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Getting To Grips With WordPress

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Setting up a new WordPress blog has never been easier. Even if you’re a newcomer to the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), its Famous 5 Minute Installation will ensure that you’re up and running in no time at all. The tools you’ll need are few: an FTP client (such as FileZilla), a web hosting account and the ability to create at least one database on it (MySQL is the usual database management system of choice), and a simple text editor for modifying small snippets of code (Notepad++ is a free and lightweight option). Although we won’t cover how to connect via FTP or how to create a new database here, most respectable hosting services will have documentation that covers this, you can checkout our documentation on how to do this at: http://www.hostmediauk.com/videos/. Short of creating your own custom theme though, no significant coding skills are necessary for getting to grips with WordPress.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to download and unzip the latest version of WordPress, which can be obtained from the WordPress website (http://wordpress.org/download/). Before you do anything with these files, first ensure that you have created a new database on your remote server (or local machine), and that you have all the details you need to connect to that database (such as the username, password, and the name of the database of itself). Next, find a file called ‘wp-config-sample.php’ in your new WordPress root directory and rename it to ‘wp-config.php’, before opening it in your text editor of choice and adding your database connection details in the relevant places. Once you’ve saved and closed that file, upload all the WordPress files to your server via your FTP client and navigate to the homepage in your web browser. From here you can simply follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process, or you can consult the WordPress documentation should any errors arise (http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install).

If you’re not automatically directed there, you can access the admin area of your new WordPress install by navigating to your WordPress homepage and adding ‘/wp-admin’ at the end of the URL, and then entering the username and password you chose during the installation process (hopefully you made them memorable, but difficult for others to guess). You’ll see the main menu running down the left-hand side of your screen, and from here you can select ‘Plugins’ for a list of installed plugins – you can activate/deactivate, edit, or delete them here as appropriate. In addition to the built-in facility here for installing other plugins, you can also upload the plugin files directly via your FTP client by navigating to ‘wp-content/plugins’ – the plugin itself will then appear in the admin panel as we’ve just discussed.

Although creating custom themes is beyond the scope of this article, you can create new theme folders if you wish under wp-content/themes, which is where you’d place the files for your custom theme. There are, of course, plenty of WordPress themes that exist already, and you can access a list of available themes in the admin area by navigating to ‘Appearance’, then ‘Themes’, and finally ‘Install Themes’ from the tab at the top of the page. You can filter your search from here, and usually a new theme will include some basic documentation on how to modify menus, the colour scheme, and so on. There are many WordPress themes available for free, but some advanced themes (for example, those that include sophisticated e-commerce functionality) require payment. If the theme’s license allows it, you can also modify its source code by opening the relevant files in your chosen text editor, but this shouldn’t be attempted unless you know what you’re doing. Some themes allow for simple modifications in the admin panel, which you’ll ordinarily find under in the ‘Theme Options’ submenu of ‘Appearance’.

So now that you’ve installed WordPress on a remote server or your own local machine, installed your desired plugins, and chosen a relevant theme – what next? To get the best out of WordPress and attract visitors to your new site, it’s important to understand how to apply search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques. To achieve maximum control over your site’s SEO, it’s probably best to build your own theme – that way, not only can you set your own meta tags and build things like the robots.txt file (for instructions to search engine crawlers) and the .htaccess file (for, among things, creating semantic URLs) from scratch, but you can be absolutely certain that you’re using good, clean code. Once the site’s up though, it’s important to keep in mind that content is king – keep your blog or website regularly updated, and ensure that your call-to-action (CTA), should you have one, is clearly visible on your homepage. Be sure to avoid black hat techniques – avoid keyword spam and link farming, and stick to interesting and original content. Don’t forget to link out to trusted sources as much as possible too, and always tag and categorise your blog posts using descriptive terms, and use catchy but relevant titles: ’10 SEO Techniques for WordPress Beginners’, for example. Finally, make sure you submit your new site to the major search engines, using services such as Google Webmaster (http://www.google.com/webmasters/), and keep an eye on who’s visiting which pages, and for how long. If you’re so inclined, there are WordPress plugins that will help enormously with SEO techniques – try, for example, the popular All In One SEO Pack available from the WordPress website (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/). Ultimately though, the key to SEO success is an attractive-looking website that contains current and original content – always keep that in mind.

If there’s one last thing you should keep in mind with WordPress, it’s good housekeeping. Check back with your admin panel often, and make sure your active plugins are up to date and compatible with the version of WordPress you’re currently using – remember that the WordPress team are constantly improving the software, so update your install whenever you’re prompted too (which is done in just a few clicks). The compatibility issue applies to your theme as well: things like menus can easily break when you change from one version of WordPress to a more recent version, and so if the theme’s developer has ceased work on the theme you’ll either need to switch themes or apply the fixes yourself (if the license permits that). Sticking with the versions you originally installed is perfectly fine, but remember that the newest plugins might only work with the newest version of WordPress, so stay alert and keep your themes and plugins up to date.

Good luck with your WordPress install! If you require any details regarding hosting for WordPress please contact our team!

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Getting started with SEO for your website

Saturday, January 21st, 2012

We get so many questions about SEO that we thought we would put together some of the basics in getting started with SEO for your website.

The basics of search
When you type a query in the search engine, the query generates a significantly large number of results. Most users will likely find what they are searching in the first, second or third page. A search engine displays the results in the way it perceives the information relevant to the search query. As a webmaster, you need to understand how Google ranks your site.

How Google ranks sites
The first step is discovering your site through Googlebot, a robot that adds new and updated sites to Google Index. After finding new and updated sites, it processes the words in it, a process referred to as indexing. When you conduct a search query, Google matches the query with existing pages and decides the relevancy of the information. Over 200 factors decide the relevance of the information. PageRank is the most important. This is a concept entailing how other users share your information though the use of backlinks. Even though some sites use spam links to raise their ranking, Google recognizes them. The best way to improve your ranking in search engines is by providing fresh, unique and quality content.

SEO concept
Search Engine Optimization, is a concept aiming at improving the way sites interact with users and rank in search engines. It is the dream of any webmaster to have a website that performs optimally in organic search results. It involves making small modifications and improvements. Nonetheless, even though the concept uses the word “search engine”, it is imperative to focus more on your visitors rather than how your page will rank in organic searches.

Good content
To attract users to your website, your content should be unique, dependable and accurate. Each page in your site should have a unique title. It is important to organize your content in a directory style. This makes it easy for the consumers of your content to know where they are while on your site. The title tag is fundamental since it tells the user and search engine the contents of the page. When choosing a title, it is vital to choose one that accurately and uniquely describes the content in the page. It should be short and concise. This is because when you use long titles, a search engine omits some portions. It is also a good practice to desist from stuffing irrelevant keywords.

Meta tags
Make use of Meta tags to summarize succinctly the contents of the page. A Meta tag consists of a short paragraph or a number of sentences. By using Meta tags, you provide a snippet of your page, which a search engine may use. However, a search engine may sometimes choose to use another relevant section on your page as a snippet depending on the user’s query. However, it is advisable to make use of a Meta tag just in case a search engine cannot find a relevant section to use as a snippet for the user’s query. This is because words appearing on the query on the search engine appear in bold. This allows the user to decide whether the content will be useful. Some of the pitfalls you should avoid include, stuffing the Meta tag with keywords, copy pasting content into the Meta tag, using generic terms such as “The webpage talks about” or “this is a page about”, and a Meta tag that has no relation with page content.

URL structuring
Another important aspect in SEO is how you structure your URLS. You should structure your URLS in a friendly manner. This makes your site look better and organized. Long and cryptic URLS may intimidate your visitors and make it difficult for others to link your content. Structure the URL to contain relevant keywords. This provides the search engine and users with usable information about your page. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that the search results will display the URL and bold words that match the user’s query. It is thus good practice to make your URL as simple as possible to make it friendlier to your visitors.

Site navigation
The consumer of your content wants to be able to find quickly what they want. In addition, the search engine needs knowing which part of the site is most important or fundamental. You should visualize how visitors would access content starting from your homepage to specific contents. It is advisable to use text links, which is what visitors prefer over other approaches such as drop down menus or animations. Focus on simplicity.

Quality
This is the keyword when it comes to SEO. To improve the ratings of your site in organic results and keep attracting visitors, you need to create captivating, accurate and fresh content. Any visitor in your site will deduce the quality of your content. If the content is compelling, your consumer will likely want others to read it. They may share it on social media, forums, emails, word of mouth and other avenues. As a webmaster, it is important to take into consideration the fact that different users interpret and understand the content differently. It is advisable to create exclusive and unique content to cater for your different audiences. You may also want to use a tool such as Google AdWords for an approximation of how each keyword fares among user queries. Create content with your consumer base on mind rather putting more emphasis on search engines. Make the quality of your content the top priority and the rest will follow smoothly.

Simple and Accurate
Users will enjoy your site if it easy to follow and read. You should aim to write text that is easy to read. Follow the basics such as organizing it succinctly, logically and avoid grammatical mistakes. You may want to use short precise paragraphs and subheadings to make it easier for the visitor.

Promoting your content
A search engine displays “sponsored links”, which are paid advertisements and organic results. Search engines do not accept money to rank sites. Therefore, your own aggressive promotion of the site decides how your site will rank. With the billions and billions of sites in search engines, finding the right channels and ways to promote your content may make the difference in the success of your site. Many webmasters use backlinks to promote their content. It is wise to have a blog in your site to keep your base on tabs with what is new on your site. You can also use a RSS feed to keep your audience informed. Social websites such as Facebook, twitter, Google + among others are also an effective way to market your site. Since these sites base on sharing and networking, it is an effective way to reach your target groups.

In addition, you can also offline promotion methods such as listing your URL on posters, business cards, t-shirts, word of mouth among other avenues. You should also use webmaster tools provided by search engines to complement your site to perform optimally in search results. Some of the tools include Google Webmaster Tools, for Google search engine, Yahoo! Site Explorer for Yahoo and Bing Webmaster Tool for the Microsoft search engine.

Google Analytics
This is a high-level web analysis tool used to analyse traffic flowing to your site. It allows you to get valuable insight how visitors reach your site, how they behave, which content they view, and how your site is performing.

When choosing which location to host your site, it is important to consider some the geographical factor. This is because a page loads faster when it is close to the web server. It is also important to label your domain extension to distinguish the targeted audience. For example, if your audience is in the UK, you may choose .uk domain. You should also consider the specifications on your web hosting needs. Some websites have unique features that make the page stand out.

Google Website Optimizer
This tool by Google allows the webmaster to experiment on how various changes in the site will influence traffic. When used with Google analytics, it is a powerful tool to improve the performance of your site.

If you have any questions about hosting for SEO purposes then please do feel free to contact our Sales team.

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ColdFusion Tip: Turn HTML into plain text

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

This is a simple but effective way of getting rid of HTML tags and make the HTML string into plain text to output:

#REReplace(htmlStr,”<[^>]*>”,”",”All”)#

Example HTML: <h1>Title</h1><p>My content<p>
Example Output after: Title My content

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ColdFusion pagination with next, previous and numbers

Friday, March 12th, 2010

One of the main things all developers come to in applications is pagination and the best way we found to do this is by Raymond Camden which covers how to create next and previous buttons for your content using the URL variable.

As we have extended what Raymond Camden has done we will go through all the code again to make sure you get the full picture.

First part is to get our data, which most of the time will be a database or as the second data example shows a queryNew which is a way of creating data in a query format without the need of a database query.

<cfquery name=”data” datasource=”data_dsn”>

SELECT *
FROM data

</cfquery>

OR

<cfset data = queryNew(“id,name,age,active”,”integer,varchar,integer,bit”)>

<cfloop index=”x” from=”1″ to=”22″>
 <cfset queryAddRow(data)>

<cfset querySetCell(data,”id”,x)>
<cfset querySetCell(data,”name”,”User #x#”)>
<cfset querySetCell(data,”age”,randRange(20,90))>

<cfset querySetCell(data,”active”,false)>


 </cfloop>

Next we want to set the number of records per page we would like to show, for this example code we are using 10:

<cfset perpage = 10>

Now we create the code for the URL variables which counts the records in the data we have got from our database / query. We also set the default of the variable URL.start to 1 as we want to start from the first record and not 0.

<cfparam name=”url.start” default=”1″>

<cfif not isNumeric(url.start) or url.start lt 1 or url.start gt data.recordCount or round(url.start) neq url.start>
<cfset url.start = 1>
</cfif>

The output of the data, you will notice on our <cfoutput> tag we have startrow & maxrows which sets what records are displayed.

<cfoutput query=”data” startrow=”#url.start#” maxrows=”#perpage#”>
#currentrow#) #name#<br />
</cfoutput>

And now this is when the code that Raymond Camden created changes a little to add in a new feature, page numbering. We first have a previous link which has an if statement around it to see if its a link or not and enable the <a> tag or have no link on it. This can be done different ways but to keep with Raymond Camden’s code we will leave it as it is. Now the new part you can see within the commented area (<!— Start Page Number —> CODE <!— End Page Number —>) we set 2 variables one for a page count as we need to have a number of pages that will be listed. The next one is page link, this is to fit in with the rest of the code and add the number that will need to be added within the link to view the numbered page. Next is a loop to go through the number of pages with the link and a small bit of VERY simple maths to add up the next page through the loop.

<p align=”center”>

[

<cfif url.start gt 1>

<cfset link = cgi.script_name & "?start=" & (url.start - perpage)>

<cfoutput><a href="#link#">Previous Page</a></cfoutput>

<cfelse>

Previous Page

</cfif>

/

<!--- Start Page Number --->

<cfset pageCount = 1>
<cfset pageLink = 1>

<cfset totalPages = Ceiling(rs_getReports.recordCount / perpage)>

<cfloop index="c" from="1" to="#totalPages#">

<cfoutput>

<a href="?start=#pageLink#">#pageCount#</a>

</cfoutput>

<cfset pageCount = pageCount + 1>

<cfset pageLink = pageLink + perpage>

</cfloop>

<!--- End Page Number --->

/

<cfif (url.start + perpage - 1) lt rs_getReports.recordCount>

<cfset link = cgi.script_name & "?start=" & (url.start + perpage)>

<cfoutput><a href="#link#">Next Page</a></cfoutput>

<cfelse>

Next Page

</cfif>

]

</p>

Thats it, you will now have something that looks like this:

Paging
Base code taken from Raymond Camden’s coldfusionjedi.com :

http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2006/4/24/ColdFusion-and-Pagination

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Polar CMS in alpha testing

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

After 3 months of development first staging of the Polar CMS script has been released to our testers / designers to start playing with.

Process of our testing

  • Running the install program to setup the databases and user accounts
  • Use the basic functions of the CMS:
    - Add pages

    - Add page elements to change

    - Use the WYSIWYG editor
    - Apply code to front end site to test speeds

  • Consult with development team to see how things can be improved
website soon with some of this information. Also a new website will be released soon.

Visit polarcms.com

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Using ColdFusion Custom Tags (cf_)

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

A new part of ColdFusion our development team has been looking into more is the custom tags (cf_). Soon to be used with the Polar CMS (Visit official site), custom tags allow you to have scripts and coding within a tag that can be called from a cfm page as shown below:

<!— CFM Page (cfcustomtag_caller.cfm)—>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″ />
<title>Call Tag</title>
</head>

<body>
<cf_cfcustomtag customVar=”test”>
<p>SOME HTML</p>

<cf_cfcustomtag form=”testFormCode”>
</body>
</html>

As you can see we are using a new tag <cf_cfcustomtag> with custom variables (customVar=”test”). These variables can be picked up within our custom tag cfm file we are about to create.

<!— CFM Page (cfcustomtag.cfm)—>
<cfoutput>
<cfif isDefined(“ATTRIBUTES.customVar”)>
<h1>#Now()#</h1>
<p>#ATTRIBUTES.customVar#</p>

</cfif>
<cfif isDefined(“ATTRIBUTES.form”)>

<p>#ATTRIBUTES.form#</p>
</cfif>
</cfoutput>

The above is a simple CFM file which has HTML and ColdFusion code. As you will notice we have named the file ‘cfcustomtag.cfm’ which is the same name as the tag: <cf_cfcustomtag> just without the cf_ at the start. Coldfusion will look for any files with the same naming tag.

You may ask why not use a <cfinclude> tag, but with cfincludes they can be slower and you are not able to reuse the cfinclude as easy as a cf_ custom tag. With custom tags you can lower the amount of code you need by using the extra variables (ATTRIBUTES).

Hope you enjoy using custom cf_ tags. Feel free to comment and add your code to show better ways of using cf_ tags. You may also want to research <cfmodule> tags.

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Don't like IE8 but prefer IE7

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

As more and more people are starting to use Internet Explorer 8 due to Windows updates many designers / developers might not have had the IE8 browser changes in mind when creating their website. As IE7 and IE8 have some major differences Windows have allowed users to add 1 line of code to make your website when viewed in IE8 to use all IE7 settings / config for styling and showing your website.

At the top of your code between the <head></head> tags add the following line of code:

<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=EmulateIE7″ />

This will now set IE8 to use IE7 on your website.

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Returning to Website Grader – Peoples views

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Back in November last year we wrote a post about the online free SEO tool known as Website Grader, used by thousands of users the well used SEO tool has started to be come under fire from some SEO companies, web designers / developers and general internet service people.

The website is built to scan your website and detect as many variables as it can such as; Pagerank, Incoming links, Headings, Image alt tags, blog ranking, rss feed and many, many more..

We wanted to share our findings and give a range of links to other blogs that have their own opinions. We hope to be able to offer all the views on this website and clear any mis-understandings that some users may have when using sites like these.

Are they doing anything wrong?

No is the simple answer, their website is a great tool and their are doing nothing wrong such as tricking people from what we can see and believe they are trying to create an online tool that will be able to offer a range of users / companies a helping hand in the SEO department.

Our thoughts…

Our team has been using Website Grader as a online tool for a good year and a bit now and as long as they keep up to date with new features we will continue to use them. Host Media UK has now got a score of 94/100 on the website which we are pretty happy with BUT want it a lot higher than that. We have found the website handy for giving our clients an idea of how our SEO work is getting on and how popular their website is getting (Along side Google Analytics of course).

It does target the non high usage internet user very well with its clean interface and compare tool which makes the site a bit more than just see your stats and be done with it. It becomes a more of a competition with your competitors to get your ranking better which we all here find fun some times and have a good laugh when we are a lot higher than other websites.

As I keep saying it is a tool, its meant to advice and not be taken as “My site is so much better than yours” as all designers / developers will know it comes down to many things to become high in Google (and other search engines).

We are not trying to persuade people to use this tool as each is to their own, but only trying to get a better view of how it works.

Articles on websites / blogs

http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/why-website-grader-is-a-bad-idea/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/04/website-grader-gives-out-free-seo-tips/
http://doteduguru.com/id187-website-grader-free-site-audit-tool.html

Share your thoughts and comments about this issue using the comments box below.

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ASP.NET Variables

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

The one of the most important parts of any coding language is variables and how to set them.

For our example we are going to use a ‘String’, please see below our code:

<% String Title = “My Title”; %>

As you can see we are setting a string named ‘Title’ with the string of “My Title”.

Now we want to display (echo / print / output) this to the page:

<%= Title %>

If you wanted to just write some text to the browser, most of the outputs in ASP.NET you will be using the ‘Response.Write()’ command instead:

Response.Write(“My Title”);

Hope you find this helpful.

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Coldfusion DateFormat

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

The Coldfusion dateformat works in the same sort of fashion as the ASP.NET and the PHP date time function. As our team mainly works in Coldfusion we can expand alot more on this function that ASP.NET / PHP.

The code: (Use this code within a <cfoutput></cfoutput> tag)

#DateFormat(Now(), "YYYY")#

About the code:

As you can see all we start with DateFormat which states will want to have a date format (You can use TimeFormat to work with times). Next we are getting the current date with the Now() and then we have the formatting of the date, as we only want the year we are using ‘YYYY’ (Displays: 2009) or you can use ‘YY’ (Displays: 09)

Enjoy!

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