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A comprehensive list of more than 13 online tools that can help you figure out what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it.
Free Ajax. A frank and gentle tutorial on Ajax, covering important topics such as fetching XML and JSON files using it.
Calling all designers, developers, and print artists. Introducing the new and easiest way to run your own storefront - on Wordpress!
A couple of new Twitter-based sites: TooMuch and HelpWith.
Often the first impression of your business is made from its business name; it's a key factor contribution to your identity and image.
A round up of useful CSS, Ajax, Tutorials, tools, Graphics, WordPress and articles weve found in May that is worth your time.
Martin Kaba of Kabatology released a new WordPress theme that looks very clean and neat. It is called
Ndomche Summary Theme and I’d love to know whether this word has actually any meaning. Martin left a comment on my
Silk Theme post and alerted me to his new release. So I went to have a look and liked what I saw.
As many of you already know, I really like clean WordPress themes. They are so light and carry no baggage, which also makes them fast loading I guess. Plus, a white theme is so easy to make your own. It’s like a blank canvas for a painter.
The Ndomche Summary Theme is built on WordPress 2.5. This means that you are advised to upgrade before using this theme if you haven’t already done so. It is a grid based CSS styling theme that will also show your Gravatars without having to do any customizations. Martin has released the theme under the GNU/GPL license and asks that you leave the footer link intact.
The Ndomche Summary Theme has a massive banner in the left hand side bar which could ideally be used to market an affiliate product. I’m thinking niche marketing with a special product here.
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If you always wanted to know what those professional keyword research tools have to to offer, now is the time. The guys from
WordTracker emailed me today to let me know that they are offering a 7-days free trial to the complete version of their service.
Do I think that everyone should be doing keyword research? Absolutely. Here is an example of why it is useful. Suppose your blog is about golf (the sport). After a while you will be looking for ideas to write about. What if you could start that brainstorming process by actually taking a look at what people are searching for inside your niche? With a keyword research tool, you would get a pretty long list of highly search keywords for whatever topic or niche you want. Below you will find an example when I researched for “golf.”
Now there are also good and free keyword research tools out there that would give you this information, so you need to evaluate by yourself if you need a professional solution or not.
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Welcome to the third video blog review on Daily Blog Tips. This is another one focused on the design and layout aspects.
The Boomer Chronicles uses a very common blog template, so I am sure new bloggers will find this one useful. I think the quality of the image improved a bit on this one also.
If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are the main points I covered:
- The header will quite good. It has a customized image that gives a mood to the whole blog, and it also has a clear tagline to explain to first time visitors what the blog is about quickly.
- The name of the blog and the domain are not matching, which might confuse some visitors. If the blog is has been using that name for a long time, though, it would not be a good idea to change it now, so its just a point to keep in mind.
- Full posts are being displayed on the homepage. Usually I prefer only post excerpts, but since the entries are short posts most of the times, full posts are OK on that case.
- Personally I would remove the social bookmarking icons from appearing in all the posts. Given that the content is formed mostly from the opinions and daily activities of the author, I am not sure how effective it is to promote them on social media. If once in a while there is a suitable post, the author can always insert those icons individually.
- The main category is still called “Uncategorized.” This gives the impression that it was neglected. It would be a good idea to name it something else, like General Stuff.
- There are no links to the single categories on the sidebar. This is necessary to give the users the option to navigation the categories individually.
- It would be essential to add an RSS icon on the homepage as well. Right now it is no where to be found.
- The Archives section are taking too much space on the sidebar, and perhaps a drop-down box would accomplish the same task using less space.
- The always common Meta section at the bottom of the sidebar is present here as well, and I always say it would be a good idea to remove it cause it has no value to the visitor whatsoever.
If you can’t see the video player, here is a link to YouTube:
Daily Blog Tips - Blog Review 3
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Written by Daniel Scocco · Filed Under design corner | Comments Off
Another batch of interesting links for this Sunday. Some readers mentioned that they disliked the “Link Tips” post. Usually I use this column to present interesting articles from around the web that I had no opportunity to mention during the week. What do you think, should we remove this Sunday column, or merely space it, like with one every 15 days?
- Site Analytics Tools: If you are trying to optimize your website in one way or another, check out this list with 15 tools you can use.
- Better Tags Manager: If you are a heavy tag user on WordPress, or if you are trying to integrate your categories with tags, this plugin could help.
- Domain Name Background Check: Before purchasing a domain name it is always a good idea to perform some checks. If you are not sure what factors you should look for, start with this article.
- Problogger’s Tipping Point: Interesting article where Darren reveals the initial growth phase of his blog, and what contributed to it.
- Color Picking Software: If you do web design and constantly needs to discover the color of websites and logos, you should consider using the AdesClrPicker software.
- Adobe AIR Applications: You certianly heard the buzz about Adobe Integrated Runtime right? Wel, if you are not sure what you can do with those apps, visit this list on Mashable with 30 of them.
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