Free Wordpress theme generator

Thursday, October 25, 2007

As a web designer, I know how to code in XHTML, CSS and dabble from time to time in PHP and MySQL. That's great for standalone sites, but when it comes to blog and CMS platforms, I haven't got a clue.

Wordpress is currently my platform of choice for a personal project (more on that to come later) but I was struggling with how to learn 'the loop' and coding bits in the timeframe I've got. Roll on the Wordpress Theme Generator...

You can choose the number of columns, menu layout, colour schemes, choose from a wide range of backgrounds or go for a plain colour, insert a tag cloud, choose how to display archives etc...you're spoilt for choice really.

If you're looking at Wordpress and don't have the time/energy/budget, this is certainly worth a look.

Labels: blogging, webdesign

Comprehensive list of CSS techniques

Sunday, October 14, 2007

To complement my post the other day about Web 2.0 techniques, I thought I'd throw in this post from Smashing Magazine - "53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn?t Live Without".

Throw in MakeUseOf with their really useful resource lists (tip: subscribe to their feed by e-mail so you never miss a post!) and you've got your standards-compliant fantastic-looking web design stitched up.

Labels: webdesign

Web 2.0 online generators

Saturday, October 13, 2007

'Web 2.0' is a bit of a cliched term now. The general idea is that the new generation of community orientated sites are called web 2.0 sites. You know, the ones where you can vote, comment, interact, customise etc...New websites coming out that are 'web 2.0' tend to have rounded corners, glassy buttons, vivid colours and tend to be recognisable from a long way away!

However, as with all web design trends, it has pushed design further along, and I found a great list of web 2.0 generators on ifxplus.com. What's the use I hear some people ask? Well, if you want rounded corners or stripy background images - make then in a jiffy! Need colourschemes - grab them! Want to see how things are coded to practise your own design skill - there you go!

See 'More than 100 Web 2.0 Online Generators' for the list.

Labels: webdesign

Tracking your e-mail marketing campaigns

Thursday, October 11, 2007

If you have an e-mail newsletter, it's important that you know how many people on your list have actually received it, who's opened it and who has taken further action. Without that information, you might be wasting your efforts.

iContact seem to have a slightly new spin on the whole 'online communication' concept - it's similar to services such as aweber but is more than just an autoresponder. From $9.95 per month (prices increase according to your list size - their Enterprise level starts at $660 per month!), you can utilise their newsletter, autoresponder, blogging and survey tools.

Their interface is easy to use and you have a choice of over 300 email templates to choose from or you could use your own. E-mail opening and clickthrough rates, bounce and unsubscribe management, and sign-up form code (so you can easily add newsletter signup forms to your website using cut-and-paste) come as standard and there are some nice other features such as list segmentation tools.

An overview video is at http://icontact.com/www/video/introduction_video.html.

Labels: email, pp

The Internet Marketing Myth - A Review

Friday, October 05, 2007

Yes, I got a few e-mails about Russell Brunson's new report that he's giving away. With catchphrases such as "The IM-Myth, Showing Why Internet Marketing is Like Having a Lamborghini on a Dead End Road and what you HAVE to do today if you want to still be around tomorro..." and "What If Everything You Were Ever Taught About Internet Marketing Was A Myth...?" I was naturally skeptical.

However, curiosity got the better of me, especially as I was sent the e-mail from a respected name, and he promised there was no big one time offer upsell, just a $1 offer. The fact there was no big OTO finally made me visit the site - ALL internet marketers offer a free report to try and then sell you a $97 offer - why was Russell Brunson different?

I signed up, downloaded the report and started reading...It's 44 pages long, of which only three aren't useful content - header, copyright and contents pages. There is a prelaunch offered, but only as a hyperlink in the footer - it's not in your face at every opportunity.

So what about the content? It really does blow the Internet marketing theory of "the money is in the list" out of the water and gives you some incredibly good ideas for leveraging more sales without irritating your customers / people on the list. Most Internet Marketers seem to think the more they bombard you with offers, the more likely you are to buy. In actual fact, with me, I'm more likely to unsubscribe from the list.

And the ideas he gives aren't just for Internet Marketers - you can apply them for all sorts of businesses, both online and offline. To be honest, this report was a complete shock - I was expecting fluff and got something that I can actually use. And in fact, when you read the report you'll see just how good his ideas are - you'll have already seen something in action without realising what it was.

Go and have a read now - it is free after all, and you'd be daft not to!

And just for your information, here is the 'hype' e-mail:

Labels: biz, misc, resources

Review: MyBlogLog and its marketing potential

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

I've finally joined MyBlogLog after reading a few reviews and ideas on how it can your blog.

I went to the signup page and as MyBlogLog is now a Yahoo! service, you do need a Yahoo! account. Unfortunately, the one I used to have had expired so I set up a new one which did take an extra few minutes.

Then, the screen takes you back to MyBlogLog and you fill in some brief details there including choosing your username. Once logged on, my first stop was to change my image from the default grey square to something slightly more user friendly.

Then, I decided to put the code on this blog. Great...so where was the link to do this? Well, as it turns out, after a bit of confused head scratching, you have to go to a random page in the menu (see, I can't remember what it is, it was that little help!) to add your blog. A link from the initial screen saying "add your blog here" would have been far more helpful.

Inserting the tracking code into your blog is very simple and the interface for filtering different I.P. addresses etc...is a great idea. However, it does say that everyone has the 'pro' version for the first 3 days after which, unless you pay to continue, your account is downgraded to the free version, so I'll have to update the blog should this feature change.

There's widgets that I can add to my blog - top links and recent readers. These are customisable and again, straightforward to add should I wish - just a line of JavaScript, rather than chunky wedge of code.

So what can you do with the code? The most obvious thing for me is to tailor the content of my blog to what readers want. Each google search that ends in a visit to your blog shows what search term was used - great for seeing what draws people in. Obviously if I see a demand for something, I'll add more posts on that topic.

I will update this post as more becomes apparent, but first impressions are that MyBlogLog could be a useful tool for any blogger wanting to dig a little deeper into their reader community.

Labels: blogging

Spotting sites with fake pagerank

Monday, October 01, 2007

Oh, once again, I'm resorting to looking at spam e-mails. This one caught my eye because it was sent to an address I rarely use. On the surface of things, it looks genuine...

Interested buying a PR4 text link? I have a PR4 blog [site name removed] and would like to offer you a sitewide Text Link for:
$90 for 1 year
$50 for 6 months
$30 for 3 months
A PR4 site normally cost you around $30 per month.
How does it work? When you buy this offer your link will be placed on the homepage as well as every pages of [site name removed].

I don't know the going rates of buying a text link on a PR4 site, but it sounds like not too bad an offer.

Firstly, I whizzed over to the site and noticed that there were very few blog posts, most of which were over a year old and only one in the last month. Hmmm...So I went to google and typed in the site name with the 'www' removed. It came up with about 62 links for the site which isn't a lot for a PR4 site, and the descriptions of the site didn't match the content. Google only cached this page on 27th September, so it's been changed in the last few days.

Next, I went to the Wayback Machine and saw what was indexed there - the last listing for the site was August 2006 and the site was very different from what it is now...hang on a second, some of the current blog posts go back to before August 2006...perhaps it being a WordPress site, the database was imported to give the impression of the site being older than it is.

Finally, I went to the whois record for the domain, but this gave me no useful information.

So what does this tell me? The site has been changed very recently, which means that the PR that Google has assigned to the site does not apply to the new changes. In fact, in the next pagerank update, chances are the site will lose out. If you paid any money to have your textlink on the site, you'd be a bit miffed if you realised that you'd paid for a fake wouldn't you?

Lesson to learn? If you do want to buy a text link from a site, spend a few minutes checking before you part with your cash, and if something doesn't add up, don't do it.

Labels: spam

How to change your web design

If you have an existing website and want to change the design, or perhaps hire a different web designer, it's not quite as straightforward a process as you might think.

If you are just changing the content of each page, then it is a simple job and you don't need to take this post as seriously as someone who is having a complete site overhaul.

This isn't an exhaustive list, but just a few ideas that spring to mind:

1) Your new site should comply with both W3C and Disability guidelines (Disability Discrimination Act in the UK).

2) If the domain and hosting are moving, ensure that they are registered in your name (see
Importance of renewing your domain name) and their costs are still reasonable...you can get domain names for less than £5/$10 and hosting for less than £25/$50 per year. Don't be fooled into thinking that paying more will get you 100% uptime on your website - this doesn't exist unless you've got a massive IT infrastructure in your large company.

3) If you are moving from one designer to another, have you got a copy of all passwords and access details?

4) If your page is going to use Flash animation, will it still be indexable by the search engines? You don't want to lose your hard-earned rankings because the search engines can no longer see what your site is about?

5) If you create new pages, will you map the old pages to the new ones if they have different names? If you use Linux hosting, you will need to do a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file - scary sounding but not that difficult if you search for .htaccess tutorials.

Labels: searchengines, webdesign

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