Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category
Websites versus Blogs
Whilst working on my update to Binary Moon I've been thinking about the differences between websites and blogs. One of the things I am trying to do with the updated design is steer slightly away from the stereotypical blog layout and use lessons learnt from more traditional website design.
Since blogs first came about the designs have evolved considerably but the basic structure seems to remain the same. You have article pages (the blog posts), normal pages ...
Top 10 Tips for driving traffic AWAY from your website
Gone are the days of marquees, animated gifs and embedded midi files (thank God) but there are still things that people do that drive others crazy.
Since I am (still) working on my "redesign" for Binary Moon I thought I would look into what stops people from reading blogs. More specifically I was looking for reasons people would stop visiting a site, or worse, close it as soon as it loads.
The TipsThese tips are ranked in ...
How to Optimise : Time based Adsense
In my Adsense tips post the other day I mentioned time based ads, and how I like to display ads based on the age of the article they are on - I should probably point out that I only use this technique on single posts, and not on the site at large.
I really like this idea for a number of reasons:
It stops regular visitors from being snowed under with ads It means I don't have to see the adverts It gives ...My Top 5 Tips For Increasing Adsense Earnings (Without Increasing Traffic)
I have spent a long time trying to improve the advertising earnings on my websites and I have managed to go from a couple of dollars a month to 3 figures in a relatively short time, without increasing the amount of visitors to my site.
The tips I am about to tell you are what worked for me, but I encourage you to try different things as each site is unique.
1. Colour and PositionThis is probably ...
WordPress Tips and Tricks – Custom Login Page
It's cool to have the WordPress login page customized to fit your own website branding. This is even more significant for multi author blogs, or sites you have set up for clients as it adds that little extra something.
Since writing this post in 2007 I have released a plugin called BM Custom Login which does everything described below
I was actually inspired to write this post because of a 9rules note I started. David Airey beat me to the ...
Upcoming WordPress updates
Lorelle has posted about Wordcamp and the future of WordPress and there are a few things that caught me eye.
While little has been done to improve installation, upgrades, and WordPress Plugin updates, those are a priority for the WordPress development team.Excellent. I'd love some sort of built in upgrade system. Upgrading WordPress is generally quite easy but having 3 sites that use it means that the updates take longer and longer. A new cache proxy called WPCP is coming ...
WordPress tips and tricks – custom 404 (error) pages
One of the more underused features in wordpress themes is the ability to create and modify the 404 page - so to try to rectify this I thought I'd run through what I do with 404 pages on Binary Moon (and my other WordPress site). I use this simple technique to try to make errors a bit more and helpful for people who have ended up at the wrong place. I'm hoping that not too many people see ...
WordPress tips and tricks – Custom Page Templates
Some time ago I posted the first of my tips and tricks for WordPress, and I thought it was about time I posted some more so, to start things off, here is a short tutorial on custom page templates in WordPress.
Custom page templates are very much an underused part of the WordPress software yet they can do some very powerful things. Basically you can create a new template file and then use that to display WordPress pages ...
