Hidden Web Genius » Blog http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com Tue, 21 May 2013 08:44:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 How to Add Custom Tabs to Your Facebook Business Page http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HiddenWebGenius/~3/volPqRe3KbI/ http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-add-custom-tabs-to-your-facebook-business-page/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 02:01:07 +0000 Sanjay http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/?p=1481 Facebook, because of its popularity, is now being seen by bussiness owners as a very effective marketing tool, a way to help them extend customer base and build customer loyalty.
To be able to maximize the marketing potential of Facebook, here are some tips on how you can customize your business page with additional tabs:

1.    Login to facebook as a developer. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps and use your normal Facebook login details to access the page.Facebook

2.    Create your app. Click “Create a New App” located on the top left-hand corner of the page. Provide a “Display Name” and a “Namespace”.

Display name – what your app or tab will be called
Namespace – unique ID for your app or tab
Leave the “Web Hosting” section unchecked and then clicked on “Continue”.
3.    Add an image to your custom tab. Choose an image or icon for your tab.  Think about your tab as a call-to-action as this will get displayed at the top of your business page.  You can upload a custom image for your tab by clicking on “Edit icon”. Make sure that you choose an image that represents your brand and can get visitors clicking!

Fill in the “Basic Info” window with your domain and category details.

4.     Create the page for your tab. Start creating an external page where people will get directed to after they click on your tab. To make sure that your page content is correctly displayed in Facebook, set the width of your web page to 520px to 810px.

Think of the Facebook tab as an iFrame inside Facebook – you can display pretty much anything inside it. Say, if you are looking for leads, you can use your Facebook tab as a way to generate leads by incorporating an opt-in form in the page.

5.    Connect your custom tab with an external page. Go back to http://developers.facebook.com/ and go to the “App settings”. Scroll down and click on “Select how your app integrates with Facebook”, then choose “Page Tab”.  Name your tab and then paste the URL of the external page you’ve created in Step 4 in the “Page Tab URL” field.

To make sure that your new Facebook tab is viewable by everyone, you will also have to provide a secure URL. This is just the same URL as your “Page Tab URL”, but with “https://” in front instead of just the regular http://.  Even if you didn’t set your website to support https, your tab will still work for any viewer who has the Facebook secure browsing settings disabled.

6.    Add the tab to your Facebook business page.  In order to add your custom tab to your business page, you will have to visit this link:

http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL
Before you actually visit the links, make sure that you replace the parts in red – “YOUR_APP_ID” and “YOUR_URL” – with your own app details. Facebook will provide you these details as “App ID/API Key” and “Site URL”, respectively.

After following the steps provided above, your custom Facebook tab should now be displayed below your cover photo together with the standard page tabs like “Photos”, “Events”, etc.

Image by Pixomar (freedigitalphotos)

Article By: Sanjay Modasia

Sanjay is our lead developer with over 6 years experience, handling a strong team of developers with various industry expertise working on projects and meeting deadlines.

]]> http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-add-custom-tabs-to-your-facebook-business-page/feed/ 0 http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-add-custom-tabs-to-your-facebook-business-page/ How to Use 301 Redirection Without Losing your Search Engine Ranking http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HiddenWebGenius/~3/bA4v6yIJIXg/ http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/how-to-use-301-redirection-without-losing-your-search-engine-ranking/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:35:12 +0000 wasimalrayes http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/?p=1469 Redirection is the process of sending both the site’s human visitors and search engines bots from the original URL to a new URL. This is very useful when restructuring or revamping a website. There are 3 types of URL redirection – 301 redirection, 303 redirection, and meta refresh.

An in-depth understanding of 301 Redirection

If you need to change your website address from your old URL (http://www/oldwebsite.com) to your new website (http://www.newwebsite.com), 301 redirection is your best option; it forwards 90 – 99% of the site’s link juice to the new URL. 301 redirection is the one recommended for SEO.How to Use 301 Redirection Without Losing your Search Engine Ranking

How does it work?

301 redirection informs both human visitors and search engine crawlers that your website page has been permanently transferred to a new address. Search engine will then pass this information to the crawlers, instructing them not to visit the old address anymore, but instead go directly to the new website. Also, visitors’ won’t even notice that they are being directed to the new address.
However, Note that when a page where you implemented a 301 redirection is not regularly visited by search engines prior to the redirect, then it may take some time for bots to crawl the page and discover the 301 redirection. This means that the transfer of link juice and PR to your new page will depend on how fast the bots can discover the 301 on the old page.

How does it affect your search engine rankings?

When done correctly, 301 redirection won’t have any negative effects on your current search engine rankings. Here’s why:
After implementing a 301 redirect on a page, search engines will remove your old site from their list, index your new site for future crawls and pass all link juice, the PR and everything SEO-related, to the new address.

When should you use 301 redirection?


301 redirection is ideal if:

  • •    You are migrating your site or part of your site – if you are restructuring the URLs of your site’s internal pages from this format: http://www.websitename/categoryname/postname.htm to this: http://www.websitename/postname.htm, then you should use 301 redirection. You want your visitors, both human and bots, to be redirected immediately to the new page. This also works on site-wide migration.
  • •    You have an outdated page – if you have pages with expired or outdated contents such an old service or product page, you may want to redirect users to the new and updated page.
  • •    You have more than one version of your home page – depending on how a website is structured, its homepage can be accessed in different ways:
http://websitename.com/

http://www.websitename.com/

http://www.websitename.com/index.html

http://www.websitename.com/home.html

To be able to direct and concentrate traffic into one place, you need to point all other versions of your site’s home page to the right one, which is usually the http://www.websitename.com/ one.

Final thoughts

Although 301 redirection is fairly easy to implement, there may still be some few hitches which can do significant damage to your website.  So, make sure to do some sort of test redirection first with some of your internal pages.

Image by digitalart (freedigitalphotos)

Article By: Wasim Ismail

Wasim’s a project manager at Alrayes Web Solutions along with an online SEO consultant & blogger for business at wasimismail.com, specialising in online business.

]]> http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/how-to-use-301-redirection-without-losing-your-search-engine-ranking/feed/ 0 http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/how-to-use-301-redirection-without-losing-your-search-engine-ranking/ How to Make Your Website Load Faster http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HiddenWebGenius/~3/OXdrzesHoh0/ http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-solutions/how-to-make-your-website-load-faster/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:09:58 +0000 Sanjay http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/?p=1464 A slow loading website can lessen the credibility of your business, lower quality perception and increase user frustration, leading to a substantial drop in your sales revenue.  Here are 7 ways on how you can have a fast-loading time to provide an enhanced user experience to your visitors and protect your business revenue:

1.    Check out the size of your HTML code. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to fit most of your web pages into a 50kb of HTML code.

Most users use mobile devices to visit websites. A site built with less than 50kb of HTML code will load a lot faster in smarphones, giving it a competitive advantage against heavy slow-loading websites.

2.    Use Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

CDNs are servers located and distributed across the globe. These servers hold a copy of your website contents. If one visitor requests a particular content from a site, then the CDN closest to the location of the user will be used to serve the requested content.How to Make Your Website Load Faster
There are a lot of CDN services available, both paid and free. Although paid CDN hosting are quite expensive, it can improve your site’s load time significantly.
When using a CDN, make sure that everything is setup correctly so as not to lose any SEO value on your pages.

3.    Utilize browser caching

Enabling PHP caching will basically tell your website to load the website during the user’s first visit and then store your site content in a cache for later use. This means than when someone who has already visited your site loads it up again, the retrieval of contents will be must faster.
Browser caching is very useful especially if your site is serving a lot of repeat visits.

4.    Compress your images

You can use Photoshop’s “Save for web & devices” feature or other image compression softwares. Make sure though that you retain the quality of your image when compressing them. You don’t want your visitors to see grainy and pixilated photos of your site.

5.    Make your redirects cacheable

Mobile versions of websites redirect users to a different URL. For example, the website http://www.website.com/ has its mobile version redirected to http://www.m.website.com/. Implementation of a cacheable redirect can improve your site’s load time after a user’s first visit.
To make sure that only visitors using a mobile device get redirected, use 302 redirection with a lifetime of one day. Also use the following settings:
Vary: User-Agent
Cache-Control: Private

6.    Remove bad requests

Resource-wise, a single http request is expensive. Broken links resulting in 404 or 410 errors should be avoided, they’re just a wasting your resources. Make sure to fix your broken links and images. You can use available broken link checker services online for free.

7.    Avoid using flash and multimedia

Only use these elements when necessary. If you want to integrate Flash or multimedia in a page, make it optional. You can make use of links such as “click here to watch video” so that users who want to watch it will just click on the link and those who don’t want to don’t need to do anything.

Image by Riebart (flickr)

Article By: Sanjay Modasia

Sanjay is our lead developer with over 6 years experience, handling a strong team of developers with various industry expertise working on projects and meeting deadlines.

]]> http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-solutions/how-to-make-your-website-load-faster/feed/ 0 http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-solutions/how-to-make-your-website-load-faster/ How to Create Clickable Maps in HTML http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HiddenWebGenius/~3/S1V_GD53QV8/ http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-create-clickable-maps-in-html/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:01:24 +0000 wasimalrayes http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/?p=1456 It is important that you integrate interactive elements into your site. If you want to show your readers a map of a certain place, for example, rather than just presenting a plain image, it is best to make the sections of the map clickable.
Basically, you will link different sections of your image to multiple pages.  The clickable and linkable sections of your map are called hotspots.

Here’s how you can create a clickable map in HTML:

1.    Choose a map image with well-defined regions. Use an image editing software to even enhance and thicken borders that separate each region. Save your image in GIF or JPEG format.How to Create Clickable Maps in HTML

2.    Find the coordinates of each region. You can find the coordinates of an image by using an editing software. Just hover the mouse on the image and you will get a pair of comma-separated numbers at the bottom of your screen. The numbers represent a point in the image where your mouse is currently at. The coordinates will change as you move the mouse over your image.

3.    Create your image hotspots. You can have a circular, rectangular or polygon hotspot.
Rectangular hotspot – you will need the top-left coordinates and bottom-right coordinates of your hotspot region.
Rectangular hotspot format: 108, 124, 250, 110
The first two values represent the top-left coordinated, while the last two values represent the bottom-right coordinates
Circular hotspot – you will need to find the coordinates of the center of the circle and a calculated radius of the circle. The radius of the circle is the distance to its center to any point on the circle.
Circular hotspot format: 285, 400, 43
The first two values correspond to the center of the circle, while the last value represents the radius of the circle.
Polygon hotspot – if the hotspot region can’t be put inside a rectangle or circle, then you need to use the polygon hotspot.
Polygon hotspot format: 76, 97, 50, 68, 90, 82
The above example shows the coordinated of a triangle. Each pair of coordinates corresponds to a point of the triangle.
Before you start with the next step, make sure that you map out all coordinates and label then properly with a name.

4.    Name your image map. Use this format:

<map name=”name_of_your_map”>
    (insert area tags here)
</map>

Replace ‘name_of_your_map’ with whatever you choose to name your map and insert your tags in the specified section. You can use the syntax provided below:

<area shape=”insert_hotspot_shape_used” cords=”insert_coordinates_here” herf=”insert_link”>

Shape: shape value can either be rect, circle or poly
Coords: the coordinates of your shape. Consult the mapping notes you’ve made in Step 3.
Href: the webpage URL where you want to redirect your readers after they click on a hotspot section

5.    Place the image map in your page. To display the map in your web page, you should use the following syntax:

<map name=”name_of_your_map”>
<area shape=”rect” cords=”125,170,100,85” href=”http://www.firstlinkhere”>
<area shape=”circle” cords=”159,400,40” href=”http://www.secondlinkhere”>
<area shape=”poly” cords=”76, 97, 50, 68, 90, 82 href=”http://www.thirdlinkhere”>
</map>
<img scr=”image.gif” usemap=”#name_of_your_map”>

Image by maple (freedigitalphotos.net)

Article By: Wasim Ismail

Wasim’s a project manager at Alrayes Web Solutions along with an online SEO consultant & blogger for business at wasimismail.com, specialising in online business.

]]> http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-create-clickable-maps-in-html/feed/ 0 http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/guides/how-to-create-clickable-maps-in-html/ Flash Animations: Is it ideal for your Business Website? http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HiddenWebGenius/~3/edpnb9rQ0a8/ http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/flash-animations-is-it-ideal-for-your-business-website/#comments Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:49:30 +0000 Sanjay http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/?p=1444 flash animationsAlthough having a flashy animated website can help you immediately attract visitors, is it really wise to have one integrated on your business site?

Outlined below are the common advantages and disadvantages to help you decide whether or not to add flash to your site.

Advantages of using flash animation

Flash animations can help you communicate your message effectively.  Integrating flash and animations will add value to your site, not only in terms of interactivity but also in delivering your message across to your visitors. The visual elements of flash animations allow your readers to easily grasp the meaning of your content without t having to read your entire blog post.

Flash can help you promote your products and services. Flash can also be quite useful in promoting your products and services. You can dynamically highlight sales promotions and voucher discounts by integrating flash.

Combining the powers of a well-written marketing copy and the interactivity of flash animation will do wonders to your conversion rate.

Flash animations appeal more to your visitors. Animated websites are eye-catching and will always grab visitors’ attention. Over time, visitors tend to get bored by information presented in plain text that they’ll choose a flash-animated website over a static, text-based website.

You should target creating a website that’s informative and entertaining at the same.

The drawbacks of adding flash and animations

Flash elements may be eye-catching to human visitors, but search bots can’t read and crawl flash contents. This means, that you will have a hard time ranking your pages in search engines if your website is heavily loaded with flash.

•    Search engines can’t index any content inside a flash file. The mobile market is growing exponentially. At present, there are 2 billion smartphone users and for your business to grow, you need to tap this market.  You won’t be able to effectively reach your mobile users if you’re using Flash-based contents on your site. Flash does not work on some mobile devices like iPhones and iPads.

•    Flash animations are only viewable by visitors who have the right flash software or plug-in installed. This means that a big chunk of users may not be able to see your flash file.

•    Flash may cause high bounce rate. Websites with lots of flash and animations tend to load slowly. Slow loading sites tend to frustrate visitors. With thousand of available information on the web, and with your competitor’s site just one click away, they won’t wait for your site to load – they’ll bounce out.

•    Flash files are quite difficult to update.

Final thoughts

Considering the large percentage of the market that you won’t be able to tap because of flash’s incompatibility with smartphones, and the number of visitors you’ll lose because of plugin and loading problems, it is best if business owners don’t use flash on their site. There are other ways of attracting and engaging visitors other than flashy and animated contents.

Image by DigitalArt (freedigitalphotos.net)

Article By: Sanjay Modasia

Sanjay is our lead developer with over 6 years experience, handling a strong team of developers with various industry expertise working on projects and meeting deadlines.

]]> http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/flash-animations-is-it-ideal-for-your-business-website/feed/ 0 http://www.hiddenwebgenius.com/blog/web-development/flash-animations-is-it-ideal-for-your-business-website/