Creative Storefront» Blog

WordPress 3.0: WP + WPMU

Bradley Charbonneau — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:02:09 +0000

Hmm, maybe don’t need to “learn” WP MU after all …

Wordpress 3.0 MU Merge Settings To Create Network Blogs

Was talking with someone just yesterday about WP MU and how it might be a solution for her. Thought to myself, “Hmm, guess I should become more familiar with MU … ” but maybe I should just wait for 3.0.

SEO Smart Links Plugin

John Muldoon — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:33:17 +0000

This is a handy plugin for the internet marketing crowd. It does a number of things very well, but my favorite feature is the ability to universally turn a given word on your blog or website into a link to a specific page. This is really great for SEO and for affiliate marketers. The fundamental benefit is the same for each; you’re passing your audience to someplace that should be contextually relevant to them.
In the SEO world, you’re also passing authority and PageRank for a keyword which becomes the anchor text of your link. For affiliate marketers, you can write a really useful post about website hosting, for example, and every time you mention one of your smart link keywords, it can turn into your affiliate link to Go Daddy. Maybe you were planning to create those links anyway, this just saves you time. Just as an example.
You also have the ability to set a maximum number of smart links to be generated on a given page or post. This is good because none of us wants to be spammy or mess up our users’ experience. I set the limit on this page to 3 links, so even though all of these are among my smart link words, the plugin stops linking them after the third: go daddy, domain, domains, domain name, hosting.

I’m using this on a client’s website to link certain technical keywords contained in their copy to a glossary page which defines those words. This is a real help in terms of user experience for sites which may be unable to avoid technical or complicated language.

In all, a great plugin that can really help streamline and accelerate your content-driven internet marketing business. Throw the developer a bone, I’m sure he could use a cup of coffee.

Link to SEO Smart Links Plugin.

Where to get Traffic Reports

Laurie McAndish King — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:55:31 +0000

Wondering how much traffic a site gets? For good-sized sites, you can check on Alexa.com or Quantcast.com. Quantcast also tells you about your audience: gender, age, children per household, education and income levels, and other demographic information.

CS Logo Type Study (how to brand ourselves)

Tim Johnson — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:56:54 +0000

I have been thrilled to be a part Creative Storefront and be able to garner tips, tricks and advice and perspective from all the great talent that has showed up. However being from a graphic design background I just couldn’t sit back and not contribute to the branding and design of the site. I mean what is “Glow Theme”? So (w/ apologies to Zoey Setiawan) I have done some type / logo studies that I am posting here in hopes that they generate some discussion among our members and players.

These are quick studies in script fonts, scale and emphasis of the operative word. When I think of Creative Storefront I keep coming back to the strip mall, aluminum door and window frames with the templated style signage in front. Think sheet metal, cables and house paint.

The last 4 are using a German utilitarian font Din Schriften. These work the best for me as they are clean, simple, clear and the font treatments lends itself to variety of signage and background treatments.

The very last one works best overall for me. I can see the background treatment being easily extended and/or tweaked to work through out site as headers and buttons.

Keyword Chaos

Bradley Charbonneau — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:00:17 +0000

So this site has been live only a few weeks and already we have a zillion keywords (tags — I just liked the alliteration of Keyword Chaos). What’s a good strategy for keeping tags useful? What I’ve usually told people, including myself as I try to keep tags to a minimum, is to use tags that are “smaller” than categories. So if I were writing a post about setting up Outlook with Gmail, the categories might be: Email, Gmail, and Tutorials, but the tags could be: smtp, pop, SSL, iPhone, etc.

How smart are your tags?

WordPress Tutorial: Uploading Large Files

Bradley Charbonneau — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:38:44 +0000

Depending on your hosting environment, you may have run into time-outs or errors when trying to upload large files in WordPress. It might be solved by a php.ini or .htaccess file edit, but that’s if you know how to do those things and even then it might not work. Of course, you could upload using any FTP program, but that’s again assuming you know how to do that. I wanted to stick with WordPress and get the job done. I used two plugins: myFTP and Add from Server. The video shows how it works.

Free photos for your blog

Laurie McAndish King — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:33:33 +0000

Need images to illustrate your posts? Here are some sources for free photos. Be sure to check usage terms and conditions on these sites: some provide both free and low-cost photos, are free for personal use only, or require registration. Also, be sure to and credit the source appropriately.

Morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use
TheFreeSite.com links to multiple sites for photos and graphics
Stock.xchng.com “the leading FREE stock photo site!”
FreeLargePhotos.com good for travel images
Free Photos for your Blog includes a long list of sources, including nature photography and background textures
FreePixels.com 3800 images in 40 categories, including travel, people, nature, architecture, backgrounds and textures
FreePhotosBank also provides free speaking characters for your website
Free Stock Photo Resources another long list of links
PhotoshopSupport.com lists multiple sources
The Clipart Site includes photos
Wikipedia’s public domain image resources

Also, please note that I have not personally vetted all these sources, so, while I believe they are all legitimate, I cannot make any guarantees. Let us know if you have other sources.

How to write for SEO

Laurie McAndish King — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:30:40 +0000

Search engine optimization is part art, part science, and always changing. To do it well you’ll want to get expert help. In the meantime, here are the basics of SEO writing:

Determine the keywords and phrases most applicable to your content.
Be sure people are actually searching on them. SearchEngineWatch.com is one of many sites that can help you find popular keyword searches.
Consider variants of phrases (the “longtail” approach). For example, if you’re writing about WordPress themes, you might want to use WordPress themes, WordPress templates, premium WordPress themes, free WordPress themes, and similar variants.
Use keywords and phrases liberally but appropriately throughout the copy.
Use keywords and phrases in subheads and internal links.
Check your keyword density (3-5% is recommended in text). KeywordDensity.com is one of many sites that will perform this analysis.
General phrases are more important on home page; specifics more-so on internal pages.
Interactive content can hep produce inbound links.

And of course, be sure to provide interesting, useful, focused, relevant, and well-written content.

Where to find WordPress themes

Laurie McAndish King — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:33:37 +0000

With tens of thousands—or maybe millions—of WordPress themes available, how do you know where to go to look for one?

You can always search for “free WordPress themes” (Google returned about 51,300,000 matches) or “premium WordPress themes” (only 19, 100,000 matches). It doesn’t sound very efficient, but it does provide a way to find the latest offerings, which isn’t a bad idea, because themes are getting better and better.

You can review old favorites, like:

Or you can try sites that provide lists of themes, like these:

Remind your client not to purchase a theme until you’ve had a chance to check it out: Will it really do what you need it to do? Is it reasonably easy to customize? Does it seem buggy? How’s the support?

Let us know if you have other favorites.

What clients want in a WordPress theme

Laurie McAndish King — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:14:44 +0000

Bradley and I were talking about how to help clients choose a WordPress theme, and thought I’d include this link to an article that discusses these considerations (in addition to solid code):

A beautiful home page
Multiple skins/colors (including holiday customization)
Custom widgets
jQuery capability (e.g. for slideshows)
An interactive contact page (nice idea, with example)
Ad integration
SEO

The article was written for theme developers, but the content is also useful for helping clients—especially those who are new to WordPress—through the process of choosing a theme.

Bradley and I also came up with these nice-to-have features (what designers want in a WordPress theme):

Horizontal navigation with built-in pull-down menus
Automatic thumbnail creation
A tabbed sidebar

What else? Please add your favorite features (or your clients’ favorites).