Technology

Blogging is one of the most popular ways to express yourself online. With a blog, you can share your ideas and insights with the whole world. One of the most popular blogging platforms is WordPress. If you are interested in learning more about this powerful tool, the following article can help.

Make sure you have a landing page. This will ensure that visitors arrive at a specific page instead of directing them right to your most recent posts. A landing page will help your site gain an air of authenticity and helps it to look a little more professional than it would have otherwise.

Most templates come with a landing page built in, so make use of it. This stripped down page allows you to focus their intention on exactly what you want them to look at, be it a sign-up form or a “Buy Now” link. This ensures they take the actions you want them to.

If you are new to WordPress, make sure to keep your sidebar simple. Make sure that it only has the essentials. Your visitors shouldn’t have to weed through a ton of ads and banners to find the links they want to click on. Try removing the items in Appearance & Widgets that don’t contribute anything to your cause or business.

Have you even worked on your site and thought that the changes you made were not saved? That’s most likely false. To deal with this issue, clear your browser cache. Try pressing and holding “shift” while refreshing to view your changes.

Get to know your WordPress WYSIWYG editor. When you write a new post, you’ll see a small bar that goes across the text input area. This is your WYSIWYG editor – meaning whatever you push will happen to whatever text you have highlighted. If you choose bold in the editor, the text you have chosen will become bold. It’s similar to using Microsoft Word.

If you want a post to stay at the top of the page, there is no need to set it’s date way in the future any longer. Instead, go to the post and click on Edit under Visibility. Choose the option which allows you to make the post sticky and enjoy!

As you begin getting comments on your posts, consider allowing people to post with an avatar. It helps your site feel like more of a community, and it only takes a minute to do. Simply go to the settings area of your dashboard and then click on “discussion.” You should see the option there to enable avatars.

If you need to work on your site, be sure to turn on a maintenance mode so that visitors aren’t surprised with the current state of your website. There are lots of maintenance mode plugins out there. And best of all, they are typically free. It’s a quick button push to toggle maintenance mode on and off.

Have you ever wanted to start your own blog? Now that you have read this article, you should have a better idea of how you can use WordPress to blog. Getting started is really not so hard once you take the time to learn the basics. Use these tips to get started today.…

Designing a website isn’t always an easy task. Compared with your competitors, how can you create an appealing design? How do you implement code? The following article can help you answer these questions so you can make a creative site and get your product sold.

Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There’s evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they’re readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor. Check to see if your site complies with various contrast standards using the tool at http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html .

Make sure your webpages aren’t too long. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and if your most important content is “below the fold,” it may not even be read. If you have a lot of related content that needs to stay together, consider breaking it up into sections and adding links to each section.

Frames went out in the 90s, so do not rely on them. While they worked well for the time, they caused many issues for website visitors. Visitors may find it difficult to scroll or bookmark your design when a frame design is present. A number of better ways exist that make it easy for users to navigate your site.

Make sure that you use the right anchor text. The anchor text of a link should clearly describe what the visitor should expect to see when he clicks on the link. For instance, if a link leads to your widget ordering page, the anchor text might read “Order widgets.” Specifically avoid using “click here” as anchor text.

Frames are one feature to eliminate if you are attempting to optimize your site for search engines. Users generally like frames, but information within frames is not picked up by the search engines. If important site information isn’t seen by a search engine, then your ranking won’t be as high as it could be. When that happens, not many people will see your site.

For your image tags, always try to include a brief description in the ALT attribute. Not only is this good for search engine optimization, but it is also beneficial to the sight-impaired users who rely on screen readers to describe image tag contents. Make your description short and as descriptive as possible.

Look for, and remove, broken links regularly. All links should be double checked before you upload them. You want to avoid broken links, because they make your visitors especially frustrated by promising certain content and then failing to deliver it. Ensure everything works before making your website public.

Reading this article is a great start, so consider printing it out and going over it a few times to absorb it’s content. As you continue to learn more about site design, it will become easier to retain a competitive edge.…

Do you want to establish an online presence for your business, giving you the potential to have followers that will buy your products? If so, then you’re in the right place. This article will go over how blogging can help you and your business succeed by building a virtual presence online.

Don’t become entrapped with “right now”. hot topic writing can only last as long as the hot topics do. Many times, that is a very short time period. Try writing content that can be easily read months and years down the road. Even if the content is about a hot topic, Try including something timeless in it.

Do not post a blog and move on. You need to interact with people who leave comments on your blog. When your readers know that they can have a conversation with you via your blog, you are more likely to keep them as active readers who follow what you are doing. If you post without commenting, eventually your readers will move on to greener pastures.

Add content to your blog several times each week. Strive to maintain a regular posting schedule, and dedicate yourself to adhere to it. Doing so will give your visitors ample content to read. Consistent posts will keep people returning to your site, if you keep it interesting and informative.

Study the different blog platforms that are available on the web and their feature sets before choosing what you will use. WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr are three of the most popular and they all have their own pros and cons. Do your research on the different platforms and see what works best for your goals.

Structure your posts so the reader can simply scan them to catch the gist. Those who read blogs are, as a rule, an impatient bunch. They flip back and forth between pages practically at the speed of light. If you want to get your message across, give them something that will catch their attention with just a quick scan.

it is useful to add lists to your blog. Lists are an important part of blogging, whether you are writing about the best animes of all time, or the most interesting celebrity hairstyles of 2011. Incorporating lists helps readers quickly find the information they’re looking for.

Read other blogs in related fields. This will give you an idea of how others are blogging successfully, and may give you ideas on how to improve your own blog. You may also find people willing to guest blog on your site. Remember not to plagiarize the content of other blogs.

Using all of the knowledge that you have gained should have you now feeling a lot more confident about blogging. You can use it to your advantage, especially if you have a business. One thing you want to take into consideration is how fast technology changes, so be sure you keep up with the latest there is to know about blogging and you should have no problem succeeding.…