There are a lot of plugins for Wordpress floating around and only in the last few months have I really started to explore and experiment with what is out there. Amongst my playing around, there was also a bit of serious work too, I have discovered my 5 plugins which I consider to be very powerful, useful, simple to implement and use and above all very Search Engine Friendly. I can honestly say that on every WP site I have built in the last couple of months (approx 4-5) I have used these 5 definitive “must have” Wordpress plugins. And here they are (in no order):

1. Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin dynamically generates an XML sitemap for your website. It pings and notifies all major search engines which can help increase the crawl rate, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask etc. You can add custom URLs to the sitemap, modify the Priority, Change Frequency and furthermore you can also submit this sitemap to your google webmaster tools (or equivalent).
2. Platinum SEO – Simply, Platinum SEO optimised your blog/website for search engines. Features include; canonical urls, automatic 301 redirects for change in permalink, automatically creates meta tags and loads more.
3. Broken Link Checker – Broken Link Checker crawls through your blog looking for broken links. If any are found you will be notified on your dashboard and be presented with a couple of actions in attempt to rectify the problem. It also picks up missing images.
4. Top Level Categories – This plugin’s task is simple yet very effective. Use it to remove the prefix before the URL to your category page. E.g. “yourdomain.com/category/latest-news/” would  simply be “yourdomain.com/latest-news/”
5. The Excerpt re-reloaded – This plugin does a little bit more than the standard Wordpress excerpt function. It allows you to choose excerpt length, html tags, the link text to full post and the html container of the excerpt. Makes for much more userful and prettier exceprts.

Generally I do try to keep image decorations to a minimum, but sometimes that little bit extra can help bring an image to life. Features such as a simple border or subtle drop shadow can really enhance an image.

Similiarly with images that are hyperlinks, we can’t expect to use javascript to change the image on a rollover, or create a sprite for every single image. CSS can provide an alternative to this issue with simplistic image rollovers.

I have created examples of 6 different techniques achieved with CSS that can help to enhance your image.

1.   Outside Border
2.   Drop Shadow
3.   Outer Glow
4.   Outer Glow With Border
5.   Rollover (Opacity)
6.   Rollover (Outer Glow With Border)

Click here to view the source and see these examples is action.

Working at a web company you could imagine I meet a few designers, the great thing is we each seem to have different tastes in what style of website hits the spot. Just like everyone has their own opinions on the look of the website, everyone also has their own preferred way of building their design. I believe it very important to work in the way you feel most comfortable and efficient.

I have found that overtime my processes have changed and improved, my skill level seemed to show major improvement when I challenged my initial methods of building HTML/CSS websites. I would actively try to build websites diffently each time I built another one. For a while now I have found myself to be most efficient if I do not even create a stylesheet until I have written all my HTML. This is a common method, but one I had never previously used as it never worked for me, I would prefer to work in sections. E.g build the head => style, build the menu => style etc

There are two major reasons why I now build “most” of my websites in this method:

1.    I can create all my HTML without even opening up a browser. On one screen have Photoshop, the other, my mark up. This saves a massive amount of “ALT-TAB” time.

2.    By creating all my HTML first, when I finally do review it I can see how it looks in it’s raw format. It helps to see if the flow of the current page makes logical sense. This is better for accessibility purposes and can help with SEO.

As mentioned, everyone has their own way to do things. The hard part is challenging these processes, stepping outside what you currently do just to try something different. It might not work for everyone, but it has been a substantial help in my personal development.

1. Home
2. About Us
3. Contact Us

For this design I wanted simple icons that looked great when they were very small. Another designer showed me the light and pointed me to an awesome collection called Fugue Icons.

This collection is very impressive boasting over 2000 icons, many of which look fantastic.  I though I would do the honorable thing and again share the love… so here you go.

Some clients on the other hand know a lot more than given credit for.

I recently had a web design project at the company I work for. It was a large project, consisting of a CMS, shopping cart and decent SEO campaign. I knew this client was on the ball as he had multiple online endeavors and was succeeding in most of them. I had sent off my initial homepage mock up, with three call to actions. I received the feedback via email and the client loved the design overall, with one change, he requested 5 call to actions on the homepage.

The email I received was quite thorough and was obvious that there was substantial thought put into these 5 buttons. I strongly disagreed with having 5 different directions to lead the visitor and I put together an email outlining my concerns. I then followed up with a phone call further explaining my email. The client pushed me to give in but I made my case quite strong and told him that ultimately, it was his choice, but advised against it. The client informed me he would think about it and get back to me, then hung up.

Moments later my boss received an email from the client praising that I am,  “on top of my game” and that he was just testing me to see if I was looking into his best interests and not just doing whatever he says to do.

The big thing I find, is that the boss, being the non-technical guy who runs the place, does not always understand how dynamic web projects can be. Webteam’s can be given KPI’s and targets within a business directly related to how much money they bring in for the month. This can be very difficult to commit to, and more often than not, the commitments cannot be kept for reasons beyond our control.

I’m am not saying web designers should be free from KPI’s and targets, I am simply saying the targets should be more than just how many dollars they bring in for the month. Not to mention that a month is a very tight deadline. The reason I think that straight dollar targets are unfair is because designers, who are in positions such as mine, do so much more than just work on projects that will bring money in for the month. Personally, I do an amazing amount of work other than revenue, 60% of my time last week was dedicated to non revenue work. Internal web design work, quoting, project managing and working on projects where the revenue belongs to departments other than my own.

Why is this work never accounted for?

Ultimately it comes down to the fact that I do not believe it to be an accurate measure to set monthly targets when it comes to Web Design. Rarely are any projects started on the 1st of the month and finished by the 31st, maybe a web projects profitability should be measured bimonthly?

If I set my team a target of $10,000 or $50,000 of revenue, surely all the in house work needs to be measured as a part of attaining this target. If I get to 3 weeks in the month and I am only sitting on 20% of my goal due to clients missing deadlines or overwhelming internal work, it is almost impossible to make it up. It is not like a sales team where you can go out and push to try and bring in new clients.

Unfortunately though, some people tend to forget that I am not a salesperson, I am a web designer.

A very valuable lesson that everyone designer needs to know is about having everything in writing. On so many occasions I have seen clients attempt to creep the scope of the project and squeeze just that little bit more for their cash.

Who can blame them, I would do the exact same thing.

For this reason it is our responsibility to be firm and reasonable with our clients. By having physical documentation of everything agreed on, if a client asks for something outside scope, you have solid ground to turn it down and the client will hopefully understand. Below is a quick checklist of items I suggest to keep in writing:

1. Agreed Cost of the design/build
2. A breakdown of what is included for that cost
3. What you need from the client and a date you need it by
4. Feedback on designs
5. Client signing off designs

In past experience I have noticed the big lifesaver to be number 5, Client signing off designs. To often do clients approve a final design layout for a page and when you have built it exactly as agreed on, they get a new idea and expect you to take care of it free of charge. By having the design signed off in an email, you will have the ability to mention and show them that they have approved it and signed it off. You can then act accordingly.

One example of such a situation was I had a client, whom we’ll call Raul Julia. I was designing and building a straight HTML website and Raul Julia had approved multiple mock ups over the phone. just as the website entered the final review stage and was almost ready to go live, the client wanted to completely change the look and layout of the main navigation. I mentioned that he had signed it off and it was too big a task for me to tackle free of charge. Long story short, he denied signing it off and I had no proof that he had, so I had to take it as a loss.

Above: The Real Raul Julia

Ultimately, the client will generally want changes and it is at your discretion whether you charge them for it or not, personally if the changes are minor and few I am happy to cover them for the sake of the client – designer relationship. There is a line though and it is the web designers responsibility to draw it.

I ran into a snag though, fitting it into my room.

You see I have a fairly small bedroom, and trying to squeeze it in amongst my CD’s, DVD’s and electronic drumkit and amp required a completely new redesign. So I threw around a few ideas, got a few suggestions and eventually agreed on something worth a try. It was going to require some new furniture and the disposal of a 15″ TV I have had since grade 3 of primary school. Kind of an emotional, yet necessary departure.

So first thing was to got through all my current furniture, clothing, computer parts and other miscellaneous items and finally dispose of the unwanted goodness. You would not believe how many toys I had just hiding away gathering dust. This took in excess of 6 hours. Two hours of which was probably wasted staring at and having flashbacks about my awesome sega collection, Multiple Master Systems 1 and 2, multiple Sega Mega Drives and boxes, boxes of games.

Next I headed out to look for some cheap furniture to store everything. I already knew my TV was going up on the wall, the only place it could fit. So my idea was to have a bookshelf underneath it to hold a stereo, dvd player, vinyl player and some toys, and on either side of this shelf two tall CD/DVD towers standing high enough for my speakers to sit on top of and beside the TV. $160 I spent on funiture and I was stoked. The CD/DVD Towers only cost me $40 each.

So I spent an entire 5 hours reorganising my room and putting the furniture together and I might say, I am quite happy with the results. Apart from the obviously wicked setup, another cool feature is the fact I have my TV, DVD and vinyl player ALL playing through my stereo.

Call me arrogant, but considering my budget, I’d say I did a bloody fantastic job throwing it all together.

Sometimes the results can be quite interesting.

I love looking through my top queries, you sometimes get some amazing long tail key phrases that people are somehow finding you for. For example I am found for the following:

“executive ball clicker” => Position 2
“hell clicker” => Position 16
and my personal favourite… “my girlfriend’s mother” at a strong 15th position

I am not the only one to notice these interesting results a few friends of mine have been found for some… interesting tags like “fat people f**king“, “fat people hugging” ,“f**king fat f**ker hugging” and the amazing “young boobs“. In each of these occasions the site has nothing to do with the phrases mentioned.

I guess these, and many more freak occurances, show how easy and potentially useful long tail key phrases can be in drawing fresh traffic to your website. If one would apply only the simplest of a range of certain keyphrases in content more regularly, I could image some very strong results may come out of it in the long run.

I was recently asked about “doing something” after a FLV has finished playing is Flash 8 (Actionscript 2), and I realised, hmmm….

I have never actually needed to do that before.

So I decided to look into it, turns out it is actually really simple. Just run through the whole importing a video process (making sure it is a “progressive stream from the webserver”) and give your video component an instance name; in this case we’ll call it videoPlayer.

Next, create your new actions layer and add the following code to it:

That’s it! It’s that simple and you can make it do whatever you like.

Some more useful things to know are the following:

Click here to view a fully working example or here to download it instead.