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Two Favorite Free WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins (ones that you may not be aware of)

Marc — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:38:00 +0000

For many years I used NextGen to create, manage and display photo galleries in WordPress. It was and is a very good gallery plugin. But then WordPress’ native image tools became much much better following the version 3.1 and subsequent updates. And I like being able keep all the images together in WordPress’ native media manager and use just one media library system. It also makes it easier to maintain optimal image SEO across all of a website.

For that reason I use NextGen much less these days and instead reach for either Shiba Gallery or Gallery To Slideshow. Now a little about each.

Shiba Gallery:

“The Shiba Gallery Plugin allows you to display a variety of javascript galleries within your WordPress blog. All you need to do is specify the type of gallery you want in your regular WordPress gallery shortcode.

The Shiba Gallery is very flexible and can render post, page, and gallery objects, in addition to image attachments.”

You gotta love Shiba Gallery’s flexibility, plus the huge library of included javascript galleries, particularly the ease of use of noobslide (a favorite), and that is can present even pages and posts in a slider. All within the native WordPress media manager. In using this plugin over the last almost two years, I have yet to be presented any conflicts caused by Shiba Gallery. It is a very tight well crafted gallery plugin. I wish I was in the WordPress plugin repository, but it is not. So you don’t see it all over the WordPress website universe, which can be good if you want to make your galleries look a little unique.

Gallery to Slideshow:

“Gallery to Slideshow converts the built-in gallery into a simple and responsive slideshow. It uses the FlexSlider jQuery image slider, and requires zero configuration from the user.”

For 2012 I am trying to make all my websites fully responsive to the device and display used by the visitor. With the huge growth of all types and sizes of mobile devices, and mobile users increased likelihood of purchasing, and Google’s advice to use only one domain (no mobile domains or subdomains) I believe responsive design is the best way to go! So the relatively new Gallery to Slideshow is getting a lot of use on the sites I am creating for photographers and others. It is simple and easy to use. And presents a good-looking fully functional gallery for Windows, Mac, Android or iOS visitors regardless of the browser and display size.

Although Shiba has many great and attractive features and is very reliable, the growth of mobile and the related marketing advantages has made Gallery to Slideshow my current “reach for first” WordPress gallery plugin. And I hope that Shiba will someday add responsive css.

Below are a couple of quick screen shots from the same site/page using Gallery to Slideshow, one with the browser at about 1140px width, and one at less at 400px width. You are welcome to visit the webpage gallery yourself and test it on different devices. If you have any display or sizing comments or other favorite responsive image gallery plugins, please let me know in the comments.

WordPress Apps for Smartphones and Tablets Allow for Easy Website/Blog Posting and Management

Marc — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:41:58 +0000

For us here in the northern hemisphere, it’s Spring and travel and vacation time will be increasing. And the time spent on your website for business or fun will be more difficult to manage.

Fortunately if your site or blog is based on the WordPress CMS there is help. WordPress provides apps for your mobile device that provides an easy to use interface and allows you to add content and images from your phone/tablet. And to more easily manage other aspects of your website and blog.

So you can put up information as easy as can be. It can be your latest vacation photos, a destination wedding images or events related to your company or products/service. Items for sale in your WordPress based shopping cart. Or even an open house.

Here are links for more information and to download the WordPress mobile device apps.

Apple iPnones and iPads – http://ios.wordpress.org/
Android smartphones and tablets – http://android.wordpress.org/
Windows phones – http://windowsphone.wordpress.org/
Blackberry smartphones and tablets – http://blackberry.wordpress.org/
Nokia spartphones – http://nokia.wordpress.org/
HP (WebOS) smartphones and tablets – http://webos.wordpress.org/

It is advantages like this which are just part of the reason that all sites we create use WordPress. WordPress websites provide the best, affordable internet marketing tools for small business.

The best Pinterest pin button WordPress plugin

Marc — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:39:23 +0000

I just wanted to share an outstanding WordPress plugin for helping your site visitors Pin your content to their Pinterest pin board. Pinterest has become a social media phenom and invaluable referral resource to many small businesses. I have added the code manually and have also used all the other Pinterest plugins in WordPress plugin repository and nothing at this time compares to the functionality, flexibility, reliability and ease of use as Phil Derksen’s Pinterest “Pin It” Button!

Phil seems to know almost as much about Pinterest as the developers and seems committed to keeping the plugin up-to-date and making use of any new features Pinterest adds. He is even contemplating how to incorporate a possible Pinterest API, if and when they make it public. And he has a support website dedicated just to the plugin!

If you want to take advantage of the potential of Pinterest, just add it to your WordPress blog or website. It works great!

Better, easier SEO Splash pages for Flash template websites

Marc — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:28:15 +0000

Many Flash site owners, and prospective Flash site owners, have grown fond of the typical splash page commonly associated with BluDomain and similar Flash website templates. Splash pages were originally added to Flash templates to potentially enhance SEO. Unfortunately most of them have not kept pace with the advances in search engines and SEO over the last decade.

The Flash template splash page reinvented.

The success of our low-cost $197.00 WordPress super setup has prompted us to make it even better by including a unique Splash page template in the most chosen WordPress premium theme.

Retaining much of the of the spare, essential aesthetic of many current Splash page layouts, but adapted and improved in a new easy to use WordPress page template. No more laboring in WordPress to get everything spaced and centered … just add images, write content, use the point and click interface for styling and publish. The new WordPress based Splash page is dynamic and designed to reduce your site’s bounce rate and retain visitors longer. Plus it includes the highest level of SEO features and advantages possible.

WordPress custom, crawlable, drag and drop menu bars allowing for many integrative links into the rest of your site.

Six unique widget containers for the most interactive and engaging page supporting your calls to action.

Dynamic large slider that includes 20 different transitions and retains image meta data for better SEO.

And all the rest of the features, advantages and more that you would expect in a premium WordPress theme.

You can now chose a WordPress theme with a ready-made Splash template designed to provide the highest level of SEO possible for your existing Flash based website. Have the best of WordPress and the appearance of the Splash page you like. Virtually all Flash template providers recommend having a blog for SEO, now let your blog also manage your Splash page for even better SEO. Visit the demo site and explore the new WordPress splash page template and theme.

New Miami Wedding Videographers’ Website for Scott Wolfson

Marc — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:13:51 +0000

Scott Wolfson Films in Miami is a great videographer doing event video from weddings to bar/bat mitzvahs. Scott’s professional news and broadcast video experience allows him to create standout wedding video for Miami and South Florida couples.

Old site screen capture

Because of low traffic and search engine rankings Scott emailed me. He had determined that his BluDomain website was not working for his businesses’ internet marketing. At the time we began working to improve Scott’s web presence was a standard BluDomain Flash site and a WordPress.com based blog. Each were using different domain name URLs causing linkback dilution, and there was even a masked third domain URL causing even more linkback dilution and confusion.

The first step of the project was to bring his old WordPress.com blog into his primary domain and begin create a new WordPress based splash/landing page. And coalesce the multiple domain names to only scottwolfsonfilms.com while creating 301 redirects for each of the other two domains and all the indexed/linked content of those two domains to their corresponding content at scottwolfsonfilms.com.

Miami Wedding Video Scott Wolfson

Next we sought to find a better way to display video, than what was provided in his BluDomain template. At this point we decided that the entire site would become WordPress. Scott’s Miami wedding videos are beautiful and it is important to share them in an attractive way. The BluDomain template maximum video display was only about 400 pixel wide and was only available to devices using Flash, so no iPads or iPhones. We decided to utilize the new self-hosted WordPress elements of his website to present his wedding and event video examples using HTML5 techniques. We wanted more than just the common video embedded video in a webpage. What we decided to use was a lightbox effect that expands the video and floats in over a darker background giving the Scott’s wedding and event video an almost theatrical appearance. And the video display size is automatically responsive to the visitor’s screen size. Here is a sample - http://scottwolfsonfilms.com/jamie-davids-wedding/

For the final design and implementation step Scott wanted to come up with a new look that would use his familiar logo and at the same time SEO very well. Scott reached out to graphic designer Danielle Figel who presented a new header design and many other details. These elements were then incorporated into a new WordPress splash/landing home page that includes strong SEO, call to action and contact information.

Since Scott can now use his new site for search marketing and reaching potential new clients for Miami area wedding and event videography his is steady adding new posts and pages content written with his key marketing phrases and sharing examples of his work.

If you would like to know more about any elements of Scott’s site or have other questions please comment, email or call.

Please don’t install WordPress in a folder or directory named “blog”

Marc — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:31:02 +0000

WordPress can work wonders improving the SEO and search marketing for websites that are also using Flash based templates from companies like BluDomain, Portfoliositez, Flashpalette and the like, but many people lose some of the advantages by placing their WordPress install in a folder or directory named “blog”.

This may seem an easy way to do it, but it can create an unresolvable redirection if you want to use WordPress to create and manage an optimized Splash or Landing page and have a link to a blog page. The primary reason for the redirection problem is that your blog page and the folder named blog are sharing same.

Please go ahead and install WordPress in its own, just use a folder name other than “blog”. Having WordPress in it own folder makes it easy to keep the files from your Flash website separate from the WordPress files. And you can still access the page holding your blog posts and even create a new SEO maximized WordPress splash or landing page for your website.

If you have questions and would like to learn more please feel free to leave a comment, send an email or even call. I am happy to explain.

And remember if you wish, we have a quick, low-cost expert setup service specializing in integrating WordPress with websites using Flash templates.

SEO review of BluDomain’s new EMMETT HTML5 website template

Marc — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:31:59 +0000

Just a couple of days ago BluDomain introduced their first HTML only website template named Emmett. That’s right no Flash, none, it is all HTML just like their Mini Blog. In fact Emmett is marketed as an HTML5 template (more on that later).

Since it is all HTML and BluDomain represents their HTML offerings as having better search engine optimization possibilities than their Flash offering, I thought I would perform a quick SEO review of Emmett.

Being all new and HTML5, I had hoped to find the SEO potential of Emmett much better that the rest of BluDomain’s templates. Unfortunately it was not to be. I really wish I could find something good to say about this first HTML5 offering from BluDomain in terms of SEO, but it is not there. (At least in the demo provided on Bluomain’s website.) Not only does it use some design techniques that restrict search engine crawling and indexing, it is lacking in good structure and features for effective SEO improvement much the same as the other BluDomain HTML add-ons. A properly installed and themed WordPress install in conjunction with this BluDomain template will provide much better SEO opportunities and performance (and responsive design) than the BluDomain Emmett HTML5 template.

As for being HTML5, while having some HTML5 and CSS3 elements it is not HTML5. Not to mention that the HTML5 specification is not intended to move to Recommendation status until 2014. In fact the HTML doctype in the Emmett template is declared as “http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd” or HTML4 Strict. That said, it is a responsive design template that presents a different appearance depending upon the screen size of the visitor’s device using CSS3 techniques. A nice feature that will be better as time and technique progresses. Test Emmett yourself using a smart-phone.

Overall it is nice to see BluDomain’s possible first steps away from Flash, but unfortunate that the template was not designed with SEO in mind. In 2012 search marketing is too important and the ROI too great to ignore, yet unfortunately it is in Emmett.

BluDomain template name Emmett
Template cost $100, not including hosting or installation.
Audited HTML page: http://www.bludomaintemplates.com/emmett/#!/3/DETAILS/37

Significant SEO related observations -

The site template design uses a frame technique that separates the header section from the balance of the page content. You can see it in how the page appears to scroll under the header. Unfortunately this effectively breaks the webpage into separate fragments that are not well crawled or indexed by search engines.
The URL would be better if it did not include the “/#!/3/”, moving the unique page file “ABOUT_ME” name closer to the domain name.
None of the page’s content is present in the Details page source code. Confirmed by Search Engine Spider simulator. The content is not indexable because it is not present in the page’s source code. Search engines need to “see” and read each individual page’s content in order to list pages in their indices. If your page content is not in the search engine’s index it is not able to be ranked and presented in search results.
No provision for SEO invaluable H1 and H2 headlines, SEO Doctor confirmed.
No internal crawlable navigation links. Confirmed by SEO Doctor and Spider Simulator.
Social medial linking is limited to just Facebook and Twitter.

BluDomain’s new Aiden template HTML add-on option SEO review

Marc — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:21:19 +0000

Since my year-end review a few days ago of 10 of BluDomain’s add-on HTML template options, BluDomain has added another, Aiden. So here is a quick review of the SEO attributes of Aiden. Before we started let’s review BluDomain’s selling advantage for adding their HTML option to your purchase.

A duplicate HTML version of your template. It automatically takes on all edits made within the administrative editing area of your flash site. The HTML site is also compatible with Apple’s iPad. The HTML site is highly beneficial for search engines, each word and image is searchable and as such your site will gain much more search engine exposure.

In summary while visible on non-flash devices, it is lacking in good structure and features for effective SEO improvement much the same as the other BluDomain HTML add-ons. A properly installed and themed WordPress install in conjunction with this BluDomain template will provide much better SEO opportunities and performance than the BluDomain HTML add-on.

Bludomain template name Aiden
HTML option cost $100
Audited HTML page: http://www.bludomaintemplates.com/aiden/html/#!/ABOUT_ME

Significant SEO related observations -

The URL would be better if it did not include the “html/#!/”, moving the unique page file “ABOUT_ME” name closer to the domain name.
None of the page’s content is present in the About page source code. Confirmed by Search Engine Spider simulator. The content is not indexable because it is not present in the page’s source code. Search engines need to “see” and read each individual page’s content in order to list pages in their indices. If your page content is not in the search engine’s index it is not able to be ranked and presented in search results.
No provision for SEO invaluable H1 and H2 headlines, SEO Doctor confirmed.
No internal crawlable navigation links. Confirmed by SEO Doctor and Spider Simulator.

BluDomain Mini Blog SEO and functionality review

Marc — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:10:59 +0000

A couple of years ago BluDomain introduced a unique HTML blog offering that BluDomain named “Mini Blog”. The BluDomain Mini Blog can stand alone or be part of one of BluDomain’s other templates. Like WordPress the BluDomain Mini Blog produces HTML blog and posts and is driven by a MySQL database. And that is pretty much the end of any substantive similarity between BluDomain’s blog offering and a typical self-hosted WordPress blog. They are entirely different in setup, administration and output.

Shortly after the release of BluDomain’s blog offering Mark Haynes did an excellent post describing its features and functionality. Mark’s inclusion of screen captures together with step-by-step administration and post creation discussion provides a good insight into the BluDomain Mini Blog. But his summation includes a potential caveat “If you’re running a word press blog and using all the features for solid SEO then this blog is a big step backwards.” So it is useful to add a comparison of BluDomain Mini blog and a standard WordPress blog features.

When Mark published his review WordPress was at version 2.8.4. In the intervening 2+ years BluDomain’s Mini Blog has not been updated, yet WordPress has had five (5) major update revisions and is now up to version 3.3. So let’s compare BluDomain Mini Blog to WordPress Blog with current versions.

BluDomain Mini Blog comparison to a WordPress Blog

Feature/Function	BluDomain Mini Blog	WordPress Blog
Maximum width	800 pixels	Unlimited
Upload background	Yes	Yes
Choose your own colors	Yes	Yes
RSS	Posts	Posts and Comments
External links	3	Unlimited
Social Media icons/links	Facebook, Twitter	All, Any, unlimited
Pages	Just 1 for Contact	Unlimited
Image tags	Alt	Alt, Title, Description, Caption
Video support	Yes	Yes
Custom navigation	No	Yes
SEO	Description, Page title	Description, Page title, Custom title, Optimized URL links, H1, H2, Canonical options
Comments discussion	No	Yes, nested comments
Hierarchy	None	Yes, Categories and Tags
Themes	None	1,400+ Free to download
Extensions	None	17,000+ Free to plugins
Cost	$50, installed	Free to download
End user license	Proprietary	Open source GPL2

Comparing the features and functionality it is difficult not to reach for the advantages of WordPress. Even if you decide to use our optimized WordPress for BluDomain setup service with an included custom premium theme utilizing all the advantage WordPress offeres in SEO and visitor engagement, the total cost is still very competitive. And, WordPress can work on the same hosting that you would use for almost any BluDomain site.

If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment, call or email.

Best WordPress SEO permalink structure for blogs and sites is now made simple

Marc — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:32:54 +0000

For SEO and site visitor engagement the URLs of your pages and posts can make a big difference. Fortunately new code in WordPress 3.3 allows more freedom in setting the URL link for your content with no negative performance or response time impact for the choice you make. Now your WordPress based site can have both user and search engine friendly permalink URLs with no penalty.

Prior to WordPress 3.3 setting the optimal URL for SEO and site visitors could cause your site to respond more slowly. This was as a result of a performance penalty related to “verbose rewrite rules” within WordPress which dictated increased database calls for URLs which included only the title or “postname”. Yet for visitor engagement and SEO slower site performance was often the result of an choosing SEO preferred option.

WordPress has a Settings option for what are called “permalinks“, meaning that the URL composition for the page or post can be modified or selected site wide. This is how WordPress describes the feature; “By default WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them, however WordPress offers you the ability to create a custom URL structure for your permalinks and archives. This can improve the aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility of your links.”

Using a URL page/post descriptive keyword structure improves engagementfrom site visitors, who will be more inclined to visit descriptive URLs, and search engines which will be able to index and retrieve keywords from the URL when they match search terms. This can help a lot with SEO and your site visitor conversion. Google and other search engines have made it so your permalinks are a basic part of a search engine user’s decision making process. The URL permalink appears as part of your search snippet on search result pages. Using redundant terms from categories in your permalink URL option could make your site appear spammy. While using a date in the permalink could make your content seem dated. Both cause unneeded length and useless terms in your URL. Fortunately those compromises are no longer needed.

WordPress permalink performance considerations are now resolved.

Up until WordPress 3.3, there was a quite serious performance issue when you have a lot of pages when you use just the postname, that is solved in WordPress 3.3. We can now use a simple permalink URL having only the domain and postname. This means shorter undated URLs with less redundant terms and more relative keyword content are possible with no performance issues. There are no more excuses to not use just the postname.

The danger of changing WordPress permalink URLs on an established site

Now before you change the permalink URLs of an existing site consider the potential search and SEO impact. Despite how easy it is to change permalinks in Admin, it is complex and can have a dramatic negative impact on your site if you’re not careful. After all you do not want to present a site with many multiple “404 page not found” results to your visitors. There are two steps in changing your WordPress permalink structure.

The first is simple, go to Settings -> Permalinks and select “Post name”.
The second step is to redirect your old permalinks to your new ones. To do that, you have to add redirects to your .htaccess file. Fortunately Joost de Valk has created an excellent webpage-based tool to address the potential negative impact from changing the permalink URL for sites which already have external links to content on other sites and in search engines. It automatically generates the redirect for you based on your domain and your old permalink structure which you can then include in your site’s .htaccess file.

If you make the change to your .htaccess file please test it by looking up your content on your site in a search engine and clicking through to that post/page on your site.

For more information about URLs and SEO read this article from Search Engine Journal, “URLs and SEO: Various Strategies for URL File Names“.

And if you have any problem feel free to email or call.