Categories
Software

WooThemes WordPress Themes Review

I've been setting up a few new sites with WordPress, and the premium themes I bought over time have been a huge source of frustration.

Every single one of them had huge bugs – clipped sections, missing images, and more. On my main blog, I had to edit the code to fix several issues.

So it was a very pleasant surprise when I installed Inspire, from WooThemes. Not only everything worked perfectly, their menu system is particularly good and well organized – instead of the huge pile of unrelated options I've seen on other premium themes.

They have very nice documentation too.

While I was writing this review, I realized Inspire had a new update (looks like they are always getting updated). The site had somehow removed it from my account. I contacted support on a Sunday afternoon, and by Sunday night they had answered and corrected the problem. Awesome!

Very recommended. I will definitely be replacing the theme for this blog when I can.

Check out Inspire on WooThemes

Inspire Main Page

Categories
Uncategorized

20 Helpful WordPress SQL Queries Snippets

http://speckyboy.com/2011/03/23/20-helpful-wordpress-sql-queries-snippets/

Useful SQL Queries Snippets that can be used on your WordPress Database to Search and Replace Post Content, Batch Change Image URLs, and much more.

Categories
Articles

MailChimp: easily getting more data from your subscribers

Interesting article on how to get more data from your subscribers on MailChimp.

What I liked about this idea is that you get the advantage of minimal initial form fields – this increasing completion – while still asking for the data later with minimum extra work.

Categories
Site Reviews

Optimizely Review

Editing a test page

Optimizely is a very cool A/B Test service. I've spent some time using it on my site for simple tests, and I really liked how the basics work. Unlike other services (in particular Google Website Optimizer), Optimizely only has one simple line to be added to every page you want to test. You don't have to go and add code for every single experiment. Making test pages is very easy too. As you can see in the image below, you can just load any page, and then click on any element to edit, add or change images or texts, or set any link as a goal.

After a test is started (which only takes a few clicks), data starts getting collected. After some time, you get a result page.

Result Page

I've used Optimizely for a few small tests. One was about changing the screenshot on my Print Folder product for a YouTube video tutorial. Results show that I get about 70% more downloads with the video version.

Conclusion

Since I saw the review of Optimizely on the Pro Web Design Course , I had to try. It just looked a whole lot better and easier than any of the other services. I really like Optimizely overall. It is incredibly easy to use, and require minimum effort for editing the page – which is a major plus if you are not used to editing HTML and CSS.

If you don't care about that, Google WebSite Optimizer can be a better option. You will save money every month – US$19 for Optimizely's basic plan, which does not include multivariate testing – and overall it seems to have more features. However, you are going to be paying a price on the time it takes to learn to use it, as well as time creating pages and coding for even minor changes.

I've tried Google WebSite Optimizer, and I've gone back to Optimizely.

Optimizely has a free 30-day trial, so I recommend you try them out.

 

Categories
Software Release

STG FolderPrint Plus 3.85 released

STG FolderPrint Plus 3.85 is now available at http://www.stgsys.com/files/stgfpp.exe

 

3.85 (24/Aug/2011)

  • Minor Fix for MP3 Rename
To explain, MP3 Rename has to clear a few characters from ID3 when it creates filenames. I've added a few, including ? which has caused problems for users.
Categories
Software Release

STGThumb 3.20 release, with Google Web Fonts support


I've just released STGThumb 3.20 .

The biggest change in this release is the addition of support to Google Web Fonts. I've changed the Classic sample album with it on.

To use it, just look at Google Web Fonts and pick the name of the font you want. Go to HTML Configuration, enter the name, turn it on and and STGThumb will add it to your album. The fonts are loaded directly from Google's servers, so you don't have to upload anything else.

I've also increased the default size of thumbnails to 250×250. Average Monitor resolution and internet access speed have increased quite a bit in the ten years since the original release.

Categories
Software

OnStage App – Collaborative e-mail design

MailChimp released today the first version of their new Collaborative e-mail design app – OnStageApp .

The concept is pretty cool – you can easily link to your MailChimp and share a design with other people. So they can mark places and suggest changes.

Check out their blog post for more details.

 

Categories
Articles

Authorship and WordPress

Google has recently started using Authorship – with rel=”author” on a link – to add author information to search results.

This really adds a nice dimension of trust and familiarity, as photos are also displayed, and the author info can work across any number of sites.

It is very easy to add on WordPress  (or anywhere) – just add a link to your Google Profile with ?rel=author added on your profile's Bio box. For example, mine is

<a href=”https://profiles.google.com/102503450010826329059?rel=author”>Google+</a>

See the general instructions on Google Answers.

Please note that there was another system that used rel=”author” as  a separate attribute. Google still recognizes this, but I imagine that a lot of CMS and comment systems didn't allow for the attribute, so they decided to simplify the system.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgFb6Y-UJUI]

Categories
Articles

Newsletter Plugins for WordPress

News Icon

News IconIf you want newsletter plugins for WordPress, you can find a whole bunch of them, with many different levels of quality and features.

One new plugin released recently is e-Newsletter by WPMU, which are well know for the quality and range of their WordPress plugins.

e-Newsletter has some great features, including professionally designed newsletter templates, unlimited groups and subscribers, tracking, and more.

Pretty cool. If you are looking for a way to send newsletters from WordPress, you should check it out at WPMU.

Pros: Easy to install and use, nice features, good support.

Cons: Not free. It uses your own host to send the e-mails, so the deliverability might be inferior to professional services. Plus your own host might have limits on total e-mails per month or hour. But that is a problem shared by pretty much all newsletter plugins for WordPress, or any self hosted solution.

Because of those reasons I personally use MailChimp myself.

Categories
Articles

Actual vs Standard Bounce Rates

Very interesting SEO article about Actual vs Standard Bounce Rates , and how search engines can tell the difference.

The basic principle here is that even if someone spends several minutes reading your page, if they don't click elsewhere in your site it is a standard Bounce. But if they click on to your page and back to the search engine a few seconds later, that is an actual bounce.

 

Most analytic packages won't make a distinction between the two situations, but you can still look at the average time on the page.