Many Functions, One Dashboard WordPress.com and Google Apps have teamed up. That’s good news for those micro-businesses who don’t already have a website on WordPress. It’s a way to manage a business from one dashboard. Yet, there are trade-offs to consider. What WordPress.com Hosting Means First, let’s explain the difference between using WordPress.com and self hosting. …
Web Design
Top Web Design Trends for 2014
Simplicity Rules This year, website design trends have been dominated by a move towards simplicity. Simplicity design leverages best practices to create websites that are inherently user-friendly and uncomplicated. From responsive design for easy mobile viewing to the use of “hero” images to tell a story (goodbye, flash-based sliders!) simplicity design does not, however, mean …
WordPress 4.0 Release
WordPress 4.0 Beta is now available for testing. The release date for a non-beta version is anticipated for sometime this week. In this post I’ll highlight some upcoming features and why it’s an exciting event. Beta 1 Available for Testing For those who love to try out new software, then WordPress 4.0 Beta 1 is for …
Website Entry Page Considerations
Visibility & Visual Appeal Many clients think that their home page is the most important. From an White Hat SEO standpoint, that’s only partially true. In practicality, every webpage is a potential website entry page. Google serves up the best page (according to their super-secret algorithm) to answer a human searcher’s question. In the post, we’ll share tips …
What is a WordPress Pingback?
WordPress Pingbacks, Notifications & Other Stuff If you’re blogging regularly with WordPress, you’ve probably seen a pingback. In this post I’ll explain what it is, explore any White Hat SEO (search engine optimization) implications, and strategies to manage them. A WordPress pingback is a type of comment. It’s created when a link is made from another …
Landing Page Tips
Having your website’s landing pages convert is critical. If they don’t, you’re wasting hard dollars on AdWords and missing real opportunities in organic search. In this post, I’ll explain the elements of a landing page and tips to improve performance. Landing Page Definition A landing page is simply the first page a visitor sees on your …
WordPress Twenty Fourteen Available
Last week WordPress Twenty Fourteen was released. For those of us in the WP community, the event was noteworthy for several reasons. If you’re new to WordPress… welcome to a wonderful world. In this post I’ll explain why the double release of a new theme and version 3.8 is a reason to celebrate. Parker: Version 3.8 …
WordPress.com for Business
When Not Hosting Your Website Makes Sense As you probably know, we love WordPress. We love self-hosted (WordPress.org) websites. Yet, there are some circumstances when using WordPress.com to host a business website makes sense. 1. No Fuss, No Muss If your business is just getting off the ground, you might have the time, patience or …
WordPress 3.7.1 Maintenance Release
Tracking Changes to Popular Website Platform WordPress 3.7.1 was released about two weeks ago. It fixed about a dozen bugs in the 3.7 release. Earlier this summer we mentioned that WordPress was planning several big software releases before the end of the year. I’ll explain why the latest rounds of changes bodes well for website …
Jetpack 2.4 Update is Supercharged
& Replaces One of My Favorite Plugins The Jetpack 2.4 update includes several exciting upgrades. WordPress.com, the author of Jetpack, included 2 new modules, three new shortcodes and some fixes. I’ll highlight the changes and why it’s interesting news. Widget Visibility This is a very cool addition and replaces one of my favorite plugins, Widget …