You’ve undoubtedly seen the orange RSS feed icon on lots of websites but you may not be aware what it does.

What does RSS stand for?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  That may sound a bit geeky to you, but it really is not that complicated.  MOST IMPORTANT… by offering your site visitors an opportunity to be notified of your new posts, you’ll get visitors coming back to your website.

Use An RSS feed so your visitors can receive your posts via RSS readers

RSS lets your site visitors sign up to receive your posts automatically in an RSS reader.  Just click on the orange RSS icon in my menu bar and look at all the RSS readers you can use to subscribe to my posts.  You’ll see the many reader programs you can choose from, including My Yahoo, My AOL, + Google, RSS Owl and many others.  You will also see the option to get posts delivered by email.

Another way that you can get your site visitors to subscribe to your posts in by adding a signup box to your WordPress sidebar.  You can see the one on my sidebar ‘Subscribe to the T2 Feed’.   This does the same thing as subscribing by email through the RSS icon in my menu bar.  However, this sign up box is a little less intimidating and clearly more intuitive.

Use Feedburner for a better look and to get stats

If you want to offer your site visitors the ability to sign up for your RSS feed, I recommend using Google’s  Feedburner.  Your visitors will see a really nice looking (and intuitive) page when they click on the RSS icon.   If you use the default WordPress RSS ‘subscribe to feed’ page it appears in a fairly boring layout.  If you want to see the boring view,  click again on the RSS icon in my menu bar, then click on the ‘View Feed XML’ at the bottom of the Subscribe Now box.   In addition to signing up for a free Feedburner account, you’ll need to add the plugin ‘Feedburner Feed Smith’.  The process for getting everything setup is explained on the Feedburner website.

Get subscribers back to your site

By showing just teasers in your RSS feed, subscribers will need to link to your website to read the full articles.  And if you can get these followers back to your website you’ll have an opportunity to show them other new content or products.

Use an RSS feed to add fresh content to your site from another site

Another way an RSS feed can work is by allowing content from another website to automatically appear on your website.  You can find an example on WashingtonGoldExchange.com. In the right sidebar of this site you’ll see a feed titled ‘Real Money News’ that has the orange RSS icon next to it.  When you click to read more about any of these articles you’ll be taken to the website where the post lives.  This is a way to add fresh content and more value to your own website, especially if you don’t have time to be consistently writing new posts.  An even better strategy is to write the original content and get others to feed the teasers into their websites.

It’s true, there are two types of WordPress, and yes this is confusing for anyone new to WordPress. The good news, I can quickly remove the confusion.

WordPress.com, is a hosted version of WordPress.org where you can start a blog in seconds without any technical knowledge. WordPress.com is free to use, but does have fees for some extra features. WordPress.com is a great way to go for personal blogging.

If you’re a business and need to create a website with a professional presence you’ll want to go with WordPress.org.

Here are the top five reasons most businesses go with WordPress.org:

1) You own it. You can do what you want when you’re using the dot org. In contrast, with the dot com they own it and your site is on their server. With the dot org you can host your website anywhere you want.

2) You can upload themes. You can choose from (and upload) over 1,000 themes with the dot org. The dot com only offers limited number of themes. If you’re wanting a custom designed website make from a blank-canvas theme like Thesis, you’ll need the dot org.

3) You can upload plugins and widgets. There are now nearly 12,000 plugins and widgets made for the dot org. In comparison,the dot com only offers about 30 of the 12,000. The plugins and widgets available through the dot org will greatly extend the functionality and look of your website. One of the plugins you can take advantage of with the dot org is Google Analytics, the most sophisticated website analytic tool on the planet.

4) You can run ads on your site (or not).

5) You can have a custom-designed website. If you have a very specific design that you want created, the dot org is the only option. Much of the customization needs to be done in the php files, which can’t be accessed with dot com.

So if you just need a personal blogging site, the dot com version will probably meet your needs. If you need a website to grow your business or brand, or to become a serious blogger, the dot org is definitely the way to go.

If you want to build a website with your own design, Thesis theme (by DIYthemes) is a great blank canvas theme to use.  Following is a starter guide for getting the Thesis theme installed and customized.

How to install Thesis

If you haven’t already purchased the Thesis theme, just click here: The Thesis Theme for WordPress . You will download from the Thesis site to your computer in a zipped folder.

Next, go into your WordPress dashboard and go down the left dashboard menu to Appearances/Themes, then click on Themes. Next,click on Install Themes which is at the top of the page. Now click on Upload which is located just below the tabs at the top of the page. Find the Thesis zipped folder and upload it. Once it’s upload you will be asked if you want to activated, and you do. Now, click back over to the tab on your browser that shows the page that the rest of the world will eventually see. You should now see a simple formatted Thesis theme shell.

Customizing Your Blog with Thesis Theme

IMPORTANT NOTE: As you make changes within the Thesis Site Options and Design Options, click on the Big Ass Save Button often. You never know when your internet connection may be lost.  And, yes… the Thesis people have a sense-of-humor, there really is a Big Ass Save Button (see photo below!)

Setting The Layout

Now that you have Thesis installed, it’s time to setup the default layout, meaning the page width, the number of sidebars, the width of the sidebars. To do this, go down the dashboard menu and click on Thesis/Design Options. In the upper left corner you see Site Layout, click on Columns, the first menu item below Site Layout. The first step here is to decide how many columns you want to appear on the pages or posts that will have columns. 3 column means two widgets columns plus a content column.

Once you selected the number of columns, then you plugin how wide (in pixels you want your content area and how wide you want your widget columns (or sidebars).

Next, you select the column order by clicking on the Column Order section. If you have picked a 3 column layout, you can see there are three layout options.

The next option down is the HTML framework. The default setting is Page Framework. The Full-Width-Framework will allow you to build a page that takes up the entire width of all monitors.

Below this you’ll see a cool feature, it the Outer Page Padding. This will add white space around your pages, which will surround the header, navigation bar, content section and footer.

Now jump over to the dashboard menu and click on Header Image. This is the place to check how wide of a page you’ve actually created. Pages are sites created today are generally between 960 pixels and 1050 pixels wide. The average page width has grown over the years as monitors and laptops have gotten wider.

Thesis Theme Design Options (Way too much fun!)

This is Thesis design control panel.  There are so many options it was impossible to take a screenshot with all the drop-downs open.  You can chose from over 50 fonts and have a different fonts for your header, menu bar, sidebar, headlines, etc.  The bottom line, Thesis is capable of doing almost anything.  If you can’t achieve it this control panel, you can probably make it happen with some CSS.

Uploading a custom header

While we are in the header upload section, upload the header for your site. JPEG are generally best because it will load fastest for your visitors. Your header image has to be at least as wide as what’s noted in this section. It’s best to have you header image cropped to the exact width you want, however, the program will crop it down if you don’t have a cropping or resizing tool.

If you don’t have a custom header image, Thesis will display the name and tagline you have entered under WordPress/General Settings. You can customize the font type and color in the Thesis Design Options, explained below.

Creating empty pages and posts

Now that we have the columns setup, and the header in place, let’s add a couple of pages and posts…and then show them on the menu bar. At this point I like to identify my home page. To do this, click on Setting/Reading in the dashboard and select Your Latest Post if you want a blog on your home page. You can show below how many posts to show on your home page. If you want a static page, check Static and use the drop down to select the page.

While you’re in this section, if you want a blog for you home page, type in the number of blog posts to show on your home page. Below is a section that talks about how to really fine-tune the blog layout with Thesis.

Click on Add New under Pages in the WordPress menu bar. In top entry box where you see Enter Title Here, type in the title that you want to appear on that page. On the far right, click on Publish. Next, select the layout for the page from the drop down template. Default template will be what you setup with the sidebar column layout or you can select no sidebar. You always come back and change it later.

I personally like to setup all of the pages first without any content, but please do whichever way you prefer.

Setting up the menu bar

Click on Thesis/Site Options. Within the Site Options page, click on Select Menu Type (just below Navigation Menu) and here you have an option of select the WordPress Nav Menu or the Thesis Nav Menu. The Thesis Nav Menu is highly customizable and the WordPress Menu Bar is not.

Open the section titled Pages next. Here you can alter the page title to something more appropriate for the menu bar. Add a check mark next the pages you want to appear in the menu bar and drag the pages to the order they should appear. The page at the top will appear on the far left of the menu bar and the one on the bottom will appear on the far right.

Next down is Categories. Select the categories that you want to appear in the nav bar.

And further below is Add More Links. This will add any links to your nav bar that would go off your website.

The next section will add Home to the beginning of you menu bar. If you’ve selected a static home page above and moved it to the top, you won’t want to select this option. If you want a blog for your home page and you want Home to appear on the menu bar, check this option.

Finally, if your site has a blog, you can select Feed Link so your RSS link will appear in the far right of the menu bar.

After clicking on the Big Ass Save Button, take a look at your site and you’ll see all the nav bar links there!

Setting all the Fonts, Colors and More!

In the dashboard go to Thesis Design Options. Once in there, go to section titles Fonts, Colors, and More where you can select the fonts and font colors for every part of your site. Just work your way down from the top. In Body (and Content Area) select the default font style to be used throughout your site. You can override this default font in any section below.

Next down you’ll see where you can select the colors for your site background, the page color, the primary text color and link color.

Just below that you’ll see the option to add a Cool Shadow Effect around your page as well as the option to show the Interior Layout Borders.

You can continue all the way down the column to customize the nav menu bar, page titles, paragraph titles, side bar titles and text, and even what appears in the footer.

How to Setup a Home Page Blog with the Thesis Theme

Go the Settings/Reading and click on Your Most Recent Posts for your home page. While you’re there, select set the number of blog posts that you want to show on the home page. Next, go to Thesis/Site Options. Open the sections under Home Page Display Options and select the same number of posts that you selected under Setting/Reading.

Next, under Display Options, choose what Bylines you want to appear below the post titles. Under Posts, select whether you want to show Full Post Content or Post Excerpts. I would recommend that if you want a summary description of each recent post to appear on the home page, select Full Post Content then add a More Tag within the post where the summary will end.

How to add your Google Analytics script to Thesis

Thesis makes this super easy. Go to Thesis/Site Options and then go to Stats Software/Script. The directions are right above the box, you just paste the script you get from your free Google Analytics accounts right here. It’s that easy!

Adding CSS and PHP code to the Thesis Theme

To get to this section, go to Thesis/Custom File Editor.

Here’s are some reason that you might want to use CSS code to further customize your website appearance:

You can add an image background to all pages or to an individual page. You can change margins throughout the website. For example, change the right and left page margins, add margin below the navigation bar or add margin above or below the page titles. You can use CSS to change the default menu bar text from all caps to no text transform. Just about anything you might want to do to the design of your site can be accomplished with some CSS code, and in some cases a bit of PHP code.

If you use the pull-down menu in the Thesis Custom Editor, you’ll be able to add PHP code here. PHP is used to changed functions within your website. Like the CSS code, you can copy the code right off the Thesis forum and paste it here. However, with PHP code you do need to be careful. A single incorrect character can cause your site and your dashboard to crash. Your site won’t be ruined, but you’ll need to use an FTP editor to get into your backend files to remove the bad code you added. My recommendation is to use an FTP editor if you want to touch the PHP code. That way, if you crash your site, the FTP file still works and you can just remove whatever you added. There are lots of FTP editors on the market, I personally prefer one called CoffeeCup by Direct FTP. http://www.coffeecup.com/

Here’s are two PHP examples:

Move the nav bar below the header

remove_action(‘thesis_hook_before_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);

add_action(‘thesis_hook_after_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);

Customize the footer

Remove the WordPress link and Thesis link from the footer and add your own footer information. The PHP code for my site is below. You can just change the text within the code for your own site and then paste it into your custom PHP file.

remove_action(‘thesis_hook_footer’, ‘thesis_attribution’);

function add_custom_footer () {

?>

<p style=”text-align:center;”>Copyright2010 | T2 Affordable Web Design | All Rights Reserved | Call: 425-260-6238 | Email: <a href=”mailto:tom@t2websites.com”>tom@t2websites.com</a>

<?php

}

add_action(‘thesis_hook_footer’, ‘add_custom_footer’);

Here’s the CSS example that was discussed in the class.

Customize the nav bar

This will extend your nav bar full width and add the color. Replace my 960px with your own page width and replace my color with your own.

ul.menu {width:960px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top:3px;background-color:#FF8218;}

This will remove the ‘all caps’ from the navigation bar.

.custom .menu a, .menu li ul
{
text-transform:none;
}

If you do a web search (or a WordPress plugin search) for ‘sliders’ you’ll find the selection a bit over-whelming.  Many that come up are out-dated and many are ‘feature-less’.  But there are two that are pretty impressive.

One is the DDSlider.   This slider has 11 different and striking transitional effects and you can set the effects to ‘random’.  The DDSlider is fully-customizable and can even handle HTML content instead of an image.  And, unlike most sliders, there’s even an alt field to help our your SEO!  You won’t find the DDSlider among the free WordPress plugins since it’s a premium plugin costing $20.  Learn more about the DDSlider.
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The other slider that come to the top is the Featured Content Gallery.  This is the one to use if you want a home page slider to point your visitors to specific posts or pages on your site.  It’s completely customizable with lots of advanced options including custom thumbnails, text, gallery styles and transitions.  The images and text for this slider are added within each individual post or page that feed into the slider.  See the Featured Content Gallery in action on the developers’ site.

It you want to make adding your social media links super easy just use the cool Social Media Widget by Brian Freytag.

The great thing about this widget is it comes preloaded with over 30 of the top social media icons and the option to add up to six custom icons. You can even plug in an icon for your own RSS link.

In addition to the obvious social media icons like Facebook and Twitter, this widget also includes icons forFlickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Skype, Digg and and many more!

It’s so easy to use you just plugin the URL to your social media pages and select the icon size you want.   You can globally preset the links to open in a new tab.  However, the greatest feature is you can choose from four different icon designs.

There are others similar widget, but this one seems to be the leader of that pack.  It’s compatible up to WordPress 3.0.1 and was last updated on September 7^th.

Read more about this widget in the WordPress.org plugin directory.

On any given day there are a ton of customers searching the net in need your product or service.  Are you getting your fair share of these customers?

First, it’s important to understand the thought process of the “online shopper” (be it for products or services) .  And quite honestly, the online shopper’s thought process isn’t that complicated.  For example, you do a Google search for a Seattle graphic designer and ten businesses come up on the first page alone, plus another eight appear as click-through ads in the right column… who do you check out first and how many of those “above the fold.”?  Most of us will read the business summaries that are near the top of the first page and click on the ones that best match our needs.

Online shoppers look at just a handful of these websites. After all, who has time to surf sites all day? Once on a site, the decision to stay or leave is made within seconds.  Part of the thought process to stay or leave is driven by our subconscious. Is the site warm, inviting, organized, logical and current or does it look cold, confusing, boring and outdated.  I’m not suggesting that people revamp their sites every three to five years just to stay trendy, but ask yourself, what year does your site look like it was designed? (Have you not changed your site because you are beholden to your designer or webmaster for even the small changes?)

The messaging on the home page needs to be crystal clear (or so compelling that visitors head to another page…does your home page answer the question: what’s the service or product and why is the business unique.  The combination of the visual impact and the main message keeps us on the site and moves us into another page to go deeper.

As shoppers, we don’t have time to call or email every business that had a good website, just the businesses that really pricked our curiosity.

So now that we’ve reviewed how the online shopper thinks, these 5 tips to get more business from your site will be much more meaningful.

1) Invest in Search Engine Optimization. When someone searches for your service or product, do you come up on the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing?

This part is critical, because no matter how great your site might be, if no one finds your site, well, it’s like having a store in the middle of a forest without any roads.

Depending on your business, you might be able to rank high just creating great page title tags and meta descriptions.   These take priority over the page content and basically tell the search engines what your page is about.   If you manage your own website with a program like WordPress, you can enter your own SEO title and description tags.  If your competitors have done a great job with their SEO, you will need to do much more to outrank them.  There are plenty of SEO experts out there that can help you.

An alternative to SEO is pay-per-click (PPC), also known as search engine marketing (SEM).   These are the ads that you see in the right hand column of the major search engine.   You bid on keywords and pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Local search engine marketing is one more way to get found on the internet and drive customers to your site.  Google and Yahoo/Bing both offer free listing on the local search.  They don’t list every business category but do list most business categories that have retail fronts and a few that don’t. This is a great way to get noticed if you are willing to invest the time.

And there are scores of other ways to get visitors to your site, like having a complete Biznik profile with your website link! Biznik is designed to be SEO friendly and therefore a fully populated profile is a potent marketing tool by itself. Get visitors to your Biznik profile and then link them over to your site to really sell them.

2)  Invest in great website design.  Your site needs to be warm, inviting, and professional-looking, otherwise the site visitors will run to the nearest exist.

Ideally, you want your website to have the WOW factor…a look that really impresses the site visitor.  It’s no different than a retail shopping experience…you’re much more inclined to stay and shop at REI than most other outdoor stores.

Your site should look like it was built in our current technology era.    One can easily recognize sites build in the prior technology era by their old school look.  Website designs have evolved to much wider pages as laptop and monitors have gotten wider.   And thanks to faster download speeds and innovative developers, the sites today are filled with huge images and ton of interactive functions.

3)  Give you site visitors a reason to stick around and a reason to come back. Make it interactive.

By interactive, I’m talking about videos, audios, image sliders, photo galleries, twitter feeds, flash presentations,  connections to your social media networks, polls, and of course a blog.  For WordPress alone there are over 13,700 plugins that add to the functionality of your website.  Give people easy means to stay engaged.

4)  Create a home page that captures the interest of your visitor.

You got just a few seconds! That warm and friendly feel must be present on your home page (and ideally throughout your site).  The messaging that tells the customer what you do and why you’re unique has to be crystal clear.  Finally, the navigation has to be logical and intuitive.  After all, the objective of the home page is to get the visitor to go deeper into your site and eventually contact you, or perhaps purchase something online.

If you’re not a designer, it’s worth the expense to get help from a graphic designer so your site will have the WOW effect that reflects your personality and values.  If you’re not a writer, it is worth getting help from a professional writer so your home page messaging truly reflects the essence of your business.  Please care about the quality of your writing for the sake of your business.

5)   Tell the visitor who you are and what you’ve done.

You’ve heard the saying people buy from people, not businesses.  As solopeneurs, this is SO true.  Your prospective customer needs to get more than just a warm and fuzzy feeling about your business, they need to also get that same feeling about YOU.

People want to know who’s behind the curtain.  Solopreneur, you are the business.  It used to be they wanted to see your resume and your experience.  Now prospective clients want to see your photo and see you in a video.  If your business involves working one-on-one with your clients, they want to feel conformable that you’re someone they both like and trust and get a sense of your personality and values.

And lastly, does your site reflect your accomplishments? Whether you’re a photographer, graphic designer, writer, landscaper, interior designer, etc. seeing your portfolio page is the piece that closes the deal.  And for those of you who have a portfolio, there are now so many exciting ways to display your work and WOW the visitors!

Embrace current technology and see what it pulls in for your business.  And if you are not a DIY kind of person, get the help you need where you need it. You’ll thank yourself for doing so.

This post has been relocated.

At last someone has developed a WordPress video plugin that lets the user select from video thumbnails and watch the video in the box above.   The few others that I’ve evaluated force the video the to open up in popup gallery that covers most of the page.  This plugin even lets the user click on another video thumbnail while one is playing.
There’s a free version of this  plugin as well as a premium paid version.   Here’s a list of some of the premium features:

• Embeds videos from YouTube.  (I suspect more partners to come.)
• Thumbnail titles.
• Video titles which can link to another page.
• Width and height control of the video box.
• Control of the video thumbnail sizes, number of row and columns.
• SEO tags.
• Customize the plugin color and format.

WordPress Morfeo Video Gallery home page

Hawkeye is a global channel practice agency.  Their primary objective  was to have both a static CMS site and a separate blog site.  Hawkeye wanted their marketing team to be able to maintain both sites so they could make instant changes, including adding pages, images, videos, audios, PDFs and forms.  Most importantly, they wanted the sites to match the exact graphic designs and layouts provided by their graphic designer.  Here are the rest of the key objectives:

Key static website objectives:

• Feature slider on the home page
• Rotating vendor logos on the home page
• Double row footer that incorporates several links and social media icon links
• Magazine layout design throughout the site
• The ability to create and style an unlimited number of data collection forms (i.e. contact, subscriptions, request a demo, seminar registrations, webinars, etc.)
• The ability to have password-protected pages that could only be accessed by specific clients

Key blog website objectives:

• Custom category image links in sidebar
• Unique sidebar for each category and author page
• Unique headers for each author page and each category page (28 total)
• A “Meet the Team” page for the 19 team members/authors
• Ability to view posts by author, category and month
• Search box that uses both keywords and tags plus a sidebar tag cloud widget

Testimonial

“T2 built both our CMS and our blog WordPress sites to the exact specifications of our marketing department. Both sites involved extensive custom coding to achieve both design and functionality. T2’s WordPress training for our staff brought our marketing team up to speed quickly. They managed to stay well ahead of us on all aspects of both projects. You’ll be impressed with this firm’s WordPress knowledge and ability to create a corporate CMS or blog to your precise specifications.”
William Gilsing
VP, Global Channel Strategies/Hawkeye Channel

Visit the Hawkeye Channel static site
Visit the Hawkeye Channel blog site

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