Little Man Business

Why is Wordpress better?

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:41:00 +0000

I was recently challenged over the effectiveness of wordpress compared to other content management systems such as joomla. So here is a link to a fantastic article laying out some of the benefits of Wordpress.

http://blairwilliams.com/5-reasons-why-wordpress-websites-are-better/

This is not to say that other CMS do not have their own benefits, but for the easiest and most versatile one stop shop for all speedy website solutions I go to wordpress.

Browser check – How to get cross crowser compatibility

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:00:39 +0000

Something that all web developers quickly encounter is the problem of a website looking different on different computers. First you have either Mac or PC which will display your website in slightly different ways. Next you have the major 4 browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari. You can go to the W3C to check the current statistics of usage for each browsers . These browsers can all display your website in different ways depending on how compliant they are with international standards. Finally there are also approximately 5 – 10 versions of each browser, each of which can have its own kinks. This creates over 50 different combinations which need to be tested.

Most trying of all however, is Internet Explorer. This little baby is definitley a trouble child, and whenever you hear of a problem 9 times out of 10 it is this browser that is giving trouble. The following are some preventative measures which should always be taken if you want to stop problems across different computers:

Make your website W3C Code compliant – you can use their online code checker.
Use CSS and “div” tags to construct your website. (if you use wordpress like me then you need to factor this into your choice of templates).
Try not to re-engineer old websites it will only give you problems as the code one developer or team created will be difficult for a new developer to cleanly change. If possible just employ a developer to redesign from scratch.

Marketing a Budget Hostel

lindsaymacvean — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:46:58 +0000

I recently was employed to market a budget hostel online and I decided to employ a two fold approach.

1. I realised that the they did not really need a website, so I set up a quick website at wordpress.com (while this is not as customisable as a fully hosted website it gives them a primary point of presence online).

2. I have started approaching online conversations of potential customers: outdoors groups, bikers, college students.

I have created a central Google document to hold all their marketing information in one place which allows me to pass individual tasks back to staff in the hostel itself. I will be tracking this campaign over the course of the next few months.

Make your website more readable for Google

lindsaymacvean — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:36:27 +0000

Click on this link to see a snapshot of this website as Google see’s it. (its called the Google Cache)

The main point here is that the main text of the page actually appears at the top of the page. Usually Google has to hunt through the header and menu links before it gets to see the real content of your page, and that can damage your rankings.

This is accomplished by using CSS on the Div’s of the page. If this is all gobbledegook to you, just ask your web developer if they could place the “div” tag for the header at the bottom of the page. But then create a central cascading style sheet and position the header ‘Absolutely’ at the top of your page.

This little trick will mean that Google can read your content first before all the links and pictures in your header.

Preventing Virus’s on your Wordpress Platform

lindsaymacvean — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:17:54 +0000

I encountered an extremely difficult problem on my site recently when I made a fundamental mistake of uploading an image which I had not properly checked with anti-virus.

This led to my site being black listed by Google. The solution was two fold,

1. I had to return to an earlier backup of my site before the virus infected it. (In fact I actually redesigned the site from scratch, I had been waiting for a moment to do this anyway)

2. I had to access Google Webmaster Tools and appeal the black-listing

It has taken me a whole month but my site is now back up and running. The solution in future is to make sure that content is never uploaded which does not have a confirmed source and NEVER if it has not been checked by a proficient anti-virus. Now I just need to finish the re-design of the website, hopefully should be complete by next week.

Identify high traffic Channels and online advertising opportunities

lindsaymacvean — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:14:25 +0000

If you are identifying channels to use then one technique you should add to you arsenal is the ‘alexa traffic identification method’.
If you identified any of the following channels then this is a simple step to actually identify websites with high traffic which you can tap into:

• SMM
• Blog
• PPC
• Article Marketing
• Display Advertising
• Press Releases
• Directory Listing
• Bum Marketing

How to identify channels with the most traffic:

1. Go to www.alexa.com
2. click on ‘top sites’ at the top,
3. then click ‘by country’
4. click on your target country
5. Go through the list from 1-100 and make a note of:

- Social media website (like facebook),
- Free Advertising websites (like gumtree),
- Directories (like SA-venues.co.za or hotfrog.com).

The 4 laws of error messages (according to Catherine Toole)

lindsaymacvean — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:06:45 +0000

Okay another quick bonus from the Catherine Toole speech. The laws of error pages. Error pages are a vastly under-utilised opportunity to show your customer how you handle a problem, and to confirm your brand image.

If you don’t know how to set up your error pages, ask your web developer about 404 pages, or if you use a wordpress platform – install a good 404 error plugin.

So…

1. Explain why the error has occurred
2. Apologise for the error/take responsibility
3. Express your brand (with logo’s, phrases etc.)
4. Give the customer something to do (feedback form/faq/continue shopping etc)