David Airey, graphic designer » Web

WordPress plugins on davidairey.com

David Airey — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:01:00 +0000

I’m frequently asked for advice about starting a blog. Many of you will know I use the freely available service WordPress to power both davidairey.com and Logo Design Love, but very few of you will know what WordPress plugins I’ve installed to help make the most of the publishing platform.

WordPress plugins installed here

Akismet
Comes as standard with all WordPress platform downloads, and checks reader comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam. Those comments that do are automatically filtered into a “spam” folder.
All in One SEO Pack
Automatically optimises page titles and META tags for search engines. Easily override the predetermined titles and tags using form fields. In effect, you can have your post headlines say one thing e.g., “Are you serious?” and your page titles (usually the same as your headlines) say another e.g., “David Cameron new Prime Minister” for search engine rankings.
cforms II
Effortlessly creates easy-to-use web forms, sending the results to your chosen email address. I use this on my contact page, and when supplying potential clients with a few initial project questions.
Facebook Like Widget
I started testing this one a week or two ago. It adds a little “like” button beneath posts and pages, so if a reader is logged into Facebook, clicking the button will display the link on his/her wall for others to see. Not sure how well it’s going.
Feedburner Feed Replacement
Directs all feed URLs from WordPress to Feedburner (the third-party subscription service I use). It’s by Steve Smith of Ordered List, but the plugin is no longer available for download, so I’m curious if I should just deactivate this one. The FD Feedburner plugin looks like it does the same job, though, so maybe it’s worth keeping.
Google XML Sitemaps
Another for the search engines. It automatically generates and updates your sitemap, so search engine robots can easily and quickly crawl/index your content.
Highlight Author Comments
Allows me to self-style my own comments in every post thread, so mine appear slightly different from other commentators. Good for those who scan the threads looking for post-author replies.
PostPost
Particularly useful, and lets me add text and/or images to the foot of my RSS feed. I’ve added a line of text saying, “Published on David Airey, graphic designer” where the David Airey, graphic designer part links back to my homepage. This means all those splogs that scrape my feed and republish it without permission are giving a continual stream of links back to my site (it’s something, at least). I also display a banner advertising my book.
Subscribe To Comments
Adds a checkbox so commentators have the option to receive email updates when new comments are added after theirs. Hugely helpful for generating chat and a sense of community.
WordPress.com Stats
Google Analytics is great, but it’s too much for getting a quick look at where site visitors are coming from. This plugin puts an extra tab in the WordPress dashboard, and a single click shows the sites from which visitors arrive, what search engine terms are being used to direct traffic my way, popular posts, what people are clicking, and any new links to my site from elsewhere.
WP-Cache
Stores a static version of every page visited for a user-set time frame (up to one hour). This means that if I’m getting a sudden flood of traffic, the burden on my web host is greatly reduced (helping to prevent my site from going down).
WordPress Related Posts
You see the “Related posts on David Airey dot com” section below? That’s automatically generated by this plugin, helping increase clicks to other (normally related) pages on my site.
WP Page Numbers
Shows clickable page numbers at the foot of the homepage and category pages (instead of next page and previous page)
WP Twitip ID
Adds an extra field in the blog comment thread, allowing commentators to enter their Twitter ID for display. According to the plugin page, this one’s no longer supported, and has been replaced by the newer TwitterLink Comments.
TweetMeme Button
Adds the “retweet” button in a place of your choosing (before, after, manual). Also shows the number of “retweets” already, giving an indication of the post’s popularity with readers. You’ll see a green button below each of my posts (down and on the right). Give it a wee click.

It’s important to keep in mind that each plugin used will add to the loading time of your site. If I was half-decent at coding I’d probably do away with “WP Twitip ID” and “Highlight Author Comments” plugins, adding a piece of code to my blog theme instead.

Hopefully this short list has given the WordPress users out there a new idea or two.

Can you recommend any plugins you think would improve my collection?

WordPress buttons photo credit

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference

David Airey — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:30:06 +0000

The Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference is taking place in June, and I have a pair of tickets worth $1,390 to give to one lucky reader.

A short conference blurb

New Riders’ Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference, now in its fourth consecutive year, will take place June 28-29 in San Francisco and is well-timed to coincide with the evolving functionality in the HTML5 and CSS3 specs, the number of new ways in which people access the Web, and the rise of social media.

It’s an opportunity to discuss web design’s most critical topics with industry experts. The event will open with a keynote address from Jesse James Garrett, author of The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and close with an address by Steve Krug, author of the well-known book Don’t Make Me Think and the brand new Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems.

There are plenty more talented speakers completing the line-up, including Paul Adams, senior user experience researcher at Google, Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits, and Robert Hoekman Jr., author of Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design.

Where

Mission Bay Conference Center
1675 Owens Street
San Francisco, CA
Travel info here.

When

28-29 June 2010

What’s included?

Your tickets include admission for two to all education and networking sessions, continental breakfast, lunch and breaks, a conference guide, and access to speakers’ slides.

How to win

Leave a comment (or send an email) with a link to a photo that makes you smile. Add any text you think is appropriate, too, and keep the photos clean, because I might republish them here on the blog, linking back to your website in the process (if that’s okay with you).

I’ll draw a winner on Wednesday 28th April, updating this post and contacting the person by email.

——

Update: 28 April 2010
Corrie Haffly is the randomly drawn winner, and I’ve sent her an email with details.
Congrats, Corrie! Thanks very much to everyone who entered.

——

(With thanks to David the designer for the idea.)

DavidAirey.com saving

If you don’t win, and as someone who reads this blog, you can save $150 off the conference fee by entering priority code WBNBLGA when registering. Register before May 14th and you also get the “early bird” price saving.

Full event details here: Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference.

Mission Bay Conference Center photo credit.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

10 tips to improve your about page

David Airey — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:02:03 +0000

Almost as important as your website’s home page is the about page. This is your opportunity to build rapport with your guests — a chance to introduce yourself and to explain the aim of your website. Here are 10 tips that’ll have your own page in excellent shape.

Offer your name. It’s a blatantly obvious addition, yet so many about pages don’t get personal.
Include a photo. People like to see who they’re dealing with. A smile can work wonders, too. If there’s a team behind the website, include them all (even the cleaner plays an important role).
If it’s just you, write in the first-person. If someone asks what I do for a living, I don’t say, “David’s a graphic designer.” Use “I,” not “he/she.” It’ll help make you seem more personable.
Think about your visitor’s needs. Sure, you’re talking about yourself, but imagine you’re a potential client reading about you. What does the client get from contacting you?
Keep it current. Check the content every few weeks or every month to ensure it’s up-to-date. Perhaps you’ve moved home/office, or perhaps you offer a new product or service.
Show your location. By including a photo of your office, your town or city, you let people get that little bit closer, helping build rapport.
Short and sweet beats long and sour. Ask someone to have a look at your page. It shouldn’t take any longer than a minute to read, and the reader should learn something new about you.
Keep it professional. Smiley faces won’t help you clinch that £10,000 deal.
Experiment with video. Letting your visitors see and hear you can have a hugely beneficial effect when it comes to building trust online. (If you’re too self-conscious, why not start with an audio podcast?)
Add a call to action. Where should visitors go after they’ve read about you? Your design portfolio? Your contact page? Make it easy — include a link within the text.

One more thing, don’t take yourself too seriously.

Examples to follow

iA — lacks photos of the team, but makes up for it with excellent copywriting.
I Love Typography — very personable, with a nice photo, too (slightly cracking a smile).
Elliot Jay Stocks — short and sweet, with a time-saving FAQ section.
swissmiss — the hand-written signature at the bottom is a great little touch.
Subtraction — an example of the biographical approach combined with a gorgeously shot photo.

New portfolio complete

David Airey — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:21:43 +0000

A month ago I told you I was experimenting with a new portfolio design.

Since then, and in between client work, I’ve been doing what I can to beef-up the case studies with larger contextual images, sketches, and mind-maps. The aim was to finally point the portfolio buttons here on my blog over to the new portfolio site.

Today it’s ready to go.

You’ll probably be familiar with most of the projects, so I made sure to include detailed scans from my notebook, and new shots of the design work in context (on clothing, cars, surf boards, etc.).

Here’s hoping the notes give a little extra insight into my thought process.

Please do head across, let me know what you think, and thanks very much to everyone who offered feedback last month. You were a great help.

My new design portfolio.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Experimenting with a new portfolio design

David Airey — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:04:55 +0000

I spent last night and today experimenting with a new portfolio design — one I think is better suited to my personal design tastes.

The starting point for the coding was this two-column CSS template courtesy of Roger Johannson, and the goal of my design is to place emphasis on the portfolio work (at the time of writing, contextual imagery for design projects hasn’t been added).

The eventual plan is to incorporate the new design into my blog here, and I might need to hire someone more proficient with coding. Either that, or simply link my portfolio tab on the blog over to my .co.uk.

The new logotype may very well change, too. I’m undecided.

I’m always interested to know what you think, so if you have any thoughts, negative or positive, please do leave a comment.

You can see what I’ve come up with on the .co.uk extension of my domain name: davidairey.co.uk.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Forget about design

David Airey — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:24:17 +0000

Photo by eschipul

We judge people by how they look. It’s an everyday occurrence, no matter how unfair. But what if appearances didn’t matter? What if we could just say what’s on our minds and not worry about clothes, hair, makeup?

Okay, so if I told you to turn up for your next job interview wearing pyjamas, you’d think I was nuts. Rightly so. On the Internet, however, appearances count for a lot less.

Steve Pavlina, Matt Cutts, Seth Godin. Between them they author three of the most popular blogs on the Internet, each with an Alexa rank under 10k. Now I’m sure you’ll agree that their site designs aren’t anything to write home about (although in Steve’s case, you might actually want to write something). Yet this doesn’t stop an increasing number of people flocking to read what they’ve written.

“But these guys aren’t the norm.” you might say. Or, “I don’t have the voice to attract their numbers.” Steve, Matt, and Seth are no different from either of us. Set your mind to it and you can go wherever you want to go.

The next time you’re putting off a blog post until you get your design “just right”, scratch that idea. It’s what you say that matters most.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

7 SEO blogs and 21 useful articles

David Airey — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:02:47 +0000

Image copyright: Hawaii Web Pros

As a self-employed graphic designer, reliant on my website for most new business, it makes sense to learn how to improve Google rankings. Here I point you in the direction of a few helpful SEO blogs, with links to particularly relevant articles.

SEO blogs

SEOmoz

One of the big players, containing a wealth of information. I particularly enjoy the advice of Rand Fishkin.

SEOmoz articles of note:

Search Engine Land

More than 30,000 RSS subscribers can attest to this being one of the top industry blogs. It’s authored by a multitude of writers, keeping you updated on the latest news.

Search Engine Land articles of note:

Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is employed as the head of Google’s spam team. Needless to say, he knows a thing or two about how to rank in Google. Matt likes to publish blog posts about a wide range of topics (music, games, cats etc.), so I’ve pointed the link above to his SEO-specific category.

Matt Cutts articles of note:

Michael Gray

A familiar name amongst SEO experts, and although I’ve only conversed with Michael very briefly — when I asked him for help via email — he’s quick to share great SEO tips and advice.

Michael Gray articles of note:

Lyndon Antcliff

I’m not sure how I came to know Lyndon, but we’ve been in touch quite a number of times in the past. He’s always been friendly, articulate, helpful, and knows more than a little about how to create linkbait.

Lyndon Antcliff articles of note:

Dave Naylor

From the website: “David Naylor, more commonly known as DaveN, started working in the SEO industry over 10 years ago with three major corporations releasing their database driven data, creating internal link structures and improving usability.”

Dave Naylor articles of note:

Blogstorm

A popular UK-based SEO blog. From the website: “BlogStorm is written by Patrick Altoft, Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds based digital agency specialising in search engine optimisation, online marketing & web development.” Patrick was quick to offer help during my rollercoaster relationship with Google. Very much appreciated.

Blogstorm articles of note:

Your favourite SEO resources

Where do you go to learn about SEO? I’m always on the lookout for new resources. Do you read any of the websites mentioned above, and if so, what are your thoughts about them?

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Google report Gmail problem as phishing

David Airey — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:01:44 +0000

One year after my domain name was stolen, Google’s Chris Evans has published a blog article reporting the theft as a phishing scheme, whereby the victim is tricked into sharing their email login details.

Several news stories referenced a domain theft from December 2007 that was incorrectly linked to a Gmail CSRF vulnerability. We did have a Gmail CSRF bug reported to us in September 2007 that we fixed worldwide within 24 hours of private disclosure of the bug details. Neither this bug nor any other Gmail bug was involved in the December 2007 domain theft.

I’m sure Chris meant November.

Google’s blog post came in response to the more recent theft of MakeUseOf.com. Aibek, the MakeUseOf owner, has subsequently, and thankfully, had his domain name returned.

I like to think I’m cautious enough not to open a strange .exe email attachment, nor enter my login details on a fake website, but if that’s what happened, so be it.

I do, however, find it a little odd that a thief would gain access to my Gmail account, then choose to add email forwarding filters rather than simply change my password, thus locking me out. I published what I believed happened in my previous Gmail hack article.

Regardless, I’m glad Aibek of MakeUsOf had his domain name returned, and that Google have publicly acknowledged the previous Gmail CSRF vulnerability, even if it is over a year after the incident.

Aibek and I are two of the lucky ones. Many other domain theft victims contact me asking for help. Sadly, there’s little I can do except refer them to my account of what happened.

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

Orange anyone?

David Airey — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:02:09 +0000

Image copyright: Photonut

As many of you know, I’ve been contemplating a site re-design for a while. After all, designers are never 100% satisfied.

Rather than a complete overhaul (if it ain’t broke…), I opted for a simple colour change, choosing more of a corporate theme (greys and white with just a hint of orange), rather than the bright blues, clouds and grass shown previously.

I was surprised by just how different my site could appear with such a simple change (top / bottom banners and heading / link colour).

Before a dose of vitamin C:

…and after:

I feel the result is both a little more professional, and more reflective of my preferred design style. If you’re reading from your feed reader or an email subscription, and want to see the latest change in my portfolio evolution, please do stop on by and have a look .

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

The real value of keyword-rich domains

David Airey — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:10:14 +0000

When I became self-employed, I mainly targeted the Scottish market.
Three years on, my logo design business is international, and just yesterday I began working with my first Japanese client – something I’d never have contemplated back in 2005. Throughout my short time of going it alone, I’ve learnt about online marketing, and here I share with you the importance of keywords within domain names.

I’ll use two of my websites as examples: logodesignlove.com (LDL) and davidairey.com.

logodesignlove.com has been live since January 2008
davidairey.com has been live for since May 2005

In a Google search for logo designer, here are the front page results (click the image below for a legible view):

davidairey.com is listed in the #5 spot, whereas LDL is just one place behind in #6 (results vary from day-to-day and across geographical locations). Remember, davidairey.com has been operating much longer than logodesignlove.com.

Lately I’ve been seeing some SEO tutorials explaining the benefit behind ‘keyword stuffing’ your domain names, and how search engines place more significance on websites with relevant domains.

Before you go rushing to a domain name registrar with your list of targeted keywords, these results can be deceiving, and reflect more than a simple $10 purchase.

UPDATE: 14 July 2008
Matt Cutts recently had this to say about keywords within domain names:

Generic domains that users are likely to remember, will indeed carry more weight than others. There is a real value to those FuneralHomes.com for example. Google does give keywords in the URL a certain amount of weight, but you don’t need it in order to rank.

In his Domain Name Keyword Importance article, Scott Boyd writes:

Think about it logically. If this was such an important factor – i.e. more important than any other SEO factor, as people are saying – why would Google allow this? A keyword in a domain says nothing about the quality of the content on the site – it’s something that anyone can manipulate in an instant and at very low cost.

Scott rightly places emphasis on quality content, however, there is one benefit to having keywords within your domain name, and that’s the ‘anchor text’ people use when they link to your website. Let me explain.

logodesignlove.com has significantly gained ground on davidairey.com because people use the text ‘logo design’ within their links, as opposed to ‘David Airey’.

An inbound link (one coming from another website) pointing to davidairey.com is most likely to be typed as David Airey. A similar link to logodesignlove.com is most likely to appear as Logo Design Love.

Considering the importance of anchor text on inbound links, this will have quite a bearing on web searches for ‘logo designer’.

With that in mind, the main point still reverts to your content, because if it’s not good quality, you won’t create any inbound links.

There’s another reason behind LDL’s rise to prominence. The content is more focused towards the topic of the Google search, whereas here on davidairey.com, there’s a broader spectrum of articles, from marketing to photography, and art to web development.

The real key to front-page Google rankings lies not in keyword-rich domains, but in the quality and relevance of the website content.

You can rank highly for any term you set your mind to, regardless of your domain. Short, catchy titles may help, but ultimately, you need to use your business sense to define your brand.

Search engine optimization resources

If you’re interested in boosting your search engine traffic, here are a few useful resources:

Your search ranking experiences

If you’ve had similar, or differing experiences with search engine rankings, I’d love to know about them. Perhaps you have a domain name tip of your own?

David Airey, graphic designer » Web

WordPress plugins on davidairey.com

WordPress plugins installed here

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

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Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference

DavidAirey.com saving

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10 tips to improve your about page

Examples to follow

Other about page articles and examples

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New portfolio complete

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Experimenting with a new portfolio design

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Forget about design

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7 SEO blogs and 21 useful articles

SEO blogs

Your favourite SEO resources

Published on David Airey, graphic designer

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Google report Gmail problem as phishing

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Orange anyone?

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The real value of keyword-rich domains

Search engine optimization resources

Your search ranking experiences

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