Welcome to the world wide web, MCOBUK !!

This was to address a few knows security issues in some of the older versions of WordPress.

The RHC website was my 1st stab at a Content Management System (CMS) based website over 3 years ago now, and at the time Joolma was well established in the market as one of the main CMS contenders. WordPress at this point in time was still viewed as a “Blogging” platform… oh, how times have changed.

Anyway, I digress …. At about the same time that Nick and Andrew decided to contact me about the existing site, I was keen to migrate the RHC site from Joolma over to WordPress (my platform of preference). This was great, because it allowed us to start on a clean slate and really get our heads around what would be best for the club.
We had been running Google Analytics (a std on all Blue Doodle hosted website) on the original site since it went live, so we had a LOT of good information to help guide us in the right direction with regards to what the club members used and (more importantly) didn’t use on the site.

Nick was the mastermind behind analysing the Google Analytics (we may use him in the future new & existing clients – he just doesn’t know this yet) and came up with a brilliant heat map of the site so we knew what the members liked and wanted.

3 months later we have an AWESOME members based website with a great look and feel (thanks to WooThemes‘ canvas theme), some great looking and very dynamic online forms (thanks to Gravity Forms) and and handful of great WordPress Plugins to extend the functionality.

Go have a look (www.richmondhockeyclub.com) and let us know your thoughts!!

Original Article: www.designmodo.com

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Starting a blog is the one of the easiest ways let the world see what you want to share. Most bloggers don’t know any programming languages, so writing posts and submitting them by using blogging platforms is pretty easy to understand. It first started as an online diary, where posts were arranged in a reversed chronological order, for it to become one of the most popular ways to express your ideas online.

I myself wouldn’t have guessed that blogs might be as popular as they are today. More than that, I wouldn’t have guessed that one can make money with a blog, especially if the blog is about something he/she likes. Choosing a pleasant way to make money is always a good thing to do – it brings you happiness and in the end that’s what everyone is looking for, isn’t it?

Let’s say you have a blog, you have a decent number of visitors and you decide to monetize it. There are several things you should take into consideration and be really perseverant and patient in the first place. Monetizing a blog is a challenging task so you have to make up your mind if you want to succeed. Your ambition will help a lot and not losing it by the time you start getting the money is a must from the beginning. You have to understand that it might not be a source of existence right away, and you might want to keep your job first until your blog starts generating success. The percentage of bloggers that fail from monetizing their blog is much bigger than the ones that succeed, but I don’t want to scare you of. You will probably be one of those that succeed if you are really determined to do that. Determination brings success. It is going to be hard work, but you’ll definitely like it if you love what you are blogging about, especially when you will see money coming out of it.

PPC Ad Networks

Like you’ve already heard, there are different Ad networks that help you make money with your blog or website. One method is “pay-per-click” ad networks. You can choose from a variety of networks available on the web (Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher, Clicksor, Kontera, Bidvertiser…). I will further talk about Google’s AdSense program that is one of the best choices to far, but you can as well try the others out there.

What they do is read your article and then find ads that are relevant to the content of your post next to it. One good thing about relevant ads is that they might offer more information about the subject of your post to your visitors so that they might be interested to read it; hence they click on the ad and that’s how you get paid. Once you optimize it correctly, Adsense can really work, although you might feel skeptical about it at first. In order to use Google AdSense you have to know that you should have certain traffic on your website, otherwise it will be useless.

CPM Ad Networks

CPM Ad Networks act just like PPC Ad Networks, the only difference being that they pay you for the number of impressions. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, referring to the cost for 1 000 impressions.

For example if your blog generates 100 000 page views per month, and you have an advertising banner with a CPM equal to 1 $, then you will get 100 $ per month for only one banner. The rates in a CPM vary with the network, the format of the ad and its location on the blog. If for example you place a bigger ad, closer to the top of your page then you can get a higher CPM rate. The rate varies between 0.10 $ and 10 $ (but it can also be bigger in some cases). We recommend – BuySellAds.

Banner Advertising

Banner advertising is one of the most popular methods so far. There are different services like BuySellAds that might help you sell advertising space on your blog and they will take care of all the process for 25 % from the earnings you get from it. However if you don’t want to give up 25 % of your earnings you can go solo and sell advertising space to advertisers directly, but keep in mind that you will have to take up all the process by yourself and it might get complicated at some point. For both of these options you will need a certain number of visitors; otherwise you will not qualify for it.

Affiliate Marketing

This is a really popular practice on the Internet and many bloggers and website owners choose it. Affiliate marketing lets merchants that would like to promote and sell their products advertise them on a certain blog/website in exchange for a commission.

As an affiliate you can redirect potential customers to the merchant by using different tools like banners, text links or even product reviews. It really depends on you whether you choose this method or not. There are people that would be willing to promote anything that will pay them and others that refuse to do it out of principle. There are some popular affiliate marketplaces and networks you can choose from like: Azoogle Ads, Link Share, Clickbank, etc or you can also go directly to individual companies and publishers like SEObook, Dreamhost, Envato and many others.

These are just some of the most popular methods that can help you monetize your blog. There are still many other things you can do, with a little bit of a research and maybe other less popular methods will work for you better.

However you cannot think about success unless you have enough people to read your blog. This is the most important thing so far, other than offering good content. The question is how do you attract people to read your blog? You will need traffic in order to monetize your blog that is a fact. I will further refer to some tips on how to get traffic to your blog:

1. Guest posting

Guest posting is definitely one of the fastest ways to get traffic to your blog. All you have to do is provide good content in a good article and go for guest posting. Newbie bloggers can get lots of visitors due to guest posting and their blogs can get pretty popular if the content is good enough. Remember to post only unpublished content as a guest post, because the blog that is allowing you to post your article won’t get any search engine traffic for that article.

2. Blogcarnivals

Blogcarnivals is a great method for beginner bloggers to be noticed on the web and when I say noticed – I am talking about the possibility to get thousands of visitors per month. All you have to do is have good content and a cool title to go with that and you can get really god traffic from blogcarnivals. To get a better understanding about them, check out their website where you can sign up and start posting for no charge at all.

3. Blog community websites

Another way to get noticed is signing up for certain blog community websites where your blog will be visible; thus it might attract some traffic. Networking is the key to success when we talk about blogging so don’t be shy to sign up for more blog community sites and get to know your fellow bloggers.

4. Comment on other blogs and forums

As the blogging community is very social – it is a great way to promote your blog. Once you are active on other blogs or forums, then you can definitely attract their visitors your way. Don’t forget to sign up for forums related to your area and be active there. By inserting the link of your blog in your signature, you can as well get some attention. Just try not to be too annoying about promoting your blog on forums as people usually don’t really dig that.

5. Link to other blogs

Once you link to other blogs, you can be sure that the person who you linked with, will link back to you. People usually like to check out who is interested in them, so this is also a pretty good way to attract some new visitors and build relationships with other bloggers.

Remember that for promoting and monetizing your blog it takes time and patience. If you don’t have any earnings in the first year, or they are really small, being persistent will definitely help you get some money the next year. If you don’t make any efforts, there is no way people can find your blog on the Internet – as this is a huge web with plenty of other good blogs.

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What makes people press the back button, shortly after visiting your website? Why do they bail out so quickly? And what can you do about it?

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I’ve been thinking about this and realised that there are many more negative factors than I’d originally anticipated.

Taken at individual level some of these factors might not be enough to make visitors back out, but when combined together they may give off entirely the wrong impression.

It’s not easy to create a beautiful, brilliant user experience, and the reality is that most sites have issues of one kind or another. But keep an eye open for the following – often avoidable – negative factors and try to eliminate them, to create a stickier website for users.

Let’s start with the truly horrific…

1. Autosound. This drives me nuts. When I visit a website and am instantly bombarded with an unwanted cacophony of nasty sound I tend to leave with immediate effect. Publishers that accept ads that play sound automatically are often the worst offenders (they could say no to these ads, as I do), along with websites in the hospitality sector.

2. Popups. An oldie but a goodie. And yet still we see them. If you want to bombard me with pop-ups then I’m going to want to leave. The sooner you show me the pop-up, the sooner I’ll go. That said, I can just about tolerate pop-ups that appear after 30-60 seconds, so long as the content is good.

3. Interstitials. I don’t visit Forbes any more because Forbes simply loves an interstitial. Information Week should be renamed as Interstitial Week. Nobody likes to wait but this is really just about expectations. When I click on a link I expect to be taken straight to that page, rather than being dumped on a page with a big ad on it.

4. Pagination. Do you really need me to load 10 pages to see 10 medium-sized pictures with small captions? Or to read a Top 10 list across 10 pages when it could just as easily be displayed on one page? Pagination is a cheap trick, in my view, to artificially inflate page impressions. It proves that the way online ads are bought and measured is all wrong, and it’s one of the reasons why publishers are so screwed (they pander to CPM / impressions, when they should be in the data / engagement game).

5. Slow load times. Don’t make me wait! I pay a premium for my 50MB home broadband connection and I’ll be damned if your slow-ass pages are going to cause trouble for me. If I really want or need to visit your website then I might wait, but if I’m just curious or have clicked a link on impulse then I’m more likely to leave.

6. Prioritisation of ads vs content. This is the evil twin of slow load times. Some publishers prioritise ads over content (load the ads first and bank the ad money). Some navigation may quickly appear before the whole thing grinds to a halt while we wait for an ad server to kick into life. In this context, a slow ad server adds up to a slow site. It’s something publishers need to keep an eye on.

7. Woeful navigation. Badly-designed navigation is one of the few truly mortal sins that you can commit as a web professional. Navigation needs to be intuitive, descriptive and straightforward. Flash-based sites tend to be among the very worst sinners.

8. Poor scent trails. Hey, I just want my questions answered, ok? If I can’t find things easily and quickly then I will look elsewhere. Your job is to help people to sniff out the information they need. This is where optimisation and testing comes in.

9. Key information is AWOL. I visited the Hoxton Hotel website recently to find out how much it costs to stay there. After a couple of minutes of hunting around I realised that there were no details on room rates (well, I couldn’t find any). It’s bizarre. Just for the record, there is no way I will click a ‘Book A Room’ button just to see how much a hotel room costs. I’ll just book with The Zetter instead. Make sure the basics are all in place.

10. Immediate registration demands. Why? Why now? Aren’t you going to tease me a little first? Timing is everything.

11. Too much flashing, scrolling shit. If I’m browsing the internet then it’s usually a good sign that I’m not in a nightclub, which is the only environment where I personally tolerate lots of flashing lights. Yes, it can grab the attention, but not in a good way. It smacks of desperation and attention seeking, and is incredibly annoying. There is one notable exception to this rule, which is so crazy and personality-driven that it’s hard to dislike!

12. Typos. Typos and poor grammar do not send the right signals to the visitor. There are literally no excuses. This is about attention to detail, as much as anything. If you’re not bothered about that kind of thing then what kind of message does it give out?

13. Rubbish fonts. You’re using Times New Roman? Really? It’s ugly. Still, at least it isn’t Comic Sans. No right minded person would leave a website purely based on font aesthetics, but lame fonts can give off the impression that you’re not trying hard enough. And that, in conjunction with one or two other negative factors, might be the difference between a visitor hanging around and bailing out.

14. Narrow sites. There’s just something about sites designed for 800px monitors that gives me the creeps. Don’t you think?

15. Left-aligned sites. Again – and I can’t really explain why – sites that are aligned to the left (rather than centrally) just seem so 2002, at least to my eye. I don’t know why exactly but I always notice this and I don’t consider it to be a good thing. Talk about the princess and the pea…

16. Cookie cutter websites. Some websites look a little bit me-too for my liking. I actually rather like standardisation (I wish all online checkouts were designed in line with our best practice guidelines), but it can be a turn off as far as web design goes. Who wants to be known as a copycat?

17. Cobwebs. I like to see a ‘news’ or ‘blog’ section on a homepage, to show some signs of life. Headlines and dates are enough. If the last ‘news’ was from ‘January 2004’ then I won’t hang around for long.

18. A lack of clarity. When I visit a website for the first time I need to be able to tell what that company does within seconds. Sometimes I scratch my head for a minute or so, and leave none the wiser. A descriptive, meaningful, plain English strapline is key.

19. PRspeak / jargon. I tend to be of the opinion that you can shove your synergies where the sun doesn’t shine.

20. Browser issues. Up until three days ago Microsoft refused to support Google Chrome, my browser of choice, for Xbox Live’s customer services area. So wrong, on so many levels, especially since I’m a paying Xbox Live customer. Browser problems come in all shapes and sizes. Test, test, test, and figure out what your audience likes to use. Try to avoid controlling the browsing experience too (opening up links in new windows, for example).

21. Flash. Sometimes I’ll hang around, much in the same way that people slow down on motorways to gawp at car crashes, but I normally back out faster than you can say “Jumping Jack”. I have come to learn that Flash websites, almost without fail, suck, and I only tolerate them in exceptional circumstances. I’m a hardliner in this respect.

22. No ‘About’ page. Many websites are allergic to About pages, for reasons I cannot begin to figure out. I often visit a website simply to find out more information about the company, and whenever the About page is missing I ever so slightly lose the will to live.

23. Video-only homepages. The use of video to explain what the company does, or to talk about specific products and services, is another growing trend, particularly among startups. If I have the time and inclination I might sit through a three minute video, but I think there should always be a text option (much quicker, and let’s not forget about Google / SEO).

24. Boring vs unprofessional. Some sites have no verve, no personality, and are uniformly dull. Others live so far beyond the realms of expectation that you don’t quite know what to make of them. Both can be troublesome, as far as bounce rates are concerned.

25. Contrast fail. Poor colour combinations can make it difficult to read text. And if you cannot read something there’s really very little point in hanging around.

There are all kinds of other factors as to why people will leave a website before they’ve really visited it. So what did I miss? What turns you off?

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I think Chris has really hit the nail on the head here. When reading through this list, I found myself nodding and chuckling as these are things I see time and time again.

When we build site at BDD, we have a structure and a set of base principles which help us avoid these fundamental mistakes. These principles also help us choose the correct theme partners (Woo Themes / Elegant Themes) as they follow the same fundamental guidelines when building the themes.

In the beginning

When we 1st launched, I was using a brilliant tool called Rapidweaver (RW) , by realmacsoftware to design and develop our sites. RW was a great tool to start out with as I had just bought my 1st MacBook, I wanted to do everything on my mac.
RW produces (predominatly) static HTML sites with powerful graphics and a very professional look and feel. (have a look at our Portfolio, Armadillo Security Shutters was done in RW).

Phase 2

After about 9 months of using RW for our clients, we needed to take the next evolutionary step towards a Content Management System (CMS) based platform. At this stage, Joomla was being used by everyone as it offered an all round CMS platform to suit all the requirements of my client (have a look at our Portfolio, Richmond Hockey Club was designed using Joomla). Joomla was great at the time as I was only starting to learn about CMS platforms and their capabilities.

Partway through the development of the RHC website, a very good friend of mine (Justin Harrison) suggested that I take a look at WordPress as a CMS engine. I had already completed 80% of the RHC site and didn’t want to change platforms… so I put Justin’s suggestion on the back burner until I had completed the RHC site. This was about 2 years ago and WordPress was mainly seen as a Blogging tool and not a true CMS engine.

Next Step

After the RHC go live, I started to have a look at WordPress (WP) and straight away I LOVED the interface. At 1st it was very Blog orientated, but it was evolving and with WP 3.0 they hit the nail on the head and it was now a true CMS platform.

Over the past year and a bit, I’ve used nothing but WP for my sites (check out our Portfolio). We’ve done a few migrations from static HTML (dreamweaver based) to WP (including our own website RW – WP) and I can’t see us moving away from this rapidly evolving CMS platform.

Alignment

My fundamental issue with all these technology was that they  didn’t have a decent Backup and Restore utility. RW , Joomla or WP don’t have any native backup tools to handle database and file system requirements that you could schedule and send the data off-site.

That is until I came across BACKUPBUDDY!! This is a phenomenal WP plugin which allows you to schedule backups, easily move the data and within a few simple clicks, restore your site to the same or another location. With integration to off site your database or full (database and files) backup via Amazon S3, RockSpace Cloud, FTP, Email and most recently DropBox, so there is NO excuse now to have a valid off site backup of you website.

There are 100′s of Premium theme providers out there offering WP themes. But out of all of them (and we’ve tried a LOT) only 2 really stand out head and shoulders above the rest.

• Woo Themes and Elegant Themes.

These 2 theme designers have by far the most professional and beautifully designed theme sets on the market. All of our WP sites are designed around these 2 theme providers. They both offer different functionality with an outstanding and powerful graphical experience for the visitors.

Summary

We’re in the process of migrating all our existing sites over to WP and with that every migration or new site, we’ll implementing BackupBuddy as a standard and will more than likely be based on a WooThemes or ElegantThemes template, which we modify depending on the clients needs.

You should hopefully be able to see how BDD has organically grown over the years, to accomodate our clients needs and the technical needs of our systems. We’ve also aligned ourselves with market leaders within the WP ecosystem.

We took on SerianUK as a Charity site as we felt that they were taking on a very good cause. It also helped that the charity is focused in Africa, and seeing as we’re all from Africa, we felt it our duty to help out as much as we could.

We provided the design, time and expertise to get this site off and ground as well as covering the annual hosting fees.

So, there I was sifting through my daily catchup of last nights tweets and I came across this totally awesome SEO tool:

What Search Page am I on?.com

Quit simply, it does what it says on the tin.
This site takes your search query and your web address and then checks to see if it’s on the 1st 10 pages of Google and then reports back.

This is a great tool to track and see how and where you rank on Google in a quick and efficient way.

Let me know your thoughts and views on it.

With our new mail packages (Blue Mail & Gmail) you are able to pick the perfect email solution based on your requirements.

We’ve flatterend the Web Hosting options from £60 and £100, respectively, to a single £75 covers everything option.

Please have a look and give us some feedback (comments box below) … we’d love to know if we’re doing this right or if we’re getting it wrong, and only you (our clients or perspective clients) can tell us that.

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