Archive for February, 2008
Widget Ready Wordpress Themes – Adding More To Your blog
Posted on 29. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
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Wordpress blogging just took the next step forward with widget ready wordpress themes! Most wordpress users had become pretty much used to customizing the design and layout of their wordpress blogs, by changing the themes every so often. With so many free themes available on the internet today, it gave the users plenty of options to select from. But widgets have been something different. They have opened the possibilities of customizing the side-bar functionalities to a completely new horizon! Widgets have made it easier than ever before, for the end users, to customize their wordpress themes, without having to learn any kind of programming.
What Are Wordpress Widgets?
Wordpress widgets are nothing but blocks of codes that make it very easy for you to convert the sidebar of your wordpress blog or site, from a simple “drag and drop” menu to a totally hi-fi, sophisticated, multi-functionality equipped “task bar”! With widget ready wordpress themes, you can very quickly modify the design and general layout of the site, without having to know HTML, CSS or PHP. Whether you want to “tweak” some simple visual elements, like the color scheme, fonts, your “banner picture”, or install extra plug-ins to give more functionality to your readers, widget ready themes let you do all that, much faster than before!
There are about a hundred different widgets that can be used with wordpress themes, and they exist under several different classifications, such as photography, sports, music, cookery, pets, income, discussion and so many others. So it becomes very easy to customize your site/blog according to whatever you care about. However, these widgets are compatible with only the newer widget ready wordpress themes. In case you want to use one of the older themes with widgets, some modifications will have to be done to make the theme widget-friendly first.
Customizing Wordpress Themes
Customization of widget ready wordpress themes holds a lot of promise. It isn’t exactly rocket-science to code up a widget, but, never-the-less, it is beyond the PHP skills of most theme designers to allow their widgets to be customized by end users! So if you think you’ve got what it takes to “cook up” these “chunks of code” called widgets, the wordpress community would welcome you with open arms! You can modify basic features, like whether the blog posts show complete entries or just excerpts, or you can change the number of posts listed on your blog index. Even though wordpress is already adding to its vast collection of widgets, for users with all kinds of whims and fancies, there are still hundreds of themes available that can be customized to give completely different widget functionalities to the end users.
However, there are certain things you need to take care of when you are designing your own widget ready wordpress themes. You must make sure that theme can be easily installed on any existing blog or site without much “disturbance” to the content of the site. The theme should also be easily customizable for any blog. Hence it is advisable to first test your theme on a test blog and site, before releasing it to the public, to see if it can support all the miscellaneous widgets and plug-ins that people might want to use on their real blogs and sites.
About the Author
Richard Bulla share his views about Wordpress Theme and its features. For more information on Free Wordpress Theme, please visit www.wordpressthemes.weblogs.us
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Has Your Website Been Google Slapped?
Posted on 26. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
Getting to the top of the search engines has never been easy and the bad news is that it has gotten even harder, especially if you are trying to peak Mt. Google
Recently, with respect to information quality, Google raised the bar even higher with another algorithm tweak that effectively reshuffled (and in some cases evaporated) page rank across thousands of web pages.
Thus if your website’s PR (or that of its inner pages) recently stole quietly away in the middle of the night with nary a goodbye take consolation in the knowledge that you are not alone; this calamity has befallen countless others.
The latest Google algorithm tweak/update has been pretty widespread and non-discriminatory in nature, targeting both new sites and well established veteran sites too.
In the good ole days it used to be that a gray page-rank bar was indicative of a website/web page that had been banned from the Google index but that seems to no longer be the case. Lately it would appear that being grayed-out merely reflects a webpage/website that is under probation (of course in certain cases a gray PR band could actually reflect a banned website/web page).
So what does this all really mean?
Google Web Paradise
Understanding Google’s goals and objectives is fundamental to search-engine optimizing your website effectively and correctly within their guidelines. The first thing you need to appreciate is that online search is a business. Google is Top Dog in the search engine business for two very simple reasons:
1. Google returns the most accurate results for any given search query.
2. Of all the search engines, Google has the fastest retrieval rate for almost all queries.
Being number one for both the above listed parameters obviously has major advantages; it ensures that more people flock to use your search engine and, as has been proven time and time again, where the crowds gather the advertisers hover not far behind.
Advertisers want to get the best bang for their buck so they will naturally tend to spend their dollars where they can get the greatest percentage of targeted and relevant eyeballs; which means advertising on the major search engines (of which surprise, surprise) Google is the leader!
Google’s domination of online search is a tangential derivation of the saying “The Richer Get Richer,” because as Google gets better and leaves the other search engines floundering in their dust, more and more people (and advertisers) will naturally tend to gravitate to them!
The New SEO Horizon
The first thing that should be understood is that the debate about the existence of the Google Sandbox has been laid to rest once and for all. It exists and has become even more expansive as well as having gotten more rigid!
As of January 2005, Google had over 100,000 servers with which to store data in its cache index. The cache index is where Google stores a copy of every page that the googlebot crawls on the internet.
Those web pages that eventually make it into the Google Primary Index (the index that displays the resulting listings in response to a query) are the pages that have been evaluated as most relevant and qualified for that particular query.
Web pages or websites that Google evaluates to be comprised of largely duplicate material that is already in its index are relegated to the supplemental index (the backburner). The supplemental index contains web pages and/or websites that Google considers, for all intents and purposes, to be irrelevant.
In other words you do not want your website to end up in the supplemental index because nobody will ever get to see it!
In 2006 Google suffered a very major server-overload crisis. Since then they have acquired several more servers, but this new algorithm tweak/update tends to suggest that they are leaning much more towards the principle of efficiency-and-quality versus volume-and-quantity.
In essence it appears that Google is adopting an approach geared towards maximizing efficiency of storage and organization of data. This by its very nature means restricting the amount of content that gets crawled, cached and eventually indexed (i.e., saves server space) as opposed to trying to accommodate every single piece of data that is drifting across the internet.
This certainly may go some distance explaining the zeal and passion with which they executed operation “gray band” that affected thousands of websites and web pages.
Recovering From Being G-Slapped
If your website/web pages have recently been demoted (loss of page rank) or now shamefully display a grayed-out PR bar where once a shimmering green existed, then your website has indeed been Google slapped!
So where do you go from there?
There’s a saying that states “understanding the nature of the beast is the first step in divining its true intent” (which is just a fancy way of saying: if you know what makes something tick then you’ll be better able to predict its future actions.”
Keeping that in mind, it is possible to deduce the following aspects from the May 2007 Google update:
1. A gray PR band will be the norm for all new websites and web pages; in other words think “probation period.” The length of time the PR bar remains grayed-out for any particular website/web page is dependent upon a number of factors which include:
a) How unique the content on a web page is. Pages that boast highly original and unique content will tend to be released from the gray zone quicker.
b) A web page that has a lot of unique traffic will have a shorter probation period (note that the origin of that traffic is something the search engines factor in to rule out sneaky play by individuals attempting to game the search engines).
c) Links! Links! Links! Yes, when it comes to SEO it is impossible to ignore the link factor. A page that “naturally” acquires a good number of topically related links will experience a shorter probation period.
d) Greater link activity will increase the importance of the destination page whereby such a web page will tend to attain higher PR quicker. This makes sense because a hyperactive links denotes popularity (websites that are popular are so because people find them useful).
e) The amount of time people spend on your site is also an important parameter that the search engines take into account. People tend to spend more time on websites that they find useful and the search engines can determine that fact through the use of sophisticated tracking scripts.
Bottom line: It is becoming increasingly difficult to game the search engines (the use of blackhat techniques) as their algorithms get smarter and more sophisticated.
The May 2007 Google update amply illustrates that Google is aggressively gunning for its vision of Web Paradise which by necessity means smacking down hard on websites that offer little useful function to that vision!
Simply put, if you wish your website to advance up the SERPs you need to make it user oriented. Visitor use and appreciation of a website appears to be the single strongest factor in determining that website’s eventual position on the SERPs in Google’s brave new Web Paradise!
Internet Marketing Online
About the Author
Ba Kiwanuka is the webmaster of http://www.internetbusinessmart.com
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Template vs Custom Web Site
Posted on 21. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
There are many opinions out there on if a template based web site is any good. Well, the answer is or course it is. Buying a template and creating a web site can save thousands of dollars. Looking through the web you will find that there that there are millions of places to find templates to create a new web site.
Now, the real question should be can you create a web site from a template that will ultimately make you money. The answer again, of course, but this is where the average business owner should let a professional do their job. Customizing a template to meet your needs and optimizing it to be search engine friendly can take quite a bit of coding and experience. Anybody can create a web site but the average Joe has no chance verses an experienced web designer of creating a fully functional web site.
A huge myth out there is that a web site needs to be a “custom design” to be worth anything. Every template you find is a “custom design” but you are only getting a bare bones web site that must be filled with your own rich content. Some of the advantages are that the lay out and navigation are done, the template comes loaded with pictures you can use, sometimes you’ll even luck into flash headers or menus.
Just remember that customizing a template will usually cut your web site cost at least in half. Now, on to custom web site designs, here you will find that you have complete control over the look and feel of your new web site. You ultimately have control over everything, but these freedoms do not come cheap. A custom web site can cost anywhere from 1500.00 to 3500.00 so do your research. We have all heard horror stories from a friend about someone paying 3500.00 for web site that is a piece of crap.
So how do you know who to buy from or what to buy? Like I said before, do your research. Creating a custom web site takes a lot of planning and information so be prepared to spend a little time with your designer. When it is all said and done though, with a custom web site design you know that your company or business will have a unique design, fresh and original that no body else has. This is a huge plus considering how many web sites are out there. When considering whether to buy a template or a custom design here are a few key factors to consider.
Budget : What is your budget? How much can you really spend on this new web site Time: How much time do you have to get this project complete? Return on Investment: Depending on which route you take, will the new web site be worth it? Goal: What is the purpose of getting a new web site? Are you only providing information to potential clients or an interactive fully automated on line store?
These are just a couple things to consider but at least you have a couple starting points to decide Template vs Custom Web Site.
About the Author
Andrew Braudway Freelance web designer http://www.agbdesign.com
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Web Design Wisdom
Posted on 19. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
If reading big thick books just isn’t your thing, see if you can master some of the idiosyncrasies of Flash with ready made website templates. By now most of you already know that website templates can save you a lot of time and effort, but did you know they can also be wonderful as a gentle introduction to the world of web design? Think about it, by having access to the website templates source files we’re actually being given the opportunity to be taught and inspired by the combine efforts of many very skilled developers.
This is perfect for designing reusable apps such as pre-loaders, image galleries and contact forms where’s with the website templates you don’t need to reinvent the wheel anymore. CSS templates can be used to study two to three column layouts and style rules, which you can later apply to any project. Another good example are scalable layouts templates, commonly knows as liquid templates or stretched templates, with one of these ready made liquid templates you’ll be able to master the art of getting around varied screen sizes and resolutions. My personal favorite templates are XML Flash templates because of their unique feature which allows the content to be loaded onto the Flash templates via any text file – a function to keep handy if your ever around Flash.
Yeah, you could spend hundreds of hour reading tutorials on all sorts of topics by rhetorical experts peddling everything from color schemes to grid design, however most of that is either to technical or just isn’t practical in the real world where clients demand more professionalism. The great thing about premium templates is that they are created by professional web designers using the latest technology. In other words these ready-made website templates are made by people that understand typography, layout things like that; skills one could only wish to achieve after years of practice as a graphics designer and or programmer.
Where were website templates 10 years ago, when I first got into Flash? Anyway, these are just some of the benefits of website templates, I’m sure there are many more so please feel free to leave me your thoughts, comments and or experiences you may have had using templates. Also, mustn’t forget to mention that most premium templates shops will even give you a website template free so you can evaluate the quality of the product and try your skill before you buy.
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Get a great looking website with templates!
Posted on 16. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
Think of your Homepage as the front door of your brick and mortar store. When customers land on your front door you want to entice them to enter and look at all the wonderful merchandise you have on display. Your Homepage ought to accomplish the same result. It should display a presence and if you’re considering using Flash animation or even video, make sure it’s appropriate for your message.
If you’re starting your online business from scratch or if you’re interested in improving your online business, it’s important that your site be well designed. You can hire a designer to obtain that perfect website design. Another option you should consider is website templates. You can choose from a large selection of template designs for whatever fits your business category. Website templates can be the answer for a tight budget.
In today’s competitive internet world you need a well designed website. A good design creates attention that delivers clients. The typical web surfer will evaluate your site in approximately five to eight seconds. That’s why it’s important to give an immediate positive first impression, because the next website is only a click away.
Whether you’re selling digital products or you’re providing merchandise that is shipped direct to your customer’s door, it’s vital that your website flows. Website templates provide a ready made framework that can be customized to fit your needs.
A well designed Website Template is often a great solution, if you’re on a budget. Ask yourself, are you among the many that will know it when you see it, but have trouble visualizing it from scratch? A website template gives your online business a foundation to build upon. After you have found the perfect design, consider customizing your template to fit your business strategy. In order to start the process of customization, you will need some software. If you don’t already have website design software here’s a list of what you’ll need.
WinZip 9+ (Windows); Stuffit Expander 10+ (Mac); Adobe Photoshop CS+; Adobe Dreamweaver (or Microsoft Frontpage 2003, or Microsoft Expression Web); Adobe Flash 8;
Although a great looking website design is an important element, you also will need to consider a back-end support system. In deciding what system to select, consider how you will track Accounting, Customer Relationship Management and Document management. Be sure to give careful consideration to the functionality you will need for your business. Doing your research and making the right selection on a back end system will help you to achieve your business goals.
Whether you’re choosing a website template, or having a professional design the perfect site, make sure you are paying attention to what is best for your customers. Your website design ought to give you a strong web presence.
Make sure updating and revising is part of your website strategy. Your website should be updated regularly depending upon upcoming changes or event. Take advantage of new technology. It can help you to beat your competition and establish your name.
About the Author
Steven Keltsch is an Internet Consultant offering Search Engine Optimization and a member of The Society of Industry Leaders of Standard & Poor’s, Vista Research Inc. For more information go to http://www.templateartist.net
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Adobe CS3: What’s New?
Posted on 14. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
Adobe CS3 (Creative Suite 3) is a suite of products that combines traditional Adobe programs with programs that Adobe acquired and has since rebranded from Macromedia. The suite includes Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks, as well as Illustrator and Photoshop. All of the programs in Adobe CS3 that were formerly Macromedia have been streamlined and given Adobe-like functionality. The entire suite now works seamlessly as a complete family of Adobe programs for designers and developers.
Dreamweaver
Adobe CS3 includes an upgraded version of Dreamweaver, formerly a Macromedia program. Not only is Dreamweaver now more readily compatible with other Adobe programs, but it also has the addition of the Spry framework providing Ajax capability. This enables designers to incorporate sophisticated functionality without the need for complicated programming skills by simply taking advantage of the built-in features of Dreamweaver CS3. Dreamweaver CS3 also has new standards capability with cascading style sheets.
In addition, Dreamweaver CS3 now has Adobe Device Central incorporated within the program. This allows users to preview and test Web pages on multiple devices with ease. The Adobe CS3 program also has advanced integration with Photoshop CS3 and can support multiple layers. Finally, designers and developers using Dreamweaver CS3 can perform easy browser compatibility checks and can check for cross-browser cascading style sheet rendering issues.
Flash
Another one of the new Adobe programs acquired from Macromedia is Flash. Flash CS3 is now using Action Script 3.0, an update and modification of Action Script 2.0. While 3.0 is backwards compatible, this portion of Adobe CS3 is also 30 times faster and has more object-oriented capabilities than 2.0, which is of great benefit for developers.
For designers, Flash in Adobe CS3 is easier to work with and has more streamlined panels. The program incorporates new drawing tools, including a new and enhanced pen tool that is more like that used in Illustrator. Flash CS3 also allows more control with corners when creating rectangular objects and easier creation of pie and donut shapes. The program as a whole is more intuitive and is easier to control with new object primitives. Additionally, Flash CS3 works with other Adobe programs and allows designers to copy and paste filters and motion tweens from one object to another without the need to reapply them. Flash CS3 also offers nine-slice scaling, offering users the ability to scale objects more intuitively and without distortion.
Finally, Flash CS3 incorporates Adobe Device Central and allows users to check applications on different devices. And Flash now has import support for Adobe programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator, which can lead to enhanced image fidelity and editability that designers may have wished for in the past.
Fireworks
Fireworks has also been given a makeover as one of the new Adobe programs. The new Adobe CS3 version makes it easier to control and share symbols, to give them more robust attributes with Javascript, and to swap them. Plus, scaling has been enhanced in Fireworks CS3 so that you can now intelligently scale symbols with a nine-point system.
Additionally, in Fireworks CS3, you can add multiple pages to a single document for ease in mocking up Web sites. You can also have hierarchical layers in much the same way as is allowed in Adobe programs such as Photoshop. And it is much easier to bring files between Fireworks and Flash or Illustrator and Fireworks than ever before.
Photoshop
Photoshop CS3 has also been given a makeover and upgrade. The new version of one of the best-known Adobe programs now offers the ability to export an HTML file that the user can zoom in and out of (the “zoomify” feature). It also has new smart filters that can preserve data integrity and allow for nondestructive flexible modification of the images. Designers using Adobe CS3 can also convert images to monochrome with more control than before.
Plus, Photoshop can now analyze images and make recommendations for settings. It also offers an enhanced version of cloning and healing and also has updated color correction options. And there are many new tools in Adobe CS3 that designers can use to more finely tune images, from photo merge with advanced alignment bleeding to a refined edge feature. Photoshop also now has DICOM support and allows users to open, edit, and annotate single frames of radiological images. Finally, as with other Adobe programs, Photoshop also incorporates Adobe Device Central for easy previewing and testing of images on other devices.
Illustrator
Last but not least, Adobe CS3 includes an upgrade of Illustrator that offers important new features for designers and developers as well. As previously mentioned, Illustrator CS3 now has seamless integration with Adobe programs such as Flash CS3 and includes Symbols for easy animation. The program also offers new, upgraded drawing tools and a new vector tool. Illustrator CS3 also features “Live Color,” which allows the designer or developer to edit colors directly within the image.
Conclusion
Adobe CS3 is an important upgrade for designers and developers who were users of previous versions of Macromedia and Adobe programs. It brings all of these well-known programs together in a single package under a single brand. Users are likely to see immediate benefits with Adobe CS3, and the new features of the individual programs add even more functionality than existed in previous editions.
About the Author
Ramon M. de la Paz is a full-time instructor of information technology training courses for WestLake Training and Development. In his 20-year career in the computer industry, in addition to delivering training, he has handled Web design and multimedia production for a number of government and non-government agencies.
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How To Be A Successful Web 2.0 Puppetmaster
Posted on 14. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
One of the key characteristics of Web 2.0 is participation, collaboration and moderation through the use of web applications. Web 2.0 sites derive their power from the human connections and network effects from this characteristic that is made possible, and grow in effectiveness the more people use them.
The idea of “participation, collaboration and moderation” can take many forms. If you look back history, bulletin boards are one form, online forums are another, online multiplayer games, content management systems (e.g. Wikis, Joomla), dating sites and classifieds as well. If not for features that enable multiple users to create their own space within a website via registering accounts or at least leave a message (like a comment in a blog), the communication culture would have been one-way (from the webmaster to the visitors) and remain stuck in 1.0.
Why would a webmaster want to go Web 2.0? We learned that social networkers want to expand their personal network of online friends. On the other hand, the webmaster desires to build up a core group of active participants who unconsciously help to sustain the ‘liveliness’ and therefore the longevity of the website and its agenda or interests while the overall database of users expand. In this manner, a lot of the effort that goes into building the database (or list) becomes very much hands-off for the webmaster. There’s leverage. This is also where moderation comes in.
The role of the webmaster naturally becomes that of the moderator, whose job is to maintain some semblance of order (but not to the point of creating a restrictive environment) and general site maintenance. It gets better when the webmaster can promote participants into moderators themselves, and more and more s/he becomes the “silent puppetmaster” behind the scene without doing much. It may not be easy, but the whole mindset of being a moderator is to gain confidence in just “letting it be” and letting his/her site runs by itself.
Now that the webmaster’s motivation is addressed, s/he must find ways to avoid competition by finding new twists to contribute to the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Much as new sites keep popping up in recent months, somehow no 2 sites are made the same and they certainly enjoy a good amount of traffic anyway. It would be better when you can boil down social networking to the context of a specific niche, like a site to exchange Mexican recipes or talk about Ferrari car accessories or business opportunities in Central Asia. You can better target the type of people you are looking for and it also gives them a sharper sense of purpose to engage with and within your site.
At the end of the day, social networking is all about sharing valuable content and making friends. The successful Web 2.0 webmaster is one who knows how to tap on this human desire to the fullest and consistently encourages such a desire to grow within the culture of the social network he has created by offering further privileges for more prominent members. Really, there’s no better way for them to build up credibility and make their personalities known than to be consistently ‘alive’ and ‘happening’ on the Net. From the SEO standpoint of view, you can also accumulate more backlinks and subsequently more traffic to your social networking site.
About the Author
Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center. Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts at Internet Mastery Center.
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Pay-Per-Play – A new revenue stream for webmasters?
Posted on 14. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
We have all heard of pay-per-click (PPC) and have seen it rise to become the primary form of online advertising in the space of only a few years. Most webmasters carry PPC ads on their sites these days, be it Google or any of the other PPC providers such as Yahoo or Miva. But how many people have heard of pay-per-play (PPP) and will it work?
As the name suggests, rather than getting paid for each ad-click, webmasters will get paid for each ad-play. A play consists of a five second ad each time a page is loaded that has the PPP code installed. It is a sound based ad that will be based around brand advertising rather than trying to sell a particular product. If the user stays on the page they will not continue to get ads, it is the just the single five second ad, unless they refresh the page.
The million dollar question though is, will PPP work? Sound can be really irritating for website visitors, especially when they are not expecting it. This in itself might deter some webmasters as it might scare their visitors away. On the other hand, it is only a five second ad and if enough websites adopt it, maybe it will become the norm and people will just get used to it.As a webmaster myself I can see an immediate opportunity to make some quick cash from PPP via traffic exchanges and in particular, auto traffic exchanges. Most traffic exchanges require a page view for between twenty and thirty seconds and we all know most surfers are simply trying to build up their surfing credits. If I put the code on a page explaining what PPP is, surfers will get an ad alongside an explanation and on an auto traffic exchange that page could easily get hundreds of views per day. Each time an ad plays, I am earning a commission. And there are plenty of traffic exchanges that allow sound, so I can’t imagine this will do anything but earn me some bucks.
However, I will still need to be convinced of the risk/reward of putting the PPP code on all my website pages. I’d be really interested to see what other webmasters think about the risk/reward of PPP ads. The risk as I see it is that my visitors will be scared off. The reward is a commission for each ad played. While I intend to take the opportunity of earning some money from the traffic exchange concept, I am not yet ready to dive on in and put the code all over my site.
And what about the advertisers?
Most advertisers looking to promote a brand will be fairly large corporate type advertisers. They will only be attracted by PPP if it is widely adopted by webmasters. They are unlikely to experience the benefit if their ads are primarily being played in traffic exchange type environments. Corporate advertisers will want mainstream coverage. But they will only get mainstream coverage if webmasters are prepared to adopt the concept for the majority of their sites.
We seem to have reached a classic catch 22 scenario.
So are there any other considerations? The website that is currently signing up webmasters for the PPP launch on 1st February 2008 has an Alexa rating of 25000 but a Google page rank of 0. That means some serious marketing is going on behind this program. The website hasn’t been around for very long as borne out by their page rank but already they have enough traffic to put them in the top 25000 websites on the internet. Sure, a three tier affiliate program will help but nonetheless, there must be some serious money behind them. Further, they claim to be backed by a major search engine, as yet unnamed.
In short, I am yet to be convinced by PPP and whether it will work over the longer term. However, on the basis that it might work, I’d like to be a part of it. I’d also love to hear the views of other webmasters.
About the Author
Simon is the webmaster of the netSuccess Directory and a pay-per-play affiliate
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How to beat Internet explorer when it comes to CSS and stop its regime of terror when using the net!
Posted on 12. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
I am guessing an article on this subject has been posted prior to this one, I should hope a few have! However I hope this will provide a refreshing angle on the subject and branch to some other interesting bits of stuff.
I am sure that anyone who has taken even only a few steps into web development has come across the gigantic force that is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Even for the most experienced coders, the most popular browser of this age has always been a prominent foot across the path of our websites technological progression and the possibilities of which the internet is yet to yield. Maybe not crushing ideas, but certainly making it a lot harder to bring these ideas from paper to browser.
However, although IE, wielding its scathing weapon the Microsoft corp. and therefore for-fronting the battle as the windows default has dominated the market; we have weapons which allow us the fight back! I think I’ll cut the metaphors here and get back to business… Well, how can we fight back? And more importantly, what can be done to keep our designs looking slick in the interim… Yeah before the proper browsers take over!
I’ll start with the fighting back. Personally my favorite method would be to utilize a conditional comment and tell people what they should be doing! Something like this…
[code lang="html"][/code]
Realistically I wouldn’t try this method though, probably not the most tactful way when it gets down to it. You could however place a banner showing your support of these less buggy browsers such as firefox. This websites great for this promoting firefox business, very nice banners right here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates/homepage
Conditionals are pretty clever little buggers though, for general use they can become quite useful. And you’re not just limited to [code lang="html"]
The great progression in the internet and its uses over the last few years has meant that the look and the feel of a site has come under a lot more scrutiny, especially with ever rising amounts of traffic as more and more people connect to the internet. Complicated uses of graphics and CSS mean that when it come to interpretation by different browsers, everything can go wrong. The Browser that is renowned for taking perfect code and screwing with the end results is of course Internet explorer. It is so tempting just to say screw it and ignore the IE users and their browser, but with over 58% still using a version of IE this really isn’t plausible solution.
So okay we’ve got to fix the problem. Where to start?
Well firstly it is a must to make sure your code is valid. Just from an incorrectly written Doctype or wrongly phrased line of css can through internet explorer into all sorts of funny modes where anything can happen. Make sure you get a green light here http://validator.w3.org/ and here http://htmlhelp.com .
Good stuff, that’s one step in the right direction if anything. Now if the problem still exists, what now?
Most of IE’s rendering blips are caused by bugs, which can be worked around with quick alterations or what are called hacks. Chances are your problem has been experienced by people before you and a fix has been fabricated already.
So what’s going wrong? I will list a few of the most common bugs, some which I myself have experienced and a link to some relevant articles explaining in depth the fixes.
My borders have gone crazy! – fix…
http://www.positioniseverything.net
Margins doubled, pushing my content down and generally mucking stuff up – fix…
http://www.positioniseverything.net
Contents there one minute gone the next, the peekaboo bug – fix…
http://www.positioniseverything.net
You may have noticed that all those fixes above are at one website. Basically “Big John” and co of Position is Everything .net have done a fantastic job among some other geniuses out there, so why don’t I just give you guys a link to his site, the chances are you’ll be able to find a fix there… http://www.positioniseverything.net
You’ve now with a bit of time and effort (it sucks doesn’t it, and it really is unnecessary effort!) probably been able to fixed up your site. But what if something still purists, what can you do!? Well here is what I do…
Firstly if you know something which could be causing the inconsistencies in your site when rendered by different browsers, try just experimenting with this particular element of the code. Say the content part of your page is being pushed below your side navigation and you recon that IE is playing with your margin values but it’s not the double margin bug. Just adjusting the values of margins can bring results. This is a good time to introduce an excellent piece of free software called CssVista. If you know css well it can also be an excellent tool when in depth analysing your code when looking for problems. Check it out here
http://litmusapp.com/cssvista/
If you can still find no joy using this experimentation method I’m afraid the best hope is now to do what I really find annoying especially since if browser bugs didn’t exist it probably wouldn’t be necessary. We’re going to have to start again. Now don’t panic we’re not going to redesign your site from scratch, we’re going to make a mock up page of your current design, testing for rendering problems all the way.
Okay, well your average website nowadays is divs inside divs inside divs. So first step is to create you’re outermost div and in your css give it all the position you want and a background-color so that you can see it. Now add the divs that are contained with-in this one and do the same thing, giving them all nice bright colours so you know exactly where they are. Now test it like crazy, anything going wrong so far? Basically keep going like this, until something starts to look weird, then think why it doing this? What have I just done to make it go weird? Google and other free recourses can be come very useful now. Yahoo answers is fantastic for everything so it is always worth a try at http://answers.yahoo.com.
That’s about it really; Give that a try and well, good luck!
So, we’ve had a quick look at how to rid the world of Internet Explorer and how to get by in the time being. I’m not a fan of Microsoft attempt at an internet browser but not really in the league of this guy http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html.
Basically guys have fun and make sure you’re not supporting the IE domination by using it!
Pete Taylour is co-owner of the fast growing ebook site http://www.liqiuidebooks.com the only place to go for your cheap and free ebooks. With strong interests in a huge amount of different music styles Pete and friend are soon to embark on some crazy mix submission site for upcoming DJs across the globe, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that and make sure you check out Liquid Ebooks at http://www.liquidebooks.com
About the Author
Pete Taylour is co-owner of the fast growing ebook site http://www.liqiuidebooks.com the only place to go for your cheap and free ebooks. With strong interests in a huge amount of different music styles Pete and friend are soon to embark on some crazy mix submission site for upcoming DJs across the globe, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that and make sure you check out Liquid Ebooks at http://www.liquidebooks.com
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Post Regularly Because…
Posted on 12. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
Keeping people interested in your blog, whether it is a business or personal blog, is key to attracting a lot of regular visitors. Many blogs have died because people have just lost interest. The main reason for the lack of interest is simply a lack of posts by the blogger. Regular, frequent posting, which will boost your blog’s ranking in search engines, is essential to the survival of any blog.
You might be asking yourself, what is frequent posting? How many blog entries should I make on a given week? How do I make frequent consistently good posts? What are the reasons for me to post frequently? In this newsletter, we will go over all of the above.
What is frequent posting?
Frequent blog posting is posting enough to keep your readers interested. Obviously, people will not want to come back to a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. They want to see consistent posting so that they know coming back to check the blog next week to see if there are more posts won’t be a waste of time.
How many blog entries should I make each week?
This is one of the tougher questions to answer. It really depends on the purpose of your blog. If it’s a personal blog, a weekly or twice weekly update is an excellent idea. A political/sports/music/religion blog should have 3-4 posts per week. Business blogs should have at least 2 posts, but preferably 4 each week.
The thing to remember is that quality counts. Posting frequently just for the sake of posting frequently tends to result in subpar posts which people won’t care about. It is important to find a balance?”frequent, quality posts that won’t result in burnout on your part. Why create 4 poor quality posts each week when you could post 2 quality posts per week?
How do I create quality postings on a consistent basis?
It’s all about following a consistent pattern of writing. Maybe you’re not a natural writer and this is difficult. That’s why we’ll give you an outline to help you.
1. Pick a topic that is interesting to you and to your readers. Maybe if your blog is a personal blog, you could write about the latest happenings in Hollywood. 2. Carefully think about what you’ll write about the topic. It makes it easy to make quality blog postings if you know exactly what you’ll write. Plot out everything about the post before even beginning to write it. 3. Before writing your content, pick out some keywords that are relevant to your blog. If you naturally use keywords throughout your post, you will please search engine spiders which will get your blog ranked higher on search engines. Your visitors won’t mind the use of keywords if they are used in a tasteful way. 4. Begin writing your post. Don’t limit yourself to a particular amount of words. Just do what’s natural. And if any blog post is hard for you, just take a timeout and relax. You should be able to finish the post a bit later on, after you’ve had some time to think things through, you should be able to finish the post with no problems.
Why is frequent posting important?
Blogs are meant to be outlets for individuals or businesses. They are used to get an opinion out on something and to engage readers. Readers need to have something that makes them want to keep coming back to a blog. That something is usually quality, frequent posts.
Gaining and maintaining visitors isn’t the only reason to post often in your blog. Catching the eye of a search engine?”and achieving a high ranking?”is another valid reason for posting frequently. Most likely, each posting in your blog features some keywords or keyword phrases scattered throughout it. Logic says that the more natural keywords you have on a blog, the better. Thus, the more posts you make on your blog, the more keywords you have on there. And the more keywords you have, the more likely a search engine bot is to crawl your site. The more your site is crawled by bots, the more likely it is that you will have a high ranking on a search engine.
Frequent blog posting can be easy as long as the person who is posting takes the time to plot out what they’ll write about. So take a few minutes to think about your post and then just do it!
About the Author
Len Hutton is a information publisher specialising in helping people start their own home based business. Get a no cost video showing you step by step how to set up a niche ebook empire at www.nicheresidualincomes.com Keep your eye on residual income business opportunity regularly to learn and earn. http://residualincomebusinessopportunity.blogspot.com/
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Top 10 Reasons to Try Internet Audio Ads
Posted on 11. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
This article highlights the top ten reasons to try the Internet Audios Ads affiliate program by Pay per Play.
#10. Internet audio ads give you the ability to sell advertising. They are backed by one of the major search engines and intend to put money usually paid by big corporations to television and radio networks into the pockets of it’s internet audio advertising affiliate members. They have affiliate programs on both sides of the program.
#9. Internet audio ads already have a large pool of corporate and mom and pop shop advertisers.
With current advertisers on board they have the ability to serve 7 …#34; 10 million ads per day, 7 days a week. They have the infrastructure to serve up to 9000 paid ads per second. That’s 3 quarters of 1 BILLION per day!#8. Internet audio ads do not requires management on your part. There are no banners to maintain. No banners to upload. No ads to link and no information to enter into databases and/or rotator scripts.
#7. Internet audio ads is risk free. There is no signup fee. There is nothing to buy. All you need is a website, a blog, or even just a myspace page. You can play internet audio ads on any page that you are able to insert the javascript code that they give you.
#6. Internet audio ads take up zero space on your website. All that is required is for you to ad a few lines of javascript to any page on which you would like to play. Ads on a page can look ugly and take up lots of space. With internet audio ads you can make money from ads that don’t clutter your site.
#5. Internet audio ads are contextual and geographically placed. These ads will match the content of your site whenever possible. They will also play ads that are relevant to your location, helping to support vendors right in your neighborhood.
#4. Internet audio ads has a generous payment structure. You get paid for ads that are played on your site. You get paid for ads played on any site your refer. You get paid on any ads played on sites your referrals refer. The payment structure goes three levels deep. This means you can make money without even having ads on your site!
#3. Internet audio ads do not require any user action to make money from them. Ads will be played to any visitor that has javascript and flash enabled. They do not need to click on ads that take up space on your site. This is why they say you get paid per page load.
#2. Internet audio ads do not steer visitors away from your site. This form of advertising is passive, and so is the income that comes with it. Just think, you can get paid for ads people don’t have to click, that don’t take up room on your site, and that doesn’t steer visitors to another site. What else could you ask for?
#1. Internet audio ads is an all new program presently moving through testing phase. Become a core member today! Soon the ability to sign additional people up will only belong to the core group of members that get in before the deadline. Sign up now and you will be able to take advantage of the referral program forever, forever growing your down line and paychecks.
About the Author:
J. V
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The Two Biggest Reasons Why Most People Will Never Make a Full-Time Income Online
Posted on 10. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
It all starts when some well-meaning (yet misdirected) person encourages a budding internet entrepreneur to “start in a niche they know alot about”, or base their business around “something they’re passionate about”…
As horrible as it may sound – they’ve unknowingly sent the hopeful entrepreneur down a path of false expectations, poor results and eventually – failure. In fact, the myth of “do what you love and the money will follow” has been responsible for more failure than likely any other influence – perhaps even moreso than laziness or a lack of perseverance. Because the simple truth of the matter is that the only way you’re going to make real money on the net is if your business is based around two crucial things:
1) Large Demand
2) Buyers
In other words – you aren’t going to get rich selling a $15 ebook about growing square watermelons – even though that might be a great passion of yours.The demand just isn’t there. Maybe there’s a few searches a day on Google for the topic, and perhaps there’s some interest in the online “gardening enthusiast” communities – but you’d be hard-pressed to make even a few hundred dollars a month from ebook sales.
Similarly, you also aren’t going to have a particularly easy time getting rich by building websites about some seemingly “popular” topics like humor, jokes, funny pictures and so on. And while there are a few ways to “monetize” your site (with AdSense, CPA Offers, CPM Banners, etc.), it takes literally millions of website visitors to make even just a few thousand dollars in markets like that.
The demand is huge – but the visitor value is extremely low…
Instead, if you want to make it big online – pulling down an impressive six-figure income – you need to tap into markets with tons of demand, where the majority of the visitors are valuable. You need to capture tons of traffic that wants to buy something. If you take this approach, you’d practically have to hijack your own order links (or affiliate links) not to make a sizeable
income.
In fact – did you know that some affiliates make several thousand dollars daily just by promoting a single product in hot markets? (Just imagine what the merchant is making…) In some markets there’s actually so much demand that the vendors are quite literally selling over a thousand units – or more – per day. Digital products, with practically zero overhead/delivery cost.
But it all comes back to tapping into valuable demand. In most cases, it takes no extra effort or “skill” to market to a valuable market than it does to struggle along with something you’re passionate about. These two factors – demand and buying traffic – are what seperate the “wannabe” marketers from the millionaires. Because there’s no real secret – you just need to sell what thousands of people are already buying.
The ball is now officially in your court. Are you tapping into markets with massive, valuable demand? Or are you struggling to simply make a few dollars occasionally
with a business that’s based on your own passionate interests?
About the author:
Daniel reveals 5 of the most effective traffic strategies and niche-targeting tactics in full detail at- http://digita
lmediadealer.com/superaffiliate
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How Can Interactivity Increase Conversions & Make You Money?
Posted on 05. Feb, 2008 by Dave.
In the last article (See Resources for details) we discussed several ways to enhance your users experience and how having a site that is user friendly is so conducive to having pages that are also easy to crawl and index. This time we’ll discuss the central elements of the ideal Web 2.0 ready site and they are collaboration and interactivity. I want you to really focus on these two key concepts in particular because they really are an essential must have in the Web. 2.0 era.
The phenomenal popularity of sites such as these has had more and more organizations that are doing business online reexamining the status quo. Consumers now simply expect more than just a one-way conversation or a static mandate. Think about it, why should anyone follow what your have to say if you are not willing to listen to what they have to say to you in return. Consumers prefer to interact; they want to know what other customers have to say about your product or service. That means you have to facilitate a place for your customers to express their point of view, start a conversation, comment on a particular topic or simply ask a question. With that in mind, you need to start thinking about your online presence as an outlet or podium that regularly encourages and endorses an entrenched sense of community among its users.
But how can interactivity increase conversions and make you money? If you read the last article you already know about the importance of having good content. Search engines love content. They want the foremost authority on any given subject. In other words, they want a site that knows the most and is the most reputable on a topic. Now we need to look instead at what we don’t know. We need to gain a better understanding of what our customer’s wants and needs are. That is where interaction and collaboration come in.
Tools like web analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) which help you see what’s happening on your site by determining which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, what pages they looked at, visit durations, where they left from and who referred them, only tell you half the story. Web analytics tools are great for answering questions like when, where and how. But what they don’t tell you is the who and the why. Only by feeding and growing the interactivity of your online presence can you gain a better understanding of your customer’s wants and needs. Moreover, giving your customers a voice will you help you better tailor your product to suit them.
If for instance you are looking at launching a new promotional campaign you can use the feedback on your site from your prospects so as to test the idea before you launch. You can even find out how people currently perceive your small business. This type of research is invaluable in helping you improve and make the right decisions concerning your online business. As they say: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Having an interactive site does not have to cost you and arm and a leg either, there are plenty of low-cost solutions out there, one of which I will be telling you about in the upcoming weeks. However, the key here is you have to facilitate the means to carry that conversation. You need to open that dialogue to get insight into what’s really working or isn’t working on your site
In the upcoming weeks we’ll talk more about these new Web 2.0 trends and also show you the easiest way to launch your own ready-built web 2.0 site. As always please feel free to share your thoughts, comments, feedback and keep checking back for more updates.
Resources:
Is Your Site Search Engine and Users Friendly?
How to Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize and Troubleshotize the Ideal Web 2.0 Site in a Nutshell.
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Conversion Of A Word Document To HTML Using W2CSS!
Posted on 04. Feb, 2008 by Hasan.
W2CSS is a program that produces a simple HTML file from an MS word document. The HTML that is generated from the word document is a simple and clean code. This program uses MS word macro for translating word paragraph styles into CSS class definition...Continue Reading
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