If you are concerned at all about search engine optimization, you know that Google likes for you to build and submit an XML sitemap (see my previous post on How I Do It: Google Sitemaps). But some people don’t bother with an actual sitemap page anymore … I don’t know? Old-fashioned? Not used enough? Anyway, I still build sitemap pages for my sites … it simply provides the visitor another option for browsing and looking for content. Here’s how I do it … Read More…

I’ve never been much of the ‘developer’ type in the purest form. I can handle some basic code, enough to fudge things to my liking here and there, but hardly the type that starts from an empty page of TextEdit (yes, I’m on a Mac). But now that may change … Read More…

When placing images … in a post or in a theme … I always assign an image alt tag. This should be a no-brainer, must-do thing for all designers, developers, and authors. But understanding ‘why’ may not be apparent to someone new to blogging.

Here are four reasons for assigning an image alt tag to images …

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There are various ways to format links. Some place links in the content. Some place links at the end of the content. Some use the name of the link as the link. Some use the URL of the link as the link. Some people use a character to identify links. Some include instructions with the link. Here’s how I do it … Read More…

I am a W3C compliance evangelist. I insist all my sites pass XHTML 1.0 strict validation (validator.w3.org). I’m so much an evangelist, the plugin, Validated, is the very first plugin I install and activate. Then, after I install each plugin thereafter, I run the plugin to make sure it still passes validation.

I recently read this blog post by Alan Bleiweiss at Search Engine Journal that challenges my evangelism … Read More…

If I care about search engine optimization, I should submit an XML sitemap to Google. An XML sitemap essentially tells Google which pages to index (and which pages to not index). Can’t Google figure that out on it’s own? Probably, but Google still recommends doing it, so I do it. It takes me two steps to setup and submit my Google XML sitemap. Here’s how I do it … Read More…

I have to admit, when I first started blogging, I didn’t pay much attention to the permalinks setting. I figured WordPress was pretty smart straight out of the box. Why change anything? But I changed my mind later after researching how URL structure can affect search engine performance.Once I started paying more attention to the search engine game, I came to learn that the URL structure counts. Not as much as some people may think, but it still counts some. So, I might as well do what’s best. Now when I build a new site with WordPress, changing Read More…

It seems like every website and blog has a copyright notice in the footer. Because everyone else has a copyright notice, I have one, too. Have I ever had an attorney advise me to have a copyright notice? No. Have I ever been to court over a copyright issue? No. Do my visitors care about my copyright notice? I’ll bet no. Do I feel my copyright notice safeguards me from copyright infringement? Not one bit. It’s just a necessary evil, it seems, to add a copyright notice for every website and blog I build. And it’s always in the footer. Anyway, here’s how I do it … Read More…

After I’ve installed WordPress, installed my theme, customized my theme, and loaded my content, I begin the fun stuff … install plugins. After all, I like what Matt Mullenweg, WordPress’s founding developer, said about plugins … just like everyone adds their favorite apps to their iPhone or their favorite add-ons to FireFox, WordPress wouldn’t be what it is without plugins. How true. But out of the thousands of plugins available, there is one plugin I install first (even before Akismet) for every WordPress website or blog I build … Read More…

I’ve been building freelance websites for quite some time now. Over that time, I’ve used several web hosting companies (1&1, WebHost4Life, SiteSell, AN Hosting, Midphase, to name most of them). For the most part, they were good web hosting companies. But I recently made the switch to ThinkHost (recently acquired by DreamHost) for several reasons: Read More…