Web Design

1. Coding a Web Design for Speed and Quality
2. Web Design Trends: Testimonials Design
3. All You Need to Know about Web Design Project Planning and Process
4. 5 Damn Easy Ways To Improve User Experience
5. 5 Useful Coding Solutions For Designers And Developers

Roundups

1. The element wood in web sites – 33 examples
2. Say it Loud! 60 Websites with Huge Typography
3. 34 cheat sheets for web designers and developers
4. 25 Great Examples of Using Gradient Effects in Web Designs
5. 26 awesome Firefox add-ons for web workers
6. 5 Must Read Presentations about CSS Coding
7. 50 RSS Feeds Every Designer Should Read
8. 30 Must Have Web Design Books In Your Christmas Wishlist
9. Top 10 Tutorials To Learn PSD To HTML Conversion
10. 500+ Free Download High Quality Photoshop PSD Files For Designers
11. 40 Free Amazing jQuery Plugins and Tutorials With Demo

Freelancing

1. Bulletproof Your First Freelance Contract
2. 8 Sure-Fire Ways Freelance Designers Can Earn Passive Income
3. Long Term Freelancing Success – Part 1 – Dedication
4. How to Skyrocket Your Earnings as a Freelancer
5. The Bare Bones That Every Freelance Contract Should Have

SEO

1. Search Engine Optimization 101
2. The Only SEO Tools You’ll Ever Need
3. 21 SEOs you must follow on Twitter
4. The Ultimate WordPress SEO Checklist
5. 10 Link Building Tools for Tracking Inbound Links

Blogging

1. Blogging: Secure Your Spot as the “Go-To” Blog
2. How to Fail as a Blogger
3. Selling Ad Space: Tips from Top Design Blog Owners
4. Why I Can’t Stop Blogging About Design
5. 6 Sure-Fire Strategies for Better Blogging

Twitter, Social Media

1. 5 Simple Steps To Rock Social Media
2. Social Media Basics For Freelancers
3. 10 Essential Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter
4. 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs
5. Top 10 Ways to Lose Twitter Followers

I hope you found some useful links here. Please feel free to share any links via the comments. Oh, and please subscribe to my rss feed if you want to get the latest updates.

Step 1: Use Pretty Permalinks

• By Default, WordPress uses very ugly permalinks like www.yoursite.com/?p80 which are not seo friendly.
• But you can easily change your permalink structure. Simply go to Settings->Permalinks, Select Custom Structure and type in /%postname% in the text field. This will make the default url of a post www.yoursite.con/your-post-name which is search engine friendly.
• You can also use /%category%/%postname% to include categories in the url. But I recommend only using postname, if you are going to include a post in more than one category.
• After changing permalinks, install the Redirection Plugin and under the Plugin’s Options, make sure both the ‘Url Monitoring’ check boxes are set to ‘Modified Posts’

Step 2: Optimize the Meta Tags

• The code I use in my title tag is this:
  

  <title><?php wp_title(); ?><?php if(wp_title(, false)) { echo | ; } ?><?php bloginfo( ame); if(is_home()) { echo | ; bloginfo( wouldescription); } ?></title>

  What this does is that on the home page, it shows Your Blog Name | Your Blog Tagline, and on post pages it shows Post Title | Blog Name. To use this piece of code, simply go to Theme Editor -> Header.php and replace the default title tag code with this one.

• For your meta description tag, I suggest you use a piece of code something like this:

<?php if (is_single() || is_page() ) : if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?><meta name=”description” content=”<?php the_excerpt_rss(); ?>”/><?php endwhile; endif; elseif(is_home()) : ?><meta name=”description”content=”<?php bloginfo( wouldescription); ?>” />

What this does, is that on singe post pages, it uses an excerpt of your post and on your home page, it uses your blog tag line as the description.

• Also, For more control, you should use the All in One Seo Pack Plugin so that you can set custom post titles for certain posts, and also add meta keyword tags for posts.

Step 3: Avoid Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content could affect your search engine rankings, and in a wordpress blog, there are often 4 to 5 places where a post appears. This could harm your blog a lot. To avoid duplicate content, here are some steps you should take

• Use only excerpts of your post on the home page, category page and tag pages.
• Noindex all the unessential pages of your blog.
• Also, Disable unnecessary archives such as the author based archive on a single author blog or a date based archive if you think it’s not required using the Robots Meta Plugin. Below is a screen shot of the settings I use in Robots Meta:

Step 4: Use a Sitemap

• Use the XML Sitemaps plugin to generate a sitemap. The plugin’s default settings are fine. Simply upload and activate the plugin and you’re fine.
• Also submit the sitemap to Google in Google Webmaster Central.

Step 5: Nofollow Links you don’t want to Pass Juice to

Okay, we have heard of Google’s statement on Pagerank Sculpting, but even then, I think you should nofollow certain links, such as links to register and login pages and links to your categories and tag pages if you’ve decided to keep them from being indexed. You can use Robot’s Meta for this too, here are the settings I used:

Step 6: Use Proper Internal Linking Structure

It is very important to maintain a good linking structure within your blog. It helps keep visitors on your blog and helps in improving search engine rankings. Here are some steps you can take to improve your internal linking structure:

• Use a Related Posts Plugin.
• Use Breadcrumbs
• If possible, use simple text-based navigation
• Optimize the anchor text of links
• Link to your most popular blog posts from the sidebar
• Use a sitemap as outlined above

Step 7: Optimize your Images

• Use keywords in the alt attribute
• Include keywords in image names
• Enter a description in the title tag
• Use the SEO Friendly Images Plugin
• Use the Smush.it plugin to optimize images

Step 8: Other Quick Tips

• Choose between www and non www and redirect one to the other. You can use the Redirection Plugin for this.
• Ping Sites after publishing new posts. Go to the Writing Tab and scroll down to the update services box. Add a list of sites you want to ping when you publish new posts in the box. Here’s a short list

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://topicexchange.com/RPC
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping

• Make sure your sites html and css are valid.
• Make sure that your blog title is an h1 on the home page and that your post titles are an h1 on the post pages.

That’s about it. I hope you found this post useful. Please help share this post by bookmarking it on your favorite social bookmarking sites. Also, if you liked this post, please Subscribe to my RSS Feed.

1. Just Creative Design Logo by Jacob Cass
2. Fitucci Logo by Jacob Cass
3. Vivid Ways Logo by Chris Spooner
4. MyNiteLife logo by Chris Spooner
5. Designbump Logo by Chris Spooner
6. Komplett Fitness Logo by David Airey
7. Giacom Logo by David Airey
8. Tammy Lenski Logo by David Airey
9. The Design Cubicle Logo by Brian Hoff
10. Siah Design Logo by Josiah Jost
11. Brainstorm9 Logo by abduzeedo
12. Mindberry Logo by David Pache
13. Social Signal Logo by Geert Leyseele
14. Stratega Logo by Gavin Elliot
15. JoomlaBamboo Logo by Graham Smith

That’s about it for now. If you liked this article please bookmark it on your favorite sites. If you know of any other logo design processes which you have read/written, please feel free to share it in the comments below.

Tips, Tricks and Guides

1. How and Why To Use Twitter For Small Businesses - A screen cast which takes a look at how and why small businesses should use Twitter
2. 27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today - A list of 27 useful Twitter tools small businesses should consider using.
3. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - A great article by Chris Brogan with some tips on using Twitter for business.
4. Using Twitter for Business - A great beginners guide on how to use twitter for business (pdf format)
5. Should a Small Business use Twitter? - An article which takes a look at how you can judge whether it is worth using twitter for marketing your business
6. 137 Twitter Tips for Small Businesses - A superb guide complied by Small Business Trends on how small businesses can get the most out of twitter. (pdf format)
7. Twitter for Small Business - A great article on how small businesses can get the most from Twitter.
8. Ultimate Twitter Starter Guide for Small Business - A guide for small business owners on how to take advantage of what twitter has to offer.
9. 20 Must Read Beginner Twitter Tips for Small Business Owners - A really useful article for small business owners just getting started out with Twitter.
10. Twitter Marketing: A Small Business Guide - A great guide on marketing small businesses effectively on Twitter.
11. 5 Uncommon Ways Your Business Can Use Twitter - Some nice ways small business owners can use Twitter
12. Use Twitter for your Business the Right Way - A nice article with some tips on using Twitter effectively for businesses
13. 17 Ways to Use Twitter for Business and Some Not - Takes a look at some really innovative things you can do with Twitter.
14. Twitter for Business FAQ - Answers to some common questions asked by small business owners regarding twitter.
15. 62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business - Some nice tips on using twitter for business.
16. Ten ways to use Twitter to promote your business - Some good marketing ideas for your business using twitter.
17. Tweeting for Companies 101 - A detailed article about what businesses should tweet about.
18. 5 Ways To Find & Acquire Customers On Twitter - Some great tips for finding new customers using twitter.
19. How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity - Some good tips for building brand integrity
20. Creative Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing and Branding - A List of ways you can use twitter to market your business.
21. Best Practices for Corporate Twittering - Some good guidelines to follow when tweeting from your business account.

Case Studies, Success Stories

1. Being HUGE on Twitter: A Small Business Case Study - A case study of what a good twitter business account should have.
2. Innovative Uses for Twitter for Small Business - A video interview with Avinash Kaushik, about innovative ways twitter is being used by small businesses.
3. Twitter for Small Business Owners - A podcast by Dave Sanders on how Small Business Owners can use Twitter.
4. Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele - A case study of how CoffeeGroundz used twitter to build a community and increase his clientele.
5. Twitter: A Case Study on Social Media Relations - A case study of how different businesses are using twitter in different ways
6. Hints of many business models in Twitter 101’s case studies - Innovative and unique ways in which businesses are using twitter.
7. Marketing Small Businesses With Twitter - Takes a look how small businesses are using twitter.

What is a Mascot?

It an animal, human or any other kind of object, which is used in the branding of a company/website. They are used to identify a brand, and they typically indicate the kind of ideals the brand represents, for example, friendliness etc. A mascot is usually cute, friendly and sweet, and on occasions, it may also be kind of silly :). Mascots are also used on advertising material.
Another thing to note is that mascots aren’t the same as illustrations. Illustrations may not necessarily be used in the branding of the site, and different illustrations may be used on different pages. But the mascot represents the identity of the site, and it stays the same throughout the site.

Examples of sites using Mascots:

Mailchimp

Freelance Switch

Branded07

Silverback

Wishlistr

PSDGator

Guerrilla Freelancing

The above Mascots, as well as inspiring us, can be used to identify some of the general qualities of good mascots. They are given below.

Mascot Design Tips

• The Mascot should represent the ideals of the company. Hence, it is very important to keep in mind, what the company wants to convey, as this will decide how the mascot looks - silly, professional and even what the mascot is holding and whether he is standing or sitting etc.
• Mascots are cute, ALWAYS.
• Mascots, as can be noticed above, generally tend to be human or animal characters, which we can easily represent with.
• Mascots should be friendly too. They man even be silly.
• It is also quite important to focus on the mascots pose, what he is carrying and the background.
• The Mascot should be unique in the sense that it should be easily differentiated from Mascots of other Brands.

Tutorials and Other Resources

• Mascot Design In Real Time Order – the SOSFactory Way - Sergio Ordóñez’s Mascot Design Process.

  

• How to Create a Web Site Mascot

• Create a Cute Furry Vector Monster in Illustrator

• Drunken Monkey Photoshop Tutorial

• Create a Character Mascot with Adobe Illustrator CS4

  

• 40+ Vector Characters Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop Tutorials

• 40+ Cartoon Character Illustration Tutorials

That is about it for this post. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends, and also consider subscribing to my RSS Feed.

Gone are the days when Designers are limited to using Arial, Helvetica and Verdana in the body of their websites. Although these fonts still dominate, there has been a growing trend among designers to use various font replacement techniques to upgrade the typography of the sites they build by using so called ‘non standard’ fonts on their sites generally for blocks of text and for headings.

Examples

Font Replacement Techniques

1. sIFR

sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) uses flash and javascript to generate the text in the custom font. If a user doesn’t have flash installed then it just shows the text in a web safe font.

Advantages

• Text is selectable
• Any font can be used. (sIFR does not violate the EULA)

Disadvantages

• Requires Flash and JavaScript both to be enabled.
• Takes quite some time to load.
• Difficult to implement

Resources

• sIFR Documentation
  
• sIFR Generator - A tool to generate sIFR compatible .swf font files online
• sIFRvault - A Repository of sIFR fonts
• WP sIFR - A WordPress plugin that simplifies the process of setting up sIFR

2. Cufón

Cufón is a Javascript-based font replacement solution which makes use of canvas and VML.

Advantages

• Quite easy to implement
• Does not require flash
• Works with all browsers
• Rendering of text is quite fast

Disadvantages

• Not all fonts can be used ( EULA issues )
• Text is not selectable

Resources

• Cufón Documentation
• Cufón Font Generator
• Cufón Tutorial
• WP Cufon - A wordpress plugin to implement Cufón

3. Typeface.js

Typeface.js uses a browsers’ vector drawing capabilites to draw text in HTML documents. It is quite similar to Cufón in the way it works.

Advantages

• Easy to implement
• User does not have to have flash installed
• Compatible with most browsers

Disadvantages

• Text cannot be highlighted.
• Not many font’s are permitted to be embedded
• Currently, it does not support :hover

Resources

• Font Generator - converts truetype fonts to JavaScript files compatible with typeface.js
• Typeface.js Support Forum

4. FLIR

Face lift image replacement (FLIR) uses PHP and javascript to generate an image that replaces the desired text.

Advantages

• All fonts can be used
• Rendering is faster than sIFR

Disadvantages

• Difficult to implement
• Text is not selectable

Resources

• FLIR Documentation
• FLIR for WordPress - A WordPress plugin to easily implement FLIR

I know that there are other font replacement techniques out there, but I just wanted to talk about the most common and poular ones.

If you enjoyed this article, please spread the word about it, by bookmarking it on your favorite sites. You may also want to consider subscribing to my blog.

I hoped you liked this collection of logos. Feel free to post a link to other creative logos in the comments. Also, tell me which one you liked the most and why through the comments. If you liked this post, please take some time to bookmark it at your favorite sites.

WordPress SEO Plugins

1. Google XML Sitemaps Generator - This plugin generates a XML-Sitemap compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog. This format is supported by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.
2. All In One Seo Pack - Automatic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box for your wordpress blog.
3. Enforce www. Preference - This plugin will help preserve your permalinks by enforcing your no-www or yes-www preference and will strip off index.php from the ends of URIs.
4. Quick META Keywords - The Quick META Keywords Wordpress Plugin will automatically add META Keywords tags to every single post on your wordpress blog. The keywords will be derived from the categories under which the article is categorized.
5. Broken Link Checker - A plugin for WordPress that checks your posts for broken links, and lets you know if any are found.
6. SEO Friendly Images - automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes
7. Robots Meta - the easiest way to add meta robots tags to WordPress pages
8. Redirection - helps you manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have
9. Homepage Excerpts - Easily show only excerpts on the home page, thus minimizing duplicate content issues

Plugins which Help Fight Spam:

10. Akismet - Akismet is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.
11. Bad Behavior - Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. This keeps your site’s load down, makes your site logs cleaner, and can help prevent denial of service conditions caused by spammers.
12. Comment Timeout – closes comments on old posts on your blog. It takes into account ongoing discussions by allowing you to keep comments open for longer if you have recently had any comments.

Plugins which encourage Comments:

13. DoFollow Plugin - strips the nofollow tag from all links in comments.
14. Lucia’s Linky Love - Similar to the above plugin, but gives you more control over dofollow / nofollow options.
15. Commentluv - This plugin will automatically show a link to a commentators last blog post inside their comment.
16. Top Commentators Plugin - Encourage more discussion from your readers, by displaying their names (linked to their website if desired) and number of comments they have made recently to your sidebar.
17. KeywordLuv - Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text.

Other Comment Related Plugins:

18. WP-Gravatar - This plugin lets you use Gravatar, MyBlogLog, OpenAvatar, Wavatar, Identicon, monsterID or Favico.ico files with your comments.
19. Edit Comments XT Plugin - A simple WordPress plugin that allows commentators to edit their own comments.
20. Comment Karma - A plugin that allows users to rate or moderate other users comments. You can click thumbs up or down, and it will give them a positive or negative number.
21. Highlight Author Comments - Highlight Author Comments automatically displays comments made by a post’s author in a distinctive style with no need to edit your template files.
22. Comment Relish - Sends a customized email to first time commentators on your blog.
23. OpenID - allows users to leave authenticated comments using OpenID.
24. WP Grins – provides clickable smilies for both the post form in the admin interface and the comments form.
25. Riffly Webcam Video Comments - Bring some spice to your page by allowing audio / video comments.

Administrative and Stats Plugins

26. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu - The lazy and the productive will love it, all admin links available in a neat horizontal CSS driven drop down menu.
27. Ajaxed WordPress - An extremely powerful plugin that harnesses the power of AJAX and WordPress to improve the user experience, the administration capabilities and the design potential of any WordPress based blog.
28. pageMash - Customise the order your pages are listed in and manage the parent structure with this simple ajax drag-and-drop administrative interface with an option to toggle the page to be hidden from output.
29. MyFTP WordPress Plugin - Manage files on your server from within WordPress. WordPress administrators no longer need to rely on using a stand alone FTP client to edit, delete, upload and create files and folders.
30. TinyMCE Advanced - This plugin adds 16 plugins to TinyMCE, WordPress’ WYSIWYG editor
31. Dashboard Editor - This plugin allows you to add whatever you want to the WordPress dashboard through PHP and HTML
32. Manageable - A WordPress plugin that allows for inline editing of the date, title, author, categories, tags, status and more on both posts and pages without leaving the “Manage” admin sections
33. One Click Plugin Updater - Let’s you easily update and install plugins, with a single click.
34. WordPress.com Stats - provides statistics about your visitors.Requires API key.
35. Google Analytics for WordPress - The Google Analytics for WordPress plugin automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads. It also allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, track image search queries and it will even work together with Urchin.
36. Maintenance Mode Plugin – Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end.

Database Plugins

37. WP-DB-Backup – Plugin allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables.
38. WP Super Cache – This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

Advertising/Donation Plugins

39. AdSense-Deluxe - AdSense-Deluxe is a WordPress plugin offering advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts.
40. Buy Me a Beer - allows your readers to donate money to you via PayPal. The plugin is widget enabled.
41. AdRotator - A plugin which lets you easily rotate between different ads specified in a text file.
42. WP125 - A 125×125 ad management solution for Wordpress

Image, Audio and Video Related Plugins

43. NextGEN Gallery - A full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option
44. Featured Content Gallery - Featured Content Gallery creates an automated, fully customizable rotating image gallery anywhere within your WordPress site. Note: not compatible with WordPress 2.8.
45. Flickr Gallery - allows you to quickly and easily incorporate your Flickr photos into your WordPress pages and posts.
46. Audio Player - allows you to insert mp3 audio files into your posts and pages
47. Smart YouTube - allows you to easily insert Youtube videos/playlists in your post, comments and in RSS feed.
48. Viper’s Video Quicktags - easily embed videos from sites like youtube, metacefe, dailymotion etc.

Post, Category and Tag related Plugins

49. Popularity Contest - Popularity Contest keeps a count of your post, category and archive views, comments, trackbacks, etc. and uses them to determine which of your posts are most popular
50. WP-PostViews - Enables you to display how many times a post/page had been viewed.
51. Simple Tags - The perfect tool to manage perfectly your WP tags
52. sCategory Permalink - Plugin allows to select category which will be used to generate permalink on post edit page.

Navigation Related plugins

53. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin - displays a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site
54. WP-PageNavi - Adds a more advanced paging navigation to your WordPress blog.
55. Custom Query String – lets you set the number of posts (custom queries) for every single page on your website.
56. Pixopoint Multi-level Navigation Plugin - The plugin generates the code necessary to create a horizontal dropdown, vertical flyout or horizontal slider menu.
57. Yoast Breadcrumbs - This plugin allows you to add breadcrumbs to your theme.

Social Bookmarking and Twitter Plugins

58. Sociable - Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed.
59. ShareThis - lets your visitors add your post to various social bookmarking sites. Note: not compatible with WordPress 2.8
60. Add To Any – Helps readers share, save, and bookmark your posts and pages using any service, such as Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and all the rest
61. Digg This - automatically displays a digg this button in posts.
62. Twitter Tools - creates an integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. It allows you to pull your tweets into your blog (as posts and digests) and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.
63. WP-Email – Allows people to send your WordPress blog’s post to a friend.
64. TweetMeme Button - integrates the TweetMeme button which easily allows your blog to be retweeted
65. WP Twitip ID – Adds a field for twitter user names in the comment form

RSS Feed Plugins

66. FD Feedburner - Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed to Feedburner.com.
67. Feed Footer - allows you to add footers under all your blog posts in your RSS feed

Miscellaneous Plugins

68. WP-Polls - Adds an AJAX poll system to your WordPress blog
69. Contact Form 7 - A simple but flexible contact form plugin
70. Global Translator – automatically translates your blog into 41 languages.

1. Social Media Icons Pack in 3 Sizes for Download

2. Socialize Icons

3. Heart: A Free Social Icon Set

4. Function Free Icon Set

5. Handycons - a free, hand drawn social media icon set

6. Cheers: A Free “Social” Icon Set

7. 24 Free Exclusive Vector Icons: ‘Handy’

8. Social Bookmark Iconset

9. Web Social icon set

10. Social Media Mini Iconpack

If there are any other icons sets which you like ( or made ) which aren’t on this list, feel free to leave a link to it in the comments section.

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

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How to Create a Clean Web 2.0 Style Web Design in Photoshop

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GreenPress WordPress Theme Design

Simple 2 Column Blog Layout

Create a Grungy Web Design with a Paper Texture

Design Studio Layout

Tutzor web 2.0 style design

Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch

Making your own portfolio web page

Design an Awesome Band Website Template

Create a Professional Portfolio Design in 17 Easy Steps

How to Create a “Worn Paper” Web Layout Using Photoshop