DT Blog » Web Design Tutorials

How to Customize the WordPress Admin Area-part 3

Anum — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 03:24:54 +0000

WordPress is very popular these days, not because it has many features you can choose from but actually, you can modify them into something that you really wanted to. Aside from, this is also one of the best content managements when you talk about the system. Built in high-grade software and newly advance graphical user interface, which enables you to create the variety of changes in your content features. Furthermore, because of these highly advance publishing platform, you are able to explore and create something different and new perspective. However, there are processes that you need to follow systematically, in order to function it well.

In fact, doing these procedures will sometimes confuse you and hard for you to understand right away especially if you are not familiar with the system. Thus, when the time comes in, and you wanted to make a change, then you can do it without delay. Moreover, the WordPress is very useful in different functions. Even though, this kind of blogging site is a bit difficult to understand in modifying content features. I will assure you, that after having this information. It will be easy for you to create or even edit your preferred theme or simplify your admin area. All you need to do is follow these steps accurately then things will be smooth.

The Final Draw out: Variation of Miscellaneous

We’ve made several changes and delete features that are not necessary. Right now, it’s time to revise some few stuff.

Customizing your Footer

Actually, your footer text in the WordPress includes the link of the Documentation as well as WordPress. However, you can change that by using snippet code.

Revising your Logo

This one is an already old technique, however, one of the best. Indeed, you can actually modify the logo in your login page and also in the top left of your WordPress Admin area.
The succeeding codes of the snippet can only print CSS that will appear on the top of the WordPress page. Sometimes, it will look like this: tags, then it will hook in the logo’s div. actually this hooks has an idea and appears like this: of#header-logo in the admin pages. Moreover, it is considered as h1>a, factor for logging in.

When you consider the URL property of the feature rules, you just feed the accurate size of your image in the logo’s location. In fact, your logo image is in the WordPress theme’s directory already, and every time you want to modify or add image, you can actually do it by yourself. Moreover, to get the exact path of the template tag, you can actually use this code: theget_bloginfo(‘template_directory’). After then, the image directory followed and usually term as images. Indeed the common file name is login_logo.png and admin_logo.png.

Conceal the Upgrade Notification to latest Versions

Hiding the security notification is not highly recommended because there are some instances that this can help you in some way. However, if you really wanted to remove them, you can actually delete or modify them by adding filter for it. However, there is no assurance that the theme is supported by the new version of WordPress.

Customizing the Editor’s CSS (WYSIWYG)

You can actually customize the look of the WYSIWYG editor, using this to match your theme on the site. Even creating a custom style sheet would be preferable, as long as you know how use the HTML for hooks and IDs of the editor.

The Result

The used of several snippet codes can help you to reduce and customize the Admin area styles up to its vital usage. It allows us to enjoy the benefits of its advantages from reductionism and minimalism principles in work.

Pre-Launch Checklist

Anum — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:34:52 +0000

You’ve located your layout. You’ve selected superb design elements. You’ve carefully coded everything, its seconds before launch and you hesitate. This is a good thing. That’s healthy hesitation holding you back, and it’s the sign of great design discipline.

It’s this pause before launch that gives the designers an opportunity to triple check a few things. These are the acts that lead to perfection. Somewhat inevitably they also lead to satisfied clients, and visitors impressed enough with the work they see to make a purchase, write a comment or at least return again in the future.

In this post, we will look closely and carefully at several things to do before launch. This to do list is vitally necessary for websites built to perfection and for those who endeavor to live up to their potential, not to mention the expectations of a visiting audience.

Content Edit and Link Check

It’s funny how the smallest things can make such huge impact. Visiting sites with poor grammar and punctuation mistakes can really take away from any design – whether wonderfully aesthetic and fully functional or not. Once you read through a site, checking for spelling errors, inappropriate diction or irregular phrasing, also go back and read it again. This time for visual mistakes, Are your paragraphs too bulky on the page? Are your headings scan-able?

Writing for the web

Next, check the links you’ve done. Do they actually work? Again, there is nothing more frustrating to the user than being forced to follow a link that returns an error message or a generic search page. Links should be phrased well enough to explain where they’ll take visitors once clicked, and then it’s a good idea to have the links actually take them there and not somewhere else.

W3C Link Checker

Will Your Site Launch in All Browsers?

It can’t be avoided. Some aspects of your pre-launch check may seem a bit tedious. However, consider the time and effort you spend in pre-launch mode as a wise investment – the future effectiveness and reception of the site depend on it. Taking, the time to check that a design works in the most popular browser types ensures that a wider audience can partake of its goodness. Here’s a good list of the browsers that usually dictate this pre-launch check.

• Explorer 6, 7 and 8
• Chrome
• iPhone
• Safari
• Firefox

SEO-Related

Have you ever wondered how the titles and descriptions from web pages make it to the search engine results? It’s done by meta-tags. This means that titles and Meta tag descriptions are extremely important. They’ll give visitors a great first impression when done properly, so make sure that the titles match the content of each page well.

Does It All Function Correctly?

The patience of many visitors gets tested the most when websites function improperly, so make sure that a functionality check is a permanent fixture on your pre-launch checklist. One of the best ways to understand the level of usability you’ve achieved is to sit with someone else as they walk through the site, so that you’re able to observe the behavior of a real user. Then, note your observations and adjust accordingly.

Silverback – guerrilla usability testing

Conclusion

What’s listed here are just a few things to do prior to launch, and there are so many more. For a great pre-launch checklist try Dan Zambonini’s Ultimate Website Launch Checklist.

Don’t get stressed get systemized!

Richard Teahon — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:39:41 +0000

Building a website can be a stressful process and sadly, a dull one. There is a lot of repetition involved, and if you’re working as part of a team a lot of head scratching. Especially if you came into a project late on and you are trying to decipher some code. The solution to keeping hair on your head is to keep as much of the design process as possible, systemized

This is as you can imagine, incorporates two elements into the build: Implementing design rules into the web design process, and using processes to speed up the repetitive tasks involved in web design, such as creating templates that can be reused.

Collect code

Having a repository for code is essential and you should already be doing this. There are dedicated programs to help you do this, but even if you just have a file with the snippets of code you may need for projects. Consider these as basic essentials for your code collection.

Contact forms projects
User Management / login
Payment handlers and online store scripts
Commonly used design elements (buttons, headers, layout’s, footers e.t.c)
Anything else you’ve built bespoke before that could be of use at a later date

This will all save time when starting from the ground up as designers will already have HTML templates, complete with doc type and stylesheets.

Code in order

Anyone that has worked as part of a design team will testify as to how messey coding can actually get. Everyone brings their own style to the design process, and this in turn means that everyone brings there own idiosyncracies to it as well. This can lead to a lot of head scratching and wondering why that div was floated to the left. By implementing a coding order can save developers a lot of time.

It does not have to be anything to drastic. For example, this could be the order for CSS properties:

width
height
color
position
misc

Work to pre-made templates.

If you create a few templates incorporating features you use in most designs, then you could go find yourself saving plenty of time and work. It could be simple things like designing one with a CMS, and an SEO plugin, but no matter how simple it is, they will all save you time in the long run.

Before you do create a template or two, consider what elements you use the most and then code the template accordingly.

Work out the costs of pre-written scripts

Once you have the infrastructure in place and you are happily systemizing your design process, you may as well work out the pricing structure for all the templates. This way, when your client asks how much will a website cost, you’ll already have an answer and this can save you time from working out the nuts and bolts of where the pennies are going to go.

If you put all these in an FAQ, then you can save even more time.

Code that funky framework.

Designers and developers will find they have time on their hands if frameworks are introduced into the design process. If you fly solo when you build a website, then coding the framework makes it an even more invaluable tool.

Whether you need typography, CSS, or a database, your coded framework will keep things running smoothly, and keep your client happy.

The advantages of using a systemization process for developing websites is clear. Everyone wins as there is less frustration head scratching, deadlines become more achievable, and clients are happier as they see the results for their cash faster.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 3.

Richard Teahon — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:07:26 +0000

Well here we are, the final article in our Silverlight vs Flash range, and at the end of this one, we will give you a small summary, which we hope, will provide a quick reference for which development tool is best.

In Silverlight vs Flash. Part 2. We compared the two development tools in the following areas. Socket programming, supported image formats, text and SEO, and accessibility. It made interesting reading where generally, if Flash was good at something, it was outstanding, where Silverlight, tended to have features that peaked your interest.

By the end of this article, you will hopefully know which one is right for your project or web design.

Webcam support. Do both Silverlight and Flash support webcams?

Silverlight, sadly, does not support webcam or microphone

Flash supports webcam and microphone for live video, and the can be used with the following commands.

Camera.get – Returns a default or specified camera object, or null if the camera is not available

Camera.setMode – Sets aspects of the camera capture mode, including height, width and frames per second.

Deployment. How easy are the two development tools to get up and running?

To deploy Silverlight, is a fairly complex affair, with each individual component needing separate deployment. With each web request of Silverlight, the following components are normally sent.

• XML files,
• DLL files (if necessary),
• Silverlight.js file,
• Any other JavaScript file,
• Resources (images, audio, video).

Flash on the other hand, have all the images, animations, and texts, compressed into one shock wave file(SWF). This is a far simpler affair. The only downside, is due to its compressed nature, it is far harder to search and index on a search engine.

Windows Application. Can they play movies as applications?
Silverlight, sadly, does not support playing a movie as an application.

Providing a suitable Flash player is installed, Flash can play movies on a desktop. Also, movies in Flash can be compiled as an executable file and played in a stand alone application.

Media Streaming. How well can media be streamed to a user?

Silverlight, has its own companion service for media streaming in the form of Microsoft Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live. This makes it easier for developers to deliver rich media for their applications. It also allows them to stream or host cross browser, interactive, and media content for windows or mac. Other third party tools such as Microsoft Expression Studio, can also be used in conjunction with this service, to create and develop interactive content.

Flash, sadly, does not provide a service to host an application, and this can eat into a development budget.

Depending on what you require, will depend on what development tool you will select. Flash, is obviously the better choice if you need your applications to run on operating systems such as Linux, or Solaris, but if you need your applications to be indexed by search engines, then perhaps Silverlight is the better choice.

Another factor to take into consideration, is that how many people have Silverlight installed on their machine? In comparison to Flash, only a small minority.

Below is a quick guide, of what we feel will is essential information of all the topics covered in these three Silverlight vs Flash, articles. The ones marked with an “X”, are considered to be where one excels.

Features	Flash	Silverlight
Animation		x
File size	x
Scripting		x
Video/Audio		x
Sound processing	x
Accessibility	x
Platform compatibility	x
Text representation/SEO		x
Supported image formats	x
Socket programming	x
Webcam support	x
Deployment	x
Windows application	x
Media streaming		x

We hope we have achieved our aim, and given you the opportunity to make an informed choice on Silverlight vs Flash.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 2.

Richard Teahon — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:43:31 +0000

In our last article, Silverlight vs Flash. Part 1, we looked at how Silverlight and Flash, compared in the realms of video and audio, sound processing, scripting, file size, and animation.

The aim of this article and all the articles on Silverlight vs Flash, is to help you as a developer of RIAs, to make an informed choice on which is the best RIA for a particular project.

This article will compare more elements, that RIAs such as Silverlight and Flash, utilise to create their applications.

Accessibility. Always a crucial point, here is how the two development tools compare.

Silverlight 3 can provide access to all system colors, which means that the operating system controls can be accessed by partially sighted people to make them more readable.
This is the only browser plug-in of its kind that can do this.

Flash’s rich accessibility features, allow a range of controls for people with disabilities. Video captions are very useful for people with poor or no hearing, while its compatibility with screen readers and other devices of that ilk, are enhanced by making it fully functional with keyboard shortcuts. This allows standard playback controls such as play, rewind, etc, to be fully utilised on the keyboard. Flash takes this one step forward by allowing these functions to be tabbed, and therefore making this much easier to use for a lot of people. To make this an even more accessible, they also have built in volume adjustment via the number keys, and the “Home”, and “End” keys can be used to skip to the beginning or an end of a range.
Platform compatibility. What operating systems do the two development tools run on?

Silverlight supports Windows Vista/XP/2000, Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows Mobile 6, Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (PowerPC) and Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (Intel). It does not support Linux, or Solaris, so the Silverlight experience will not run on these operating systems.

Flash supports Windows Vista/XP/2000, Windows Server 2003/2008, Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (PowerPC), Mac OS 10.1/10.5 (Intel), Linux 5, openSUSE 11, Ubuntu 7.10 or later and Solaris 10.

Text and SEO. Does Silverlight get the nod over Flash?

Silverlight treats text as a separate entity on a web server, and subsequently applications are fully searchable and indexed by search engines. User interfaces are declared in XAML and programmed in the .NET framework. Annimation and vector graphics can be marked up using XAML.

Though Flash has traditionally not been very SEO friendly, Adobe working in conjunction with Google and Yahoo, have had some success in making Flash more friendly to search engines. Currently Google has made progress in indexing Flash applications. As MSN tend to work on Silverlight, it probably wont be hurrying to make its own search engines, more Flash friendly.

The problem with Flash, is that it does not recognise TTF, and recognises fonts as shape deffinitions. So the text cannot be layered, and therefore searchable.

Supported image formats. What files do they support?

Silverlight supports maily JPEG, and PNG file formats. Other formats are supported, but generally with limitations.

Flash supports almost all file formats.

Socket Programming.

Providing a security policy file is in place, Silverlight supports a cross domain socket communications between a Silverlight applications and any server. Silverlight supports sockets programming through the System.Net.Sockets namespace, and supports sending data back and forth across a socket over ports ranging from 4502 to 4534.

Flash on the other hand uses a different method. The XMLSocket object implements client sockets that allow computers running Flash, to communicate with a server computer identified by an IP address, or domain name.

To use the XMLSocket object, the server computer runs a daemon that understands the protocol used by the XMLSocket object. Shown below:
• XML messages are sent over a full-duplex TCP/IP stream socket connection.
• Each XML message is a complete XML document, terminated by a zero byte.
• An unlimited number of XML messages can be sent and received over a single XMLSocket connection.

We hope Silverlight vs Flash. Part 2, is proves useful to helping you decide which is the better development tool for your project.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 3, will detail webcam support, deployment, and media streaming capabilities of both.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 1

Richard Teahon — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:57:22 +0000

Though Flash has the advantage of being more well known, Microsoft Silverlight has got some nifty advantages, that many Flash users have always wanted to see, such as search engine optimisation. It is features like this that have kept Microsoft Silverlight in the running, and now RIA designers, do have a choice to make when choosing the right RIA for their needs. Hopefully, this article Silverlight Vs Flash, will help you in making that choice.

Animation. Both Flash and Silverlight are capable of creating quality animation. The end product is always one of quality. So which one is better to use?

Silverlight uses the WPF animation model. The beginning and end conditions are specified, and it figures out how to do the rest. This is different to the frame based conditions, Flash uses.

Flash, on the other hand, uses the Frame based animation model. An object is created for each frame of the animation, so in effect it uses frame by frame animation. Timing can be an issue, unless an embedded blank audio track is used to maintain a constant frame rate.

File size. This can be an important factor, especially as RIAs’ tend not to be the smallest of files, and can effect how fast a page loads quite drastically.

Silverlight’s XAML is non compressed, and so its description language tends to be larger than Flash’s compressed file format.

Flash’s compressed file format, produces relatively small files, with images and texts being embedded in the movie.
Scripting. The scripting for Flash and Silverlight, are quite different.

Silverlight can be scripted in a number of languages including Visualbasic.net, and Visual C#.net.

Javascript, C# and VB.Net can be used for client side scripting that runs on the Microsoft’s .NET framework, utilising all of its enhancements.

Flash’s Action Script, is an object orientated language that can use other back-end technologies, that use other languages and frame works such as Ruby on the rails, ASP, and PHP. It has a powerful class library for developing desktop, and online browser applications. It has a full range of controls for designing user interfaces.

Video and Audio. Both can utilise these features to their full potential, and here is how they do it, and the formats they use.

With Silverlight, it is about the standard windows formats, as it uses WMA and WMV, together with VC-1 Codec for video. Silverlight does provide a free SDK encoder, in case someone does not have movie maker. The SDK encode does provide the opportunity for the developer to encode manually, if he wants to.

Flash uses multiple video formats, and to this end the latest codec has a good bandwidth, and it is of very high quality.

Sound Processing.

Silverlight has little support from .Net for playback, and as a result writing audio applications in the browser, using low level audio API’s cannot be done. Incidentally, Silverlight does not support playback of WAV files.

Flash’s Actionscript on the other hand, allows sounds to be added to a movie while the movie is playing. It is possible to control the sound for a whole movie, and has a good library of sounds to choose from.

We hope that our article Silverlight vs Flash. Part 1 has peaked your interest in RIA development, and that you are currently seeing the strengths and advantages of both Silverlight, and Flash.

The next article, Silverlight vs Flash. Part 2, we will be looking at accessibility, platform compatibility, and how text, or more specifically search engine optimisation, is utilised.

It is our wish, that by the end of our Silverlight vs Flash articles, you will have chosen the right RIA application for your needs.

50 Web 2.0 goodies.

Richard Teahon — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:36:57 +0000

As you are all no doubt aware, we do not normally feature graphics, pictures, and art in our articles, as we do tend to adhere, and talk about how content is king, and how off putting over the top, and unnecessary graphics can be. Here though, we thought we would give you 50 Web 2.0 goodies, to keep the more artistic, creative, and indeed carefree of you, something to look at.

The goodies are split into categories: Visual effects, Logos and logotypes, Text Effects, Badges, Buttons, Web 2.0 Layouts, Gradients, Headers, and last but not least Web 2.0 round-up.

I know some of you may be thinking that Web 2.0 is a concept that details how the web has developed, and not an application, or tool in its own right, and the some of you who are thinking that, are right!

But for cool looking effects and graphics, which one can argue epitomizes Web 2.0, it is easier to call all these effects Web 2.0 goodies.

We hope you enjoy these tutorials, as they are a good source of reference, and information, and maybe for the more creative driven, inspiration.

Web 2.0 is the ‘now’, of web design, and hopefully, these 50 little goodies will help your designs, and realise your potential. Many web designers are using them right now to create beautiful, artistic examples of Web 2.0 web design, and there is no reason that the next beautiful, artistic design, is not one of yours.

Flash tutorial: Creating a Flash tunnelling effect.

Richard Teahon — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:28:04 +0000

I know we have said a lot about Flash, and how it should be used sparingly, and with taste. Those rules still apply, but those of you that want to create graphical effects, this small tutorial, should be a handy one. So without further a do, lets get on with creating a Flash tunnelling effect.

1 Create a circle. This will be used as a guide. So make this layer 1, and lock it. Now create a new layer, by clicking the icon at the bottom left of the timeline layer.

2 Now make two smaller circles, ensuring you are working on the new layer. Group these two circles by selecting one circle, and then hold down shift and click the other. Then click ctl G. This will group the two circles together.

3 Copy and paste these two circles, and then with the new ones, select the rotation tool, and rotate it 90 degrees. Group them together as you did previously. Repeat this a few times, but adjust the angles so that no gaps can be seen.

4 If you feel this is looking good, you can unlock the original layer and delete it, as we were only using that as a guide.

5 Right click on the shape and select “Convert to group”, and name it “circle”. Make sure it is set to Movie Clip.

Name it “circle”, in the windows properties panel too, to give it an instance name.

6 Repeat step 5 by right clicking on the new movie clip, and save it as, “circle_rotate”, in both Flash, and windows properties panel(instance name). This creates a movie within a movie.

7 Double click “circle_rotate”, and move the timeframe along to 200, right click, and select “Insert keyframe”.

Drag the mouse from 200 to 1, right click, and select “Motion tween”.

Now go to the windows parameters panel. The options you can see, allow adjustment of the previously created motion tween.

We want the shape to spin once in a clockwise direction, so select the CW option, and give it a value of 1.

By selecting scene 1, you will return to the main timeline.

Right click on “circle_rotate” and select “Convert to symbol”. Name it “Tunnel”, set it as a new movie clip, and do the same for the instance name.

9) Double click “tunnel”, and right click, dragging over frames 25 to 60. Select “Insert Keyframes”.

Then drag over all the frames and select “Create Motion Tween.”

10) Select the new motion tween, then resize “circle_rotate”it to about 10% of its original size.

Ensure its Alpha level is set to 0%, in the windows properties panel.

11) Click on frame 60, and resize it to 300%, leaving the Alpha level at 100%

12) By right clicking over the frames and copy and pasting to a new layer, we now have tunnel animation. Make sure that all the frames are copied and pasted each time.

It is possible to adjust the angle and positioning of the tunnel, by adjusting the keyframes.

Speed can be adjusted by playing around with the frame sequences.

As with anything like this, especially RIAs’, just play around and see what you can come up with. This is a truly creative element to the web, and I hope that if you use Flash, or are thinking about it, you do have the time to experiment. With a little tweaking, this could be an effect that will impress, and help you become a better Flash user.

We hope this Flash Tutorial:Creating a tunnelling effect, has proved useful, and fun.

Tactics for successful linkbaiting. Part 2.

Richard Teahon — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:15:49 +0000

Well in this part of the guide, we get the thougthts of experts from the best of the web, that focus on using networking as tactics for successful link baiting.

Make buddies, network like mad. “Create your own network and work hard to help everyone in your network. When someone links to a post you have written or comments on your blog, they become part of your network. The idea is to take your network with you, to help them help you. There is no reason why everyone can’t be a winner.” [Linking Linkbait]

Networking is like the force in Star Wars. “The most overlooked strategy for gaining traffic. Don’t badger other bloggers for links, because it rarely works anymore. Find a way to help them with something, and then eventually work that initial graciousness into a business relationship and even friendship. There are real people behind these blogs, and they respond to good will just like people do offline.” [Copyblogger]

Guest blogging is always a winner. “Contributing content to someone else’s blog may seem crazy, but it’s a solid strategy to gain exposure for your own blog and build your subscriber base. Just make it very clear to the blog owner that you require a very brief byline at the end of the post, with a link back to your site. And make sure it’s original content, not something recycled off of your blog.” [10 Effective Ways to Get More Blog Subscribers]

Deal not no deal. “Find a blogger that publishes related, but non-competitive content. Work out a deal where you both promote each other in your RSS feeds, using Feedvertising. The smaller blog would promote the other blog continuously, while the larger blog would reserve one slot for the smaller blog, and use the other slots for other cross-promotion deals, affiliate links, or sponsor ads.” [Copyblogger]

Request links. “Write a truly personal letter, explain who you are, what your site is about, and why it’s relevant to blogger’s visitors.” [How To Request Links]

If someone links to you, link to them. “[If] someone links to your link bait, you link to them through third parties. Increasing the traffic and page rank of those that link to you will have a knock on effect of improving your own. If you are linked to regularly from the same site it will make sense to send them as much traffic as possible. [Linking Likbait]

Social media should be utilised. “The [..] examples caused their creators to gain links at a rapid rate because they leveraged the mediums out there such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Magnolia, BlinkList, and YouTube. You need to leverage these social mediums; it will increase your chances of success.” [Getting Links]

Hit them between the eyes! “Writing the headlines and initial descriptions to submit to the social sites, emailing bloggers and appearing in search results is a critical part of linkbait. Many readers will see your headline, and in the early phase it’s critical that they follow your link and help to spread your message.” [Leveraging Linkbaiting]

Audience participation is crucial. “A good link building strategy is to comment or participate in discussions or content on other websites in your industry. It’s not enough to have good articles/content. The world has to know about them. Make connections/relations with other jounalists/bloggers/entreprenours in your niche, comment their articles, and links will come by themselves, with time.” “Read and participate in conversations related to your niche of expertise on other blogs. Be careful about what you write though – double check your facts and always write relevant and informative comments, using the occasion to leave your link through your name in the header of the comments you’re posting.” [101 Web Marketing Ideas] [12 Suggestions]

Try to get people to quote you. “If there’s a particularly strong site in your sector that you desperately want a link from, this tactic can be of occassional use. The idea is to write a news article with some legitimacy and request a quote from the company/individual you want a link from. Once they know you’re writing about them, make sure to send them a copy of the press release or story once it hits and let them know they’re welcome to copy portions of the article for their own site if they’d like to reference it (with a link of course).” [5 Rare and Valuable Techniques]

Always comment. “Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.” [25 Tips For Marketing Your Blog]

Always get a link! “Identify sites that already mention your site, but have failed to provide the direct HTML link. Write a pleasant, personal email to them and request the link – success rates can be very high. To find these willing linkers, you can use Yahoo!’s advanced search parameters, i.e. “seomoz” -linkdomain:seomoz.org. [5 Rare and Valuable Techniques]

Together with “Tactics for successful linkbaiting. Part 1”, we feel you have a very good reference and advice guide for successfully running a linkbaiting campaign. If used wisely, you should see the results fairly soon.

Combine Hyperlinks and SEO for better Google results.

Richard Teahon — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:14:51 +0000

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a huge marketing concept for any website. If you Google SEO you will find a plethora of articles all telling you why SEO is a necessity for marketing a site, and all of them are true, well, all the ones I’ve read about, but there is another trick you can use to push that site up the rankings, and that is to combine hyperlinks and SEO for better Google results.

Combining hyperlinks for SEO will help a site be found by Google, once it starts becoming indexed. The concepts to think about is not hyperlinking a name of a site, but other words associated with that site. See below.

my">http://mysearchengineoptimisation.com”>my search engine optimisation

This is not too bad a place to start. Any searches for “my search engine optimisation” on Google, this link should be appearing pretty high up the rankings. It is worthwhile to add the keywords to the title attribute to gain more attention from big G. Thus:

http://mysearchengineoptimisation.com” title=”My Search Engine Optimisation” >My Search Engine Optimisation

Ok, this is all good stuff, the name of the site in the hyperlink, and in the title attribute, and this all helps to push the site up the rankings. The thing to remember though, as we mentioned before, is that the other names people will look for when searching for a site.

So if you had a site called “toycars.com”, just having “toycars.com”, in the hyperlink and title attribute, may not score too highly if someone just searched under “toys”, or “kids cars”, for example.

So to push our example site up the rankings maybe we should add, “SEO”.

http://mysearchengineoptimisation” >SEO

In fact it is best practice to use as many keywords as you can think of, just to make the whole site more likely to appear after searches. Keep it readable though, as this is pulled through on results. Try to put the most important keyword on the left, as this should help when Google indexes the site. In our example, it is SEO

http://mysearchengineoptisation.com” >SEO writing service

If you are a regular reader of our blogs, you will have no doubt read our articles on accessibility and why it is important. So always add a helpful title attribute that tells people something useful about the site. Thus:

http://mysearchengineoptimisation.com” title=”My Search engine optimisation is a writing services site, that specialises in pushing you website up search enigne rankings, through the wonders of SEO” >SEO writing service

Of course the next question, is what now. The site is already to rock and roll, so what to do after combining hyperlinks and SEO for better Google results. Well most designers say Google the site using all the keywords you have come up with, and see what pages pull through to the top. Then try and use a link campaign on these sites, to promote your site.

Then respond to forum posts, on similar subjects to your site, and put your site on it. This will help bring traffic to the site, and that is the name of the game.

Another way is to respond to blog posts. It is a little harder as many are moderated not to show URLs, but have an opinion, and if possible link your site in the with the blog post. So for an SEO blog post, you might say something like:

“Well, we have found over at myserachengineoptimisation.com, that by interspacing the keyword with…”

Also, you can use a keyword as a username, like “SEO writer”, for example.

To get the best out of SEO writing, try and ensure that pages that you have selected for these links are readable, and have your keywords on them a few times.

So as you can see by combining hyperlinks and SEO will give better Google results, especially as part of an overall link building campaign. Just remember, everything helps.

DT Blog » Web Design Tutorials

How to Customize the WordPress Admin Area-part 3

Pre-Launch Checklist

Don’t get stressed get systemized!

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 3.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 2.

Silverlight vs Flash. Part 1

50 Web 2.0 goodies.

The goodies are split into categories: Visual effects, Logos and logotypes, Text Effects, Badges, Buttons, Web 2.0 Layouts, Gradients, Headers, and last but not least Web 2.0 round-up.

I know some of you may be thinking that Web 2.0 is a concept that details how the web has developed, and not an application, or tool in its own right, and the some of you who are thinking that, are right!

But for cool looking effects and graphics, which one can argue epitomizes Web 2.0, it is easier to call all these effects Web 2.0 goodies.

Visual effects

Logos, Logotypes

Text Effects

Badges

Buttons

Web 2.0 Layouts, Gradients, Headers

Web 2.0 Round-Up

Flash tutorial: Creating a Flash tunnelling effect.

Tactics for successful linkbaiting. Part 2.

Combine Hyperlinks and SEO for better Google results.