Advanced SEO Tips for your WordPress Blog
Throughout the years there have been many changes to Google’s algorithm and fewer SEO criteria stay the same. One of them is the power of WordPress! It is still a powerful way to rank high on Google. It’s also probably one of the best platforms to use because it is already optimized and you don’t have to spend time doing this. But only by installing WordPress don’t expect to be immediately ranked high on Google. Instead expect SEO to be a lot easier for you. Now, to make your blog even more powerful, there are several changes you can implement. And fortunately, they can be done easily. WordPress Installation One common mistake people make is they create a site and then install WordPress in their sub directory, such as www.mysite.com/blog. If you are sure that you want to create your site without WordPress and create only a blog, then doing so may help but you will probably hurt your blog’s chances of a high rank. This is because all of your posts and pages in your blog will be seen on Google below the third level or it could be ranked even less. Such examples will look like: www.mysite.com/blog/post. So the best way is to install WordPress directly to your site. There are many themes to choose from to make your WordPress blog look like the site you desire. Changes to your WordPress As I said before most things on WordPress are already optimized, so you won’t have to spend a lot of time making changes. Here are some things I’d suggest you do change. Go to “Setting” and then click “General”. There you’ll see your WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL). From here you can change how Google will index your site. If you use mysite.com there, these structures your site and your page will be shown this way. But you can change these to www.mysites.com. That way Google will index you with www. The key is to be consistent and use only urls with www or without www. It wouldn’t be good to use a link with www on one page and then not www for the next. Go to “Settings” and then click “Writing” and check under “Update services”. There you can add pings. You’ll then see http://rpc.pingomatic.com/. WordPress will use all on this list to ping once you publish a new post. If you want you can list more here. Go to “Setting” and then click “Permalinks”. This will be a very important change to make. This is how your url will look. I’d suggest you use this: http://www.mysite.com/sample-post/. That way you can choose your keywords in the url for all of your posts. Keep in mind that this will give you a better chance for a high rank. For example, let’s say you want to rank for “make money online”. It is better to change the permalink to: http://www.mysite.com/make-money-online than it to: http://www.mysite.com/how-to-make-money-online. Keywords that are after the url looks much more important for Google. There are more changes that you can make. I’d suggest you to spend some time to make your blog the way you like it, but what I mentioned is enough for SEO. What Plugins to Use A great thing about WordPress is that it allows you to use any kind of plugins, and there are a ton of them. Most of them can be found for free. Here are some of the most important to use for SEO. SEO All in One. This is a great plugin that will help you with your SEO. The most important thing...
Read MoreTop 6 Graphic Web Design Trends
The internet landscape and tech-savvy market are both constantly changing. Web designers need to catch up with the trends to remain competitive. Listed below are the top six graphic design trends for websites. 1. Typography to Express Emotion Websites with readable fonts are popular before. These fonts include Sans-Serif fonts, such as Calibri or Arial. However, things are starting to change and improve even more. The trend nowadays is to use fonts that express emotion and relate more to the theme and tone of the website. For instance, the use of spaghetti-like font for a food-related blog or recipe website is a hit and the use of curvy, flowery and girly font for a women-related blog is trending. Web designers should stick to fonts that are readable for the bulk of website content, but stylish and creative typography must also be applied for the headings and page titles. 2. Interactive Designs and Unconventional Navigation A new web design trend is to use an interactive and creative navigation design where readers have to click some certain items to land them to another page. For instance, the use of a collage food like bread, drinks and sweets for a recipe website is fun and entertaining. When a reader clicks a certain food or object, it takes them to a particular recipe page. With the rampant use of touch screen devices, this design is popular right now. It engages the reader even more, whether they are using a chunky desktop computer, tablet, or Smartphone. 3. 3D Illustrations and Textures The use of bold images and textures is nnother trend in web design right now. Web designers avoided the use of these designs in the past because graphic images are difficult to load in a website. However, with the advancements in technology, loading time is not usually a problem anymore. This gives web designers and graphic artists the freedom and flexibility to choose and create custom designs and images. 3D technology, elements and textures to images have been popular in web design since 3D movies became trendy on the big screen. 3D technology draws attention and makes a website more alive and functional Some tools that can help include Online 3D Sketch Tool and Patternizer. 4. Vibrant and Bold Color Combinations In web design, color trends are always changing. Gone are the days of gray and blue shades with dark fonts and light backgrounds. Today, it is usual to see vibrant and bold colors in various combinations and shades. As far as colors is concerned, there are no more rules anymore. The more creative and unique the web designer is, the more he can make the website look better. However, inclusion of brand colors in the web design is still common. 5. Infographics Instead of Written Content Internet readers are skimmers and their focus and attention are usually drawn to things that are appealing to their eyes. That is the reason why Infographics are one of the fast growing design trends. Graphic artists are usually asked to turn web content into pictures or informational materials to keep readers on websites longer. 6. Fewer Ad Blocks in the Design One of the popular ways many websites do to make money online is through hosted ads. However, many readers are turned off by websites with loaded hosted ads. Web designers must be creative with ad placements. For instance, some ads can be included in the content. The main goal of a web designer is to create websites that are pleasing and attractive to the eyes. Implementation of ad space is only a second priority. It will...
Read MoreGoogle Introduces Hummingbird
Since many years, we have been using certain keywords for finding certain things. Google has recently introduced Hummingbird, which enables a visitor to naturally interact with the search engine. Google has launched Hummingbird last month for providing better answers for the most complex queries. Hummingbird was introduced on the 15th birthday of Google. It is created in such a way that it provides faster, precise and accurate results. Halasz said that “search engines have become more dependent upon keyword that is landing the visitor to incorrect things”. Search engines should naturally engage with the visitors instead of depending upon a particular set of keywords. Hummingbird has come into the game since a month; Google announced this update one month after it has launched this impactful algorithm. Since its launch, Hummingbird has affected more than 90% of searches. Google Will Be Answering Like A Real Person Hummingbird has made the searches more conversational and more natural because it directly answers to questions. Danny Sullivan said that “Humming word will be getting results for the visitors in a much interactive manner, which means the search engine will be showing better results to the meaning of the whole sentence instead of a particular set of keywords. David Amerland who is an SEO expert said that “Google has enhanced its capability to provide better answers to complex searches. It also improved its ability to index entities. This means it has become more knowledgeable. Christy belden, who is a vice president in Leap interactive, said “Hummingbird concentrates more on semantic searches, which will be driving search engines to a proper direction”. Presently most of the search engine visitors are using their mobile and voice. Now, with the launch of Hummingbird, it has become easy for such kind of users to attain proper and right answers. Belden also told that she didn’t notice any difference in the searching results after Hummingbird have come into use. She also told that she is not going to make any changes in the work they do. Hummingbird doesn’t focus on particular keywords instead of this it get answers to the questions in a much talkative manner? The most famous SEO expert Trond Lyngbo said “It is very exciting to see Hummingbird come into being as it will be answering to questions in a natural manner. It is designed in such a way that it gets answers rather than just results. Hummingbird has the capability to give answers to complex and longer questions. This has been the biggest update since 2010, when Google upgraded to an algorithm, which was called Caffeine. Searching is all about discovering new things, but the visitor still needs to work hard for searching certain things. It is an exciting time for internet visitors as Hummingbird will give a quick answer in a quick, easy and natural manner. Let us take an example for this, consider a word like Taj mahal. For many years search answered to only relevant keywords. For a search engine the word Taj mahal is only two words. But, we know that Taj mahal has a richer meaning. If you type in the search bar the most beautiful monument in the world, you will be getting Taj mahal in your search results. Hummingbird answers to your questions in a talkative manner it knows many things about celebrities, landmarks, buildings, sports team, cities, celestial objects, geographical features and much more information that is related to your question. About the author The article above was written by Jay Norman on behalf of Quickinnovations, a web design company located in London. Quickinnovations offers a complete...
Read MoreHow to Make Your WordPress Blog Mobile Friendly
One of the more frustrating aspects of WordPress blog design is in making sure that your blog or WordPress installation appears correctly across numerous platforms. In the past much of this focused on optimising your blog for various desktop PC or Mac browsers, but now it’s all about ensuring that your blog or site is mobile friendly. IPads, smart phones, Android tablets – and even future smart watches – constitute a mobile browsing experience which is now dominating the industry. In short, if your site or blog does not appear correctly on all platforms then you will loose much of your potential user-base. In other words: You need your WordPress blog to display properly on every mobile device! Thankfully, WordPress has a comprehensive plugin system which allows you to easily install plugins designed to make your blog appear and behave in the way that you want it to, across all mobile and desktop devices. That being said, the sheer number of available plugins can be both confusing and intimidating. Which ones are most effective? Which ones should you use? With this in mind, let’s look at the top 5 mobile plugins which will help you get your blog out to the mobile masses with a minimum of tweaking. Top 5 WordPress Plugins WordPress Mobile Pack: This plugin is a completely comprehensive suite which will provide you with detailed and precise control over how your WordPress blog appears on mobile devices. It supplies the blog admin with a single theme designed to simply display all of the relevant information you want to get across to your blog’s visitors. There are a dizzying number of options, but don’t let that put you off, just take your time with it. This is an extremely powerful and effective plugin which will quickly optimise your blog for mobile devices. WordPress Mobile Edition: This plugin detects automatically whether a visitor to your site is using a mobile device or not. By adding in all of the available mobile browsers in the plugin’s settings page, your site will now switch between desktop and mobile themes based on which is the most effective for the user, and then select a specific way to display your site by detecting the individual browser being used. A mobile theme designed only for that browser will then be used on that occasion. WP viewMobile: This plugin guarantees your blog or site to be ready for visitors on mobile devices with just a a few simple clicks. Going for a ‘back to basics’ approach, viewMobile reduces the resolution and clutter of your blog or website so that it is compatible, not just with cutting edge smart phone technology, but also with legacy mobile devices. By using adaptive processes, this plugin will resize your site’s images based on the capabilities of the mobile device being used, ensuring that your site is viewable even on the smallest of screens. WP Mobile Detector: The Mobile Detector app is a really simple way to push your blog into the mobile domain. It will detect immediately whether any visitor is using a mobile device or not, and then switch to the desired browsing scheme. It is very easy to use and install, what’s more, it also comes with a variety of pre-installed mobile themes which you can choose from including, Anakin, Jester, Casper, Colbalt, Mojo, Viper, and Bluesteel. The plugin uses jQuery and will automatically format your entire blog for you. Mobile Press: This is probably the simplest mobile plugin available, but don’t let that fool you, it is very effective. There aren’t many options, but that...
Read MoreCloud Security and How to Keep your Data Safe
Are you familiar with the old saying “ignorance is bliss” a phrase coined by Thomas Gray? Yes, you could say that when it comes to online security, it could not be further from the truth. As a user of the web it is really important to stay alert and be aware of what is happening around you at all times. As with that thing about cloud computing in which everyone speaks. How secure is the cloud computing? Are you protected? Actually… what is it? The Basics The good news is that you probably make use of cloud computing and unknowingly on a daily basis. The cloud computing technology boosts webmail services like Yahoo and Gmail, blogs, social networks, online games, productivity tools like Google Docs and even alternative backup and storage. There is a “cloud” with a unique and comprehensive approach as such, but many are smaller and separated from each other. Some are run by well-known companies as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, who use their Cloud to offer a wide range of online services directly, while some are constructed and used privately by companies for their internal employees, and others are designed and created specifically to be rented and can be used both for individual users and for online businesses. Therefore, cloud computing actually resides in chips and servers in million data centers – some interconnected, and other non-worldwide. These chips and servers offer the computing power to deliver services and applications over the Internet on a PC, Laptop, Tablet or Smartphone users. Meanwhile, in the other direction, you will be sending your data, photos, emails, instant messages, notes, etc… That will be stored on the servers of your service provider. This means that, for example, when users access Gmail on their Smartphone, almost instantaneously, opens his Inbox messages anywhere in the world where the person goes. The Risks We all know how cloud computing has helped to change our lives – just try to go a week without connecting to Google or Facebook account to see it, but there are other risks involved. Where people and money goes, usually criminals follow too often. Cybercrime is big business and the dark sides of the Internet the “bad guys” are authentic teachers defraud and extort money from their victims. There is also a thriving black market where stolen data of users are bought and sold, so it’s worth paying attention, be alert and take a few steps to achieve techniques to keep cyber criminals out of reach. The main techniques used to try to take your money are: deception, to reveal personal information about yourself through fake phishing emails that pretend to be sent from an official source, or malware infections. The latter can be as simple as clicking a link in an email or doubtful on the social networking site, opening the malicious attachment, downloading a mobile application that appears to be legal, or even visiting a legitimate site that has been hacked. Best Tips to Stay Safe Cloud computing providers like Google, Facebook and Microsoft spend a small fortune to ensure that their data centers are as safe as possible, accredited according to standards and internationally recognized IT standards. However, there are still some security breaches in the cloud and users must be involved and take some responsibility too. Here are some tips: Always use logon passwords complex and do not share passwords among different online accounts in case one is compromised. Consider having an online backup service to ensure to keep your entire data safe in the cloud, in case you lose your phone or laptop...
Read MoreHow to: Create Stunning Flip-Through Image Galleries in WordPress without Knowing any Code
The visuals on your web site are important and so is its ease of use. It’s unfortunate that the default WordPress galleries are so unrefined and dull. The navigation between pictures can be confusing for your less savvy web visitors, depending on which theme you choose. You need to have some knowledge of CSS and HTML to be able to adjust for your visual needs. It can be a real headache and searching through all the gallery-related plugins on WordPress.org can be time-consuming and leave you just as frustrated, if not more. I’m here to spare you that headache. And the fix is so simple. Here are two plugins, when combined, create beautiful, easy-to-use galleries for any page and any purpose on your WordPress site… with zero extra effort after basic installation : 1. NextGen Gallery 2. NextGen Gallery ColorBoxer Before we begin, you must ensure you are not using the latest release of NextGen Gallery. Yes, I said not. The latest release of NextGen came with many, many problems that have still been unresolved to my knowledge. Try to stick to a version before version 2.0 Here is where you can download a previous version of NextGen Gallery: NextGen Gallery Plugin Download The first step, in this simple process, is to download the NextGen Gallery plugin. We cannot use the “Add New” featured under your plugins menu in your WordPress Admin area for this one, because it will install the latest version of the plugin. So, download it from the link above. Once it’s downloaded, unzip the file you downloaded. The resulting folder should be uploaded via FTP to your WordPress plugins folder which is within the WP-Content folder of your web site. Once the upload is complete, head back into your WordPress Admin interface and click the Plugins option in your left hand sidebar. Choose Installed Plugins from the sub-menu. You should now see a list of all your installed plugins, including your freshly uploaded NextGen Gallery. Click “Activate” underneath it and be sure to ignore the update notification. You now have NextGen Gallery installed on your site and need to install NextGen ColorBoxer. At the top of the list of installed plugins, there is a small text button that says “Add New”. Clicking this will take you to a search field. Here you can enter “NextGen ColorBoxer” and it should be the top result. Click “Install Now” underneath it. You will be prompted with a standard “Are you sure?” type message. Click yes. The page that comes up next will show you the details and progress of the install, which should take seconds, tops. When it’s done, it will give you a link at the bottom of the progress, enabling you to activate the plugin. Go ahead and activate it. Now, you’re site is ready to host beautiful, easy-to-use galleries! Let’s test it out, shall we? In your WordPress Admin area, choose Gallery towards the bottom of the left hand side bar, and from the sub-menu, select Add Gallery/Images. At the top of the resulting page, choose the tab that says “Add New Gallery”. Type in your desired gallery name and click the “Add Gallery” button. You should now be back on the image upload interface. Click the “Select files” button and choose some images. You can choose multiple images from this interface, or even just drag and drop. Be sure each image is smaller than your server’s upload limit. Most commonly this is 2 megabytes. Once you have selected your images, makes sure the scale images button is checked, and you have chosen the Gallery...
Read More