A gallery will display a set of thumbnail images attached to that post or page. If you upload images using the Add an Image icon, they will get attached automatically. If you upload images using the media library, you will need to attach it to a post or page before it will appear in a gallery.
Here is a video tutorial on how to add an image gallery to your blog post:
Local search engine optimization is a great way to charge up your search rankings. It’s a faster method for making sure you’re on the right track, and if optimized properly you can really take advantage of some targeted traffic that will only help your business in the future.
It doesn’t matter if you’re developing websites for a mom and pop local plumber or a multi-million dollar agency that will have thousands of dynamic pages, the same 13 steps to on-site SEO will need to be applied to each.
How to Write Blog Posts to Increase Search Engine Traffic – Here’s an easy formula to follow:
In your blog, write a post with keyword A in your title something catchy, more info on that over here at seomoz or copyblogger
Write in-depth and informative content related to keyword A
Target keyword A in a link from your post to page2.html
When appropriate, link out to other authorities that can offer more information about your keyword topic (Use this tip with caution. While you are trying to give the user more info and get the attention of the other site – thus possibly getting a link back to your site – you should try to strike a balance so that the effectiveness of your post is maximized without excessive links out from your site)
Remember to vary the way you link keyword A to page2.html (did you target long-tail keywords? Those are very easy to alter)
Repeat this process on each post for all pertinent keywords throughout your site
The nice thing about this formula is that you actually tackle quite a few of the common marketing questions that challenge many business owners.
Wordpress is a very powerful CMS (Content Management System). It has tons of capability and can be extremely powerful. There’s only one thing in the way from all of this power and you as the blog owner – your theme. See, no matter how many awesome features such as threaded comments or breadcrumb navigation or even an “edit” link beside each post are added, you’re limited by your theme that you are using. If you theme isn’t “smart” enough to use these features, well, quite frankly, you can’t use them.
This is a post for all the Wordpress theme developers out there. Here are only a few of the many great snippets of code that will take your current theme creation and make it that much better. Please, use them.
Have you ever wanted to design a beautiful website but just didn’t know how? To be honest, a few years ago, that happened to me too. While browsing the web, I saw so many nice looking websites and wished I had the skills to create such designs. Today I can and I’m going to teach you how to do so too! Essentially, it requires a few Photoshop skills and an eye for detail. Through this tutorial, I will point out these tiny details which make a website design look beautiful. Fire up Photoshop and let’s get going!
If your a webmaster or web designer I highly recommend you read the rest of this post at www.simonday.com
This is a great resource for anyone who does freelance design or builds websites.
Web design build questions to ask (yourself) or new clients
What do you want the web site to do for your company?
(is it to just promote brand awareness and for people who hear about them and then go to their site, will people be finding them through search engines, is it existing clients looking for support or news, are you selling online, are you offering downloads, company reports etc)
Who is your target audience (age / level of internet experience etc)?
(Do they require a modern, fast paced, highly graphical site to target the younger generation or a more user friendly site for the less experienced or older internet users. )
What image do you want to portray (Professional / Casual / cutting edge etc)?
(Some sites use white space and limited text to give a relaxed feel while others use lots of images and text to give the site a busy feel. Define the feel of the site)
If you have branding what colours, fonts, styles do you use? (See business cards, letterheads etc). More often that not the sole trader will have no graphics, no logo and no identity so in these cases you need to ask the client for colour schemes they think fit with the ideas but also do market research on the competition because the client may not be right.
CORE QUESTIONS:
What do you absolutely definitely want on the site?
(This list could include blog, shopping cart, members log in, private areas, RSS feeds. Gallery newsletter, contact forms, advertising space, different languages, search facility, etc)
What would you like if possible/within budget?
What absolutely must be on the homepage and what is the order of priority? (This is a core question and you should allow the client time to ponder and discuss this with you. Their answers here should define the position of the building blocks. The answers could be phone number, email, help icon, downloads, cart total, core product links etc.)
What must be visible at all times? (Every page has a fold. A fold is below the visual part of the page and requires you to scroll down to see it. I have a height I use but you should decide for yourself where it should be. The client must understand this and agree what can go above and below).
How many links will be needed and how many levels of navigation will there be? (You need to understand the journey paths and decide how far down the link structure will go (level one, level two, level three etc)
30 of the best tutorials on web for converting A PSD to a XHTML & CSS layout. These tutorials you will learn the process on how to create a Photoshop web layout and be able to convert it into a valid XHTML & CSS web page. The tutorials are a step by step process which are easy to follow and keep up with.
Here is a short list of some Podcasts about Wordpress. Some of them do a pretty good job at being entertaining and geeky at the same time. I can dig it.
WordCast Podcast
Join Beth Skinner, Kym Huynh and Dave Moyer each week to hear all about the latest in WordPress and the blogging world! You’ll be incredbly informed with all the coolest plugins, the best looking themes, awesome interviews, the latest news, and much, much more
WordPress Weekly is a podcast hosted by Jeff Chandler and co host David Peralty from WP Tavern and Jeffro2pt0. The show is produced live every Friday evening at 8 P.M. EST (USA). Discussed are a wide range of topics around the WordPress community.
Great podcast delivery by Charles Stricklin and Jonathan Bailey gives lots of information on anything happening in the WordPress world. Unfortuantely shows are not weekly, more monthly.
Managing web content has always been tricky, but with WordPress, any web designer can have a flexible, free and powerful CMS to use not just on blogging projects, but on all sorts of websites. In How To Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer you will learn step by step how to take a straight HTML site and power it with WordPress.During the course of the book you’ll build THREE WordPress themes, a blog, a portfolio site and a general site with menus and submenus. Each theme demonstrates different aspects of WordPress theming and all three are packaged with the book so you’ll have Photoshop, HTML, CSS and WordPress PHP files to refer to..
The book is aimed at anyone with a solid understanding of HTML/CSS. You don’t need to know PHP, you don’t need to have ever even touched WordPress before. The examples begin from scratch and build on each other, while basic PHP principles that are used are explained in an easy to understand manner.If you’ve ever wanted to get started with WordPress theming, or you’re looking to take your skills to the next level with advanced theming concepts, this is the book for you!
Price: 29.00 USD
You are buying this product directly from Rockable Press. Please contact Rockable Press for ANY questions related to this product or purchase.
212 Pages of Expert
Freelancing Advice
Covering everything from getting started to expanding your business, How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer is the official Freelance Switch book. Written by Collis & Cyan Ta’eed – the founders of the site – it’s packed with new information, advice and insights not covered on the blog.
If you want to start your freelance career the right way, then How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer will give you everything you need to become the best freelancer in town!
WordPress is one of the most popular publishing platforms currently out on the market. It’s free, highly-customizable, and very easy to install and use. Because of its popularity, you’ll find a wide array of resources that discuss WordPress development, administration, as well as plenty of user guides to help you get started quickly.
In this article, we take advantage of the merits of learning by way of watching video tutorials and screencasts. Video tutorials allow you to learn by following along with the instructor in real-time – a format that’s very effective for many people.
You can use these video tutorials a couple of ways: to learn about WordPress yourself or to send to your not-so-technology-inclined clients as a reference to help them get started. You’ll find the tutorials organized into several topics that include theme development and customization, site administration, beginner’s tutorials, and using some WordPress tools.
An interesting side-effect of YouTube’s recent push for higher quality videos is that most videos can be downloaded as MP4 files directly from YouTube. Until now, you could only get FLV files from your browser’s cache or using one of the many websites that let you download YouTube videos. In fact, to download the MP4 files, you need to use the same URL like for FLV files and append “&fmt=18″:
ID is the video’s identification value, SIGNATURE is a value that prevents you from downloading the file just by knowing the ID. You could create this URL by looking at the source code of a YouTube page, but it’s much easier to automatically generate it.
Add the bookmarklet, this post has more detailed instructions
When you want to download a YouTube video, just click on the bookmarklet.
After clicking on the download link, YouTube will try to save the video as “video.mp4″. You should enter a more appropriate name if you want to find the video later.
Having to click on the bookmarklet is annoying, so this Greasemonkey script is a better alternative because it adds the download link automatically. It requires the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox or a similar plug-in for userscripts. Opera has built-in support for userscripts, so you only need to go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > JavaScript options, select the directory where you will put your script and copy the script to that directory.
YouTube’s MP4 files have a higher resolution, stereo sound and can be played with applications like VLC, MPlayer, iTunes, QuickTime. Not all YouTube videos can be downloaded as MP4 files and the fallback format is FLV.
Note that YouTube’s terms of use require you “not to access User Submissions or YouTube Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Website itself, the YouTube Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate,” so these scripts could break YouTube’s policies. The scripts only download files that are used by YouTube’s player, so you may also find the videos in your browser’s cache.
Update: You no longer have to right-click and select “save link as” because YouTube sends the right MIME type. Just click on the download link.
Update 2: If the video is available in HD, the bookmarklet and the script download the HD version. Thanks, pepemosca!
A good way to promote your site is by using Feedburner for your RSS Feeds. One of their cooler features is their Headline Animator widget and if your anything like me and you love to design graphics then this can be a fun little project for you to add to your site.
For those of you who are not familiar with Feedburner..First you will have to register at Feedburner and burn your blog.
Once you’ve done that, log into your account, select your feed, click on the “Publicize” tab and look for the Headline Animator service which is listed in the left-hand side bar.
Under “Theme” select “provide your own background” from the drop down list. Required (GIF only).
Create your graphic in Photoshop. I created a .gif that was 243px × 110px pixels and a 468×60px .gif. (view them below)
Your Headline Animator will be the same size (height and width) as the background image. Play around with different shapes and sizes. Once you’ve uploaded the new graphic, feedburner allows you to drag and drop the animated text where it needs to be on the graphic and the length of the animated text box. You can also choose the text color of your font and the size. You don’t have a lot of control but you can play with it to make it look pretty cool if your creative. If you decide to make one..make sure to post your link here so we can all check out your creation.
If you have any questions or if you get stuck feel free to leave your questions here or check out Feedburner’s FAQ.
The following screencast is day #3 which is explained below:
WordPress for Designers: Day 3
Moving right along into day three of our Wordpress for Designers series; today we will start creating our own theme from scratch. We will have a close look at how exactly to go about setting up your themes stylesheet and information, as well as creating the index.php page. In addition, we will examine wordpress template tags, what they are, and how to use them properly.
WordPress TV launched earlier last week (go to http://WordPress.tv to view it). The concept of WordPress TV is similar to Adobe TV — it’s a multimedia site loaded with a ton of video tutorials and other video content, only WordPress TV is more user generated. Here’s a video introducing WordPress TV:
How to be a Rockstar Wordpress Designer was put together by two of the brightest minds online and Wordpress gurus.
In the last few years WordPress has been growing as an essential tool in the web designer toolkit. Between regular blog themes and the increasing number of themes that turn WordPress into anything from a portfolio site to a shop, its use as a general purpose CMS has made it a staple of web design tutorials and galleries.
I can dig it.
