Customizing Your Blog…

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Larry

…and by blog I mean WordPress website.

WordPress Themes

There are probably hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes in the wild, and a LOT of them have the standard BLOG format. “The Blog Format” is slightly difficult to get away from but it's an easy-to-navigate layout. Header, Content, Sidebar, Footer. Some themes will pull featured or other specific content. That is one of the beautiful things about WordPress, it's an excellent content management system (CMS). It can be as robust as you can imagine, but as you start to really imagine, you have to add modules you may not understand in order to add certain functionality. There is a way create custom fields on the back end so that WordPress Content actually becomes more of a “plug” form. Picture here, price here, check this, check that and you have a very versatile website.

That is not really the customization I was wanting to talk about though.

Brand Your Site in the Header

I want to talk about some of the most BASIC ways to customize your site to brand it to your company. The first and foremost way is to have a header graphic designed. You can try to do it yourself, but I recommend against it. There are hundreds, probably thousands of people on fiverr.com or craigslist.com that will be more than eager attempt to design a header for you.

I am not adverse to cheap labor, but I believe you get what you pay for. $5 for a design? It might look better if you let your 5 year old nephew whip something up in crayon. I recommend trying to find a local freelance designer. Agencies will usually be too big and too expensive with their time to actually want to work with you, but a freelancer might be willing to do a few quick designs for $20 or $30 bucks.

Before you head off in search of a designer, you need to think about what you want the header to convey. Who is your audience? What do they expect to see as far as how you represent yourself? If you're selling a product, should images of the product be in the header? Is your face/name the brand? Do you have an actual logo? A slogan or hook can also appear up here.

Another important element to think about is your colors. Your header and theme colors should work together, not against each other. For this reason, it's important to either know how to use CSS or get a theme where you can actually adjust some of these options. Remember, the more options a theme has, the harder it is going to be to use and interact with different plugins. I have been recommending Weaver 2 lately, since it does give you a good control over colors and such, but don't fall in love with it or take it as gospel, it may not be the easiest to work with if you really want to change layout elements. I have found it difficult to work with on a few projects since it does have so many options, it can take away some of the things you want to do.

That said, if you plan to upgrade the theme when upgrades come along, then DO NOT CUSTOMIZE—or let any web people customize—any of the code of the theme. That includes html, php, or stylesheet of the theme. It will break at the upgrade. That is not to say you can't use the theme options, just do not go and alter the code.

There is an art and a science to web design. Learn how easy it can be at the Internet Marketing Training Center. Visit our website and download the Free Career Brochure.

Web Design Trends

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Tom Antion

Taking a Look at Web Design Trends

Web Design Trends

One way to keep up with Web Design trends is to peek in and analyze what the larger companies are doing. By doing so you can learn what's the latest styles, and elements that are being implemented within new websites. Below we will discuss a few things I've noticed about the latest trends many are applying to their web design.

Color Uniqueness

One of the biggest things I've notice as far as appearance is the color scheme of newer websites. Many are taking more risk from the normal, black, blue, white, and are incorporating more vibrant colors such as red, yellow and green. By doing so gives the website an attractive, eye catching, and more unique look which helps the site stand out. I've also notice that many are using on average three color tones throughout the site.

More CSS and No Flash

At one time, many web designers were using lots of Flash to enhance a website's appearance. But these days, Flash is long gone and not usable anymore, as all browsers now block Flash. You see more “web friendly” designs applying CSS3 and HTML5.

Creating More Dimension

While creating a website with dimension and adding a cool experience for your visitors, it's not always a good choice for some websites. If your an Internet Marketer this may be a bit of “overkill” in your case. However, creating 3D effects and dimension for your website can be lots of fun, plus attract visitors like flies on flypaper. The particular technique I'm talking about is called Parallax Scrolling.

The effects can actually stimulate ones visuals sense, enticing them to explorer your website even deeper due the patterns and movements of how everything flows throughout the website.

High Resolution Photographs

Another method dominating the scene that many designers are implementing are high resolution photographs to give websites a unique and expressive look. By doing this, websites can grab visitors attention instantly. But, you must be careful not to overpower the actual textual content.

Mobile Friendly Web Design

Due to the fact that more individuals own smart phones nowadays than an actual computer, it's important to have mobile friendly websites. Mobile Internet surfing is at an all time high and growing, so it's wise for any website owner to compliment this mobile trend by making mobile friendly web designs.

Visit the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia

Internet Marketing Education – What Are META Tags?

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Tom Antion

Let’s look at an analogy that might help you understand what HTML coding is. Have you ever been to the theatre? What you see on stage is the actors, the furniture, the scenery, etc.

Behind the stage is all the rigging that makes the play work.What you see on stage is analogous to your webpage. What you see behind the stage is analogous to the HTML code. Your browser (most likely Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox) interprets all the crazy looking HTML code from “back stage” and makes it look like a webpage.

So, now that you know what HTML is, let’s look back stage and see how META Tags apply to your site.META Tags are being used less and less, and you certainly shouldn’t depend on them to get high rankings, but you still should have them because they help you control what the search engines results list says about your site when someone does a search for your topic.

If you want to see some samples of META Tags, open a browser (Internet Explorer) and click on “view.” Then click on “source”. A new window will pop up and you can look at all the behind-the-scenes HTML programming of just about any webpage.

Here's an example of what the META Tags look like:
Sample META Tags

Note: The <TITLE> Tag should be the first thing after the <HEAD> Area of the page and then comes the “description” META Tag and then the “keyword” META Tag.

<HEAD>

<TITLE>Customer service training</TITLE>

Making web pages is pretty easy to do now and you generally don't have to know much about HTML. However, you do have to go a little bit behind the scenes to learn about META Tags, But you don’t have to go too far because the new web authoring programs help you make the Meta Tags. Also, WordPress has plugins that make META Tags for you.

Interested in learning more?

Web Design: Google Penalties and How to Avoid Them

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Tom Antion

While studying Tom Antion’s book, Click, The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Speakers, and his three-prong approach to Internet marketing, I came across a section on Google penalties and how to avoid them. The book describes five common penalties, the causes and what you can do to make sure your website isn’t penalized. Whether you are having a web designer create a new website for you or you have an existing website, arming yourself with this knowledge can prevent a lot of grief in the long run. It’s definitely a case of what you don’t know can hurt you.

The book cautions against the practices listed below:

Linking to sites that are banned or penalized.
Having dozens and dozens of new links coming to the exact same page over again with the same anchor text.
Adding links to your site too fast.
Running more than one site off a single IP address, and heavily cross linking those sites.
Stuffing keywords into your website
Piling up excessive reciprocal links, directory submissions, backlinks from unrelated or low-quality sites.
Using too many links from sites that do not match your theme or industry niche.
Using stagnant linking strategies, obvious over-optimization and just general neglect.
Buying your way into the search results with paid links or link farm.
Being heavy on AdSense but light in content.
Using over optimization, poor or irrelevant link schemes and poor content.

To learn more about these common practices and the how to avoid the penalties Google imposes for using them, see http://www.antion.com/click.htm. If you would like to know more about designing your website using acceptable webmaster principles, visit http://imtcva.org/program/curriculum/.

Web Design: What Is Web Accessibilty and Why Does it Matter?

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Tom Antion

If you have done even the tiniest bit of web design and entered alt text for an image, you have already encountered the concept of web accessibility. Maybe you were in a class and instructed to type a description of the image into the alt text field. You may have even received a brief explanation that alt text helps people with vision problems because a screen reader will read the words to them and they will know a specific image is being loaded onto the web page.

While alt text helps the visually impaired, there are people with other disabilities that you may not have considered when designing your website. These people may have mobility issues, deafness, color blindness, learning disabilities or difficulty concentrating. The practice of making your website usable by people of all abilities and disabilities is called “web accessibility.”

Why make your site web accessible?
The obvious reason to design a web accessible site is to make it easier for people with disabilities to use your site. However, there are two other reasons to keep in mind:

To avoid lawsuits and bad publicity
To benefit from a wider audience

Making online content more accessible
The United States Distance Learning Association offers these ideas for making online content more accessible:
1. With an audio excerpt also provide a text transcript of that excerpt.

2. Many blind students use screen readers to read a website. To help these readers, use tags in your web designs to give alternative explanations for images and links.

3. Avoid long, scrolling pages, and avoid putting important information at the bottom of a page because if a screen reader starts at the top of the page, it may take a long time to get to this content at the bottom of the page.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) offers guidelines for web page accessibility (see http://www.w3.org/WAI)

Web developers can download aDesigner for free from http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/adesigner. This tool is a disability simulator, and will test your website for accessibility problems.

Where can you learn more?
There is much to learn and much you can do to make your site available to everyone. Fortunately, there is also much information to assist you in achieving web accessibility. For starters, check out WebAIM’s site. WebAIM is a non-profit organization within the Center for Persons with Disabilities and their site is packed with information to help you understand how people with disabilities interact with the web and how you can design your website to comply with principles and standard regulations.

Here’s what you will find on their site:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines with four legal principles (POUR)
Principles of Accessible Design
Training and technical support
Experiences of Students with Disabilities

See WebAIM at http://www.webaim.org/intro/.

To learn more about designing your website, visit http://imtcva.org/program/curriculum/

Web Design: Why You Need Your Own Website

Posted on October 16, 2010 by Tom Antion

Why should you have your own web site?

If you provide products and services to sell, you need a web site to market them. Here’s what your own web site you can do for you:

• Earn more money.

• Generate more product sales.

• Post your press kit online.

• Reduce printing costs.

• Establish credibility.

• Increase the number of people who have heard of you.

The Concepts of Internet Marketing

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Larry

Marketing is not a new concept. The Internet is no longer new, but it continues to evolve almost daily so that there are new opportunities and new ways for doing things. I don't think anyone could have predicted the rise of Facebook or Twitter, yet these are becoming business essentials.

One thing we all hate is junk mail. We we started getting junk email someone, somewhere, (sadly, it wasn't me) coined the term “spam” and now we can use it for quite a few things. Basically, spam is unsolicited marketing. With the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter, we can now “opt-in” or “subscribe” to the information we want. We DO want to here about specials deals from our favorite stores. We do want to hear what our favorite celebrities are doing without having to go buy a gossip rag—as well as getting the low down straight from the horses mouth. We want to hear about when our favorite movies, video games, tech gadgets come out. We want to be connected! We just want to control that.

So, this is all great if you are a giant company. You aren't really marketing or promoting, your just kind of expanding your presence. What if you are the little guy? The little business? The entrepreneur? That's where the marketing comes in.

You have to get out there and get in front of the traffic. There are all sort of avenues for that on the Internet. Not all of them may apply to your business. Some will, and some will need to be tied into other more traditional forms of promotion.

For instance, our children are growing up with the Internet as entertainment. There are all sorts of games, all sorts of forums, all sorts of ways to entertain themselves. If they aren't creating themselves, they can FIND people out there creating. There are kids on YouTube, making a fortune being stupid. There are adults making a fortune on the YouTube being ridiculous. Unfortunately, “ridiculous” is often funny and if you can draw people in (we're taking about word-or-mouth campaigns that takeoff) and when the people show up, businesses want to pay to sell them something. If you have the attention of the public, there are businesses that want to stand right next to you and bask in the glow—showing off their latest product of course.

That's what you want to do. You want to get in front of the people show off what you have. That's what we teach over the Internet Marketing Training Center. We teach the concepts of marketing on the Internet and how best to apply those concepts.

Don't believe me? Check out some of the people who are getting rich off of applying the principals of Internet Marketing.

Ilya Pozin : Made his first million by the time he was 25.

Gloria Starr: Travels the World as an Image Consultant. Grew her business on the Internet.