
font-size: 24px;
}

You would add this class to your h1 tag, when you wish it:

<h1 class=”h1style”>This is my H1 Tag</h1>

* Remember to add the “.” when defining it in the CSS to classify it as a class.

Finally, you can do it locally using a style attribute (without the CSS file):

<h1 style=”font-size:24px;”>This is my H1 Tag</h1>

All of the above do the exact same thing.  Their use is based on how often you use the style and how you want it defined (whether globally or locally).

Also, remember you can add other styles to the same definition (like color):

<h1 style=”font-size:24px; color:red;”>This is my H1 Tag that is Red and 24px high</h1>

I find that being able to change the styles of my text for header and other standard tags to be quite invaluable!  Knowing a little bit of CSS can go a long way.  Give this a try!

The easiest thing to try first is the local definition using the style attribute. If this is working for you, consider creating or editing your own CSS file!

Good luck!  cheers…matt


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Matthew Bredel begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlightingMy name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer. For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...

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Wordpress Comments: Stop Spam with Akismet

July 6th, 2009 . by Matthew Bredel . Tweet This!
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Comment moderation is sometimes not enough. Sure, this solves the problem of preventing spammy or bad comments to appear on your blog, but what happens when you get too many comments to moderate? Spam is an ever-growing problem, and if you haven’t used this simple (and pre-installed!) Wordpress plugin, I guarantee you are wasting time. Learn how…

Let’s talk about the ugly (and the inevitable) when it comes to Wordpress blogs and comments:  SPAM!  We talked about this a bit in the last post about Wordpress Comment Moderation.  But sometimes, moderation is not enough (well, it is enough, but SPAM can cause the simple task like comment moderation and change it into a full-time job).

I said this before, but comment SPAM is going to happen on your Wordpress Blog.  The amazing thing is how often this can happy.  Even a low (or NO) traffic website will receive SPAM commenting and anything bigger can result in dozens (if not HUNDREDS) of spammy comments per day.

akismet

Now simple moderation will clean this up, but having to go through dozens of comments per day and delete them is a big waste of time.  Of course, you can turn comments off altogether, but (like I mentioned in the past) that defeats the purpose behind why most of us create a blog in the first place.

There is a way to combat much of this comment SPAM and most of you already have it!

For most installations of Wordpress (and this includes a Wordpress.com account, too), there is a plug-in that is already uploaded called Akismet.  The Akismet plugin is a tool that analyzes all of the comments that are made on your blog and compares them with an ever-growing SPAM database.  This way, the tool is automatically moderating (and removing) known SPAM comments.

In most cases, the Akismet plugin will be able to identify and remove close to 90% of all comment SPAM.  This is awesome!  (and I know all of you current Wordpress users will be seeking for this type of SPAM-killing solution at some point!).

To activivate the Akismet plug-in, you need to do 2 things:

1)  In your dashboard, Go to Plug-ins and and select the “Activate” button beside the Akismet Plug-In.

2)  You will need to have a Wordpress.com account to get your activation key (You don’t necessarily need a Wordpress.com blog, but you do need to register with them to get the activation key.  This does not cost anything.

Once you get your activiation key, you will be able to turn on Akismet in your Akismet Configuration (which is will now be under the Plugin Menu). That is it!  You are done and you only need to set this up once.  Akismet will also give you statistics on the number of comments it is identifying and removing.

I literally save myself close to 15 minutes per day with comment moderation by simply turning on and activating this simple Akismet plug-in.  If you have a Wordpress blog and have not turned on Akismet, do it today (it is totally worth it!).

cheers…matt

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2 Responses to “Wordpress Comments: Stop Spam with Akismet”

  1. I’ve added the reCAPTCHA plugin to my blogs, and put on top of Akismet, does a wonderful job.

    I also have a SQL command I use to find frequent spammer IPs:
    SELECT count( * ) AS nCnt, comment_author_IP FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = ’spam’ GROUP BY comment_author_IP ORDER BY nCnt DESC

    Then I deny those IPs via htaccess:
    order allow,deny
    deny from 148.233.159.58
    deny from 162.114.40.32
    …
    allow from all

    Finally, I use the Comment Timeout plugin to not allow comments on very old posts.

    Posted by: Eric Nagel
    July 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am

  2. Great tips, Eric!

    I know some of you are saying ‘huh?’, but if you have a tech guy working your blog, he should know what to do. Many of the plug-ins do the table creation in MySQL for you. Whatever you can do to help discourage or prevent spam is only going to end up saving you time and making your blog that much more authoritative and conversation-friendly to REAL commenters…cheers…matt

    Posted by: Matthew Bredel
    July 12th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

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