Are You Familiar with HTML and CSS? Six Reasons Why You Should Invest the Time to Learn
May 15, 2008
Aside form the design aspect of creating an attractive blog, being able to work with the coding will allow you to make changes and adjustments to your blog any time you want, rather than relying on a professional to do it for you, or rather than just limiting yourself to what’s available with the theme you have chosen.
Most blogs need a bit of customization from time-to-time, and for someone who has no experience with HTML or CSS this be a bit intimidating. However, if you’re working with WordPress you really only need a basic knowledge in order to make many of the customizations that you would like, and you don’t even need to know PHP in most cases (those who aren’t comfortable with PHP just need to be able to recognize it and avoid it when making changes to the HTML).
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Search Engine Optimization: The Title Tag
May 12, 2008
<title><?php if (is_home () ) { bloginfo(‘name’); }
elseif ( is_category() ) { single_cat_title(); echo ' - ' ; bloginfo(‘name’); }
elseif (is_single() ) { single_post_title();}
elseif (is_page() ) { single_post_title();}
else { wp_title(‘’,true); } ?></title>
Here is a rough transcript of the video (the blog used for example was PublicRecordsGuy.com): Read more
Web Usability: As Few Clicks As Possible
May 8, 2008
Hello guys, today I want to talk about a simple yet often overlooked rule of web usability. Read more50 Tips to Speed Up Your Website
The folks at InsideCRM created a nice compilation of tips to speed up your website, titled The Webmaster’s Turbo Kit. There are all sorts of tips and tools included, from reducing the number of HTTP requests to compressing images and playing with caches. Here are six articles that I wrote on the topic some time ago (they were included on the list):May 3, 2008
Remember though, the first step towards a fast website is actually the hosting company that you choose. Read more
- Speed Up Your Site: Optimize Images
- Speed Up Your Site: Image Formats
- Speed Up Your Site: Optimize your CSS
- Speed Up Your Site: Use a slash on your links
- Speed Up Your Site: Use the height and width tags
- Speed Up Your Site: Reduce the HTTP Requests
Social Networking And How Peer Pressure Can Cause Security Issues
If you are not using a social networking tool, then most likely you feel pretty ancient right now. Just about everywhere we look these days, social networking sites envelope us. As a matter of fact they slowly choke us to death or at least that is how it feels with the burden of having to join this and that site.April 28, 2008
If you don’t twitter, you are simply not cool these days. Alternatively, if you are not part of MySpace you are not in the loop. Stumblers are also a force to be reckoned with, especially for bloggers. But who says so anyway? Perhaps the millions of people who join these sites every month to converse with like minded people world wide. Or else the trend setters. Who knows, but what is clear is that social networking is robbing us of our time. Read more
10 Essential Legal Points for Bloggers - Part 1
Editor note: I considered breaking this post down in more parts, but I will rather publish it in its integrity. It is always better to have all the information on a single page, so that you can bookmark it and consult later. Every day, millions of bloggers post content online. Millions more people read and comment on blogs. With all that communication, some interesting legal issues are bound to arise. This article looks at 10 major legal points that bloggers must know and offers some suggestions about how to work with them. 1. Develop a “legal consciousness” about blogging. Like any publications, blogs frequently create legal questions. However, there is no need to fear those issues. Instead, being aware of the possibility of such concerns will help you identify them and manage them effectively. This article presents some of the most common legal issues that arise. As you read it, consider how those issues apply to your blog. Also, it is good to develop the habit of looking for legal questions as you post new content on your blog. Using the major points in this article as a guide, you can ask yourself, “Are there any potential legal problems here?” whenever you update your blog. This simple practice will help you identify important legal questions and resolve them before they have a chance to cause problems. Read moreApril 28, 2008
Hiring Virtual Assistant to Help Administrate Your Blog
April 27, 2008
@jb108 asks - “how do you feel about VA’s, do you use any, how many, how much work and what type do you delegate to others.” I love the idea of VA’s (virtual assistants) and can see a lot of tasks that I could potentially have one do for me - however I’ve never really felt completely comfortable with the idea and don’t currently have budget set aside for one. I do have Lara help me with comment moderation and a little other admin work when I have a project going on that I need assistance with but apart from that I don’t personally delegate much work. Of course at b5media we have quite a sizable team of staff to do a lot of the administrative stuff to keep our blog network running (I think at last count there were 12 full time staff). Read more
5 Blogger Books I Would Buy Today
Recently it seems as if there have been a number of bloggers getting deals to publish books. Last week Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett announced the release of their upcoming book. A few weeks ago Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim also published Radically Transparent following the success of his blog.April 19, 2008
Personally, I like the idea of bloggers that I recognize publishing books. I just ordered Darren and Chris’s book and I’m confident that it will be worth the price, because I’m already familiar with them and I respect and trust their insight and opinions. As I was purchasing the book, it made me think about some other bloggers that I would like to write a book on a particular topic. Plenty of bloggers are selling informational products or giving away free ebooks, but there are a few specifics that I would like to see, and here they are: Read more
7 Principles of Effective Icon Design
Before approaching icon design there are some guidelines and principles that are worth studying. If you want to create effective icon designs, then you should take a holistic approach to issues such as: audience, size, simplicity, lighting, perspective, and style. This article gives you a good starting place for creating icons that work well together and fit seamlessly within your designs.April 12, 2008
1. Approach Icon Design Holistically
Icons fit within graphic systems. Whether they are designed for desktop applications or websites an icon is one of many graphic elements that need to work together harmonically. Carry this logic across icon sets as well. Icons can be appreciated for their esthetic solutions individually, but they don’t function alone. Evaluate your icon designs relative to the graphic system your using them in. Make sure that each icon differs from surrounding icons, while still working together as a whole. In the article Designing an iconic language over at Turbo Milk the author Yegor Gilyov states, “If you need to draw several icons, you need to think over images for the whole set of icons before proceeding with illustrating activities.” This is one of two major points made in this article on icon design. He goes on to explain how failing to plan how the whole set of icons will work together from the beginning will ensure a huge waste of time, as redesign will be inevitable. Read moreWhy Bloggers Should Have a Privacy Policy, and 9 Points to Include in Yours
This is a guest post by Aditya Mahesh. With the way technology is evolving these days, it is no surprise that people are worried about online fraud, identity theft, and the misuse of their personal information. They need to be assured that sensitive data will be protected when using technology, and this applies to web surfing as well. One of the easiest ways to fix this problem is the creating a Privacy Policy. After all, most major websites have privacy policies, so why shouldn’t blogs? This is especially true when many readers will give you their e-mail address and other personal information to interact with the website, whether it be by posting a comment or signing up for an online newsletter or e-mail RSS feed. Creating a privacy policy isn’t too difficult. The document should be unique to your blog, but there are a number of issues that all privacy policies should include: 1. Explicit that you won’t sell or give away any user’s e-mail addresses. This is self-explanatory, people don’t want their e-mail addresses to spread across the web, so don’t release e-mail addresses. Read moreApril 11, 2008
