Archive by Author
Landing Pages Guide 101: Create Landing Pages that Work
Posted on 12. Jan, 2012 by Dainis Graveris.
I am by no matter an expert in landing page creation, but I am doing a lot of research on this topic in order to become more experienced myself and I invite you to join me in this journey. In this article you will be taken through each important step in order to create a [...]
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Traffic Building Tools And Websites: Social Marketing And Link Building For Designers
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by Dainis Graveris.
A lot has changed now and social media is changing rapidly. This article will help you see hidden gold mines you can discover to build a lot of back links, bring huge social media traffic and enjoy the whole process along the way. I participate in social media mainly because I need traffic, but I [...]
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Blog Post Formatting: Make Reading For Visitors Better Experience
Posted on 30. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
Finally we’re at the stage where we can use some of our design skills! In the next few articles we will look at how to make our content easy to read and scan; in the next post we’ll work on grabbing attention with good headlines! Your content won’t be read if you don’t add kick [...]
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Blogging Like a Pro: Learn How To Do Effective Content Research
Posted on 28. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
Quora 
Social Search Topsy – http://topsy.com 
SocialMention – http://www.socialmention.com/ 
Forum Search BoardReader – http://boardreader.com/ 
Omgili – http://omgili.com/ 
SimilarSites – http://www.similarsites.com/ 
SimilarWeb – http://www.similarsites.com/similarweb/ Delicious – http://www.delicious.com/search , Delicious Tools – http://www.delicious.com/help/tools 
HARO – Help A Reporter – http://www.helpareporter.com/ 
CrunchBase – http://www.crunchbase.com/ 
Google: related + basic tips http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py? hl=en&answer=134479 
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How To Find Article Ideas To Write About, Write Sticking Points
Posted on 18. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
I’m very happy to present the next chapter of my blogging series. Today’s topic is very important, being able to find new article ideas is crucial for any blogging business because we function the same way as magazines do – people come back to us because of the content, of course there are other things, [...]
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In Search For Ultimate Blogging Tools: Writing Simplified Now!
Posted on 12. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
What I liked: Option to enter full screen mode to avoid distractions Easy image, video,audio and quote add an upload Live preview screen to see how post would look like published Handy web browser bookmarklet Intelligent microblogging – you can follow your friends, search on Twitter and share posts with Ping.fm Word and character count If you need to copy and use some text from other sites, there is a good option to Remove Formatting, handy. … You can compose entries offline and use the extra features ecto offers, such as spellcheck, creating links, attachments, and much more. ecto is a native Mac OS X application, and offers you a more powerful and easier to use editing interface than your blog’s built in control panel. 
Ecto has been the most customizable of all, though it hasn’t got some of the newest, fancy features other blog editors might have, but mostly they aren’t missed at least for me.
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Science Of Writing Process: Getting Ready, Set Up Mood & Avoid Distractions
Posted on 09. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
You’ve probably already read the introduction already, but here we go again. Today we’ll talk about how to get ready to work. Actually it doesn’t matter if it’s about blogging, coding, designing, because in most cases we need to work alone and we want to be focused to do our job really well. Though this [...]
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Blogging Like A Pro: Introduction To 10-Part Crash Course
Posted on 07. Apr, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
If you are involved in the blogging world in any way you will know just how hard it is to find great tools to make your work process easier and more efficient. I’ve been blogging full-time for 2.5 years already and I’ve tried many approaches and tools. Going from a PC to a Mac I [...]
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Eleven2 Success Story And Giveaway:First Come, First Serve!
Posted on 28. Mar, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
Have you heard about Eleven2? Well, 1WD has been hosting with them for almost a year now! How is it? Well, you can see it yourself – site is working fast and we rarely have any problems now! If you have ever owned internet business I bet you know how crucial is to have a [...]
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1stWebDesigner’s Bullet Proof Guide: How To Make Money From Your Blog
Posted on 04. Mar, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
More and more people are trying to earn online – there are millions of new blogs, start ups and applications already and many more are being created each day! While there are so many people working online, only some of them are profitable ( I mean really profitable – not just making their living)! In [...]
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1WD Giveaway Contest Winner Announcement & Feedback
Posted on 13. Jan, 2011 by Dainis Graveris.
Hello everybody! We’re finally back with our contest results – I am apologising it took so long, but wasn’t easy to gather all results from Facebook, Twitter, comments – decide which prizes get each winner and finally putting that all together and contacting all our kind sponsors. Holiday season also didn’t help to get job [...]
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1WD 2 Year Anniversary And Massive 6000$ Worth Giveaway
Posted on 20. Dec, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
Hello everybody! Finally that day has come! Which day you may ask? Well…where should I start? – today 1WD is celebrating 2 years anniversary and fourth (4th) version of design. We were working really hard all summer, and if one year ago I was working all alone, now I am honored to have a beautiful team [...]
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PhotoSquares Portfolio WP Theme Review & Exclusive 25% Discount
Posted on 26. Nov, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
PhotoSquares WordPress theme was created to give users most flexible solution for building online portfolio. Flexible is a word that describes best almost everything about the theme, you can totally customize the theme without knowing any programming at all.
In this review I will explain some of the most powerful PhotoSquares theme features, I just want [...]
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Creatives Showcase: 38 Deviantart August Inspirational Pieces
Posted on 23. Aug, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
During hard organising and designing work, I was getting so busy I didn’t get any time to create some more valuable articles from my side. Since actual development process is going to end, I will warm up today and feature some of the best artworks from Deviantart to get you inspired. If you recall, I always enjoyed [...]
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Freebie:25 Original And FREE Abstract Smoke Brushes
Posted on 22. Aug, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
This brushes pack contains 25 high quality photoshop brushes made with Photoshop CS4. The size of the brushes is aprox. 1200 pixels and the quality is the best you can get:
sharp edges
smooth gradients.
This brushes are very useful for making wallpaper backgrounds, like the famous Vista wallpaper, or web headers, even on photo manipulations as fake smoke. Free [...]
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40 Highly Customizable Commercial Admin Templates And Skins
Posted on 03. Aug, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
Building a CMS from scratch can be hard and exhausting work, plus you need to have a good design stitched to it if you’re creating it for client. Sometimes it’s better to spend little money for a great quality product, these highly customizable admin templates could be a great starting point into new project and [...]
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1WD Is Changing: Insights And Email Newsletter Finally!
Posted on 24. Jun, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
If you’ve been active reader of 1stwebdesigner, you may have heard I have been planning big redesign for a long time. I think I’ve spent several months analyzing other similar blogs, thinking about features we need to include and just to understand which ones just don’t work.
I consider new redesign will be complete site relaunch, we’ve got a [...]
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73 Blog Designs From Deviantart You’ll Never Forget
Posted on 21. Jun, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
For some long time I’ve been gathering great blog designs from deviantart to get inspired and now I will showcase them all in one huge article!! Surprisingly finding great ideas and designs have been much easier in Deviantart than any other web design showcase sites.
I didn’t add any comments this time – compare these designs [...]
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DepositPhotos Giveaway: 3 People To Win Accounts
Posted on 11. Jun, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
DepositPhotos.com is a great resource for buying and selling Royalty-free photographs and vector illustrations. They slogan is – “Buy It Easy! Sell It Easy” describing how easy it is to do both tasks so you are in the right place if you are searching for premium photographs or trying to sell your work and earn [...]
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Modern Element Trends In Minimal Webdesign of 2010
Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Dainis Graveris.
As you may heard, I’ve been working on site redesign for a long time already and now I am deeply researching modern elements in minimal webdesign - I decided to share my research with all of you.
I think this modern&minimal trend will rule for some time, time for loud elements and web 2.0 cheap shiny badges has been long gone [...]