Tutorial Blog

Target Your Marketing Campaign with Facebook Ads

Barbara Holbrook — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:00:29 +0000

Facebook ads are quickly becoming the top choice for targeted online ad campaigns. Whether your goal is lead generation, sales, or improving brand recognition, a targeted campaign will always have better results.

Google Adwords used to be the king of online ad campaigns because they can target users based on their current search priorities. Facebook ads are the next generation of targeted text ads.

Learn how to get started and why you should create a Facebook ad. (...)
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5 Photo Gallery Plugins for WordPress

Spencer Spellman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:28:11 +0000

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If so, then these photo gallery plugins for WordPress must be worth volumes. Each plugin creates the photo gallery a bit differently — jquery slideshows, flash slideshows, automatically from your flickr set — which you choose is purely a matter of preference.

Image galleries are one of those features that can help your website or blog rise above the rest. Quality photos can draw in your visitors and keep them on your site longer. Sure, you can still add eye candy to your blog using the default installation of WordPress. But if you really want to go for sugar-overload, then you need to include a photo gallery.

Here are five WordPress photo gallery plugins that can add some interactivity and pop to your blog. Now that’s sweet. (...)
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Free Photoshop Shapes: Download Custom Shapes Sets

Barbara Holbrook — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:00:41 +0000

Photoshop shapes are different than Photoshop brushes, although some people use the terms interchangeably, they refer to completely different tools. Both tools will allow you to easily add custom elements that be stamped out over and over again, used to create patterns, transferred from one design to another, and stored in your Photoshop library for use on your next project.

The big difference between custom brushes and custom shapes is that brushes create a bitmapped element that is permanently painted onto a layer. Custom Photoshop shapes will add an editable vector shape on it’s own layer. This is especially useful because it makes it easy to change the color or size of your custom item should you change your mind while working on the design.

Adding custom brushes and custom shapes to your Photoshop presets is an invaluable timesaver. Today, we’ll help you start your collection with this list of 10 Places to Download Free Custom Shape sets for Photoshop. (...)
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5 WordPress Comment Plugins to Engage Users and Promote Discussion

Spencer Spellman — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:16:05 +0000

If you’re a new user to WordPress, then you’re probably perfectly content with the comment features you already have. You may not yet realize the positive effect that adding a comment plugin (or three) can have on your site.

Better comment functions are a great way to encourage discussion and build community on your blog or website. Whether your goal is to encourage people to leave comments, reward them for doing so or even just make your comments look better, there is a WordPress plugin that will do the trick.

Try these 5 WordPress comment plugins to enhance your blog.(...)
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Choosing the Best RSS Feed Plugin for Wordpress

Barbara Holbrook — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:59:29 +0000

Using RSS feeds with Wordpress for fun and for profit. At one point or another most bloggers will want to display articles from another website. You may be sharing articles with a syndicated author, setting up a news ticker, or simply listing the current headlines from news sources in your niche. Whatever your reason, RSS feeds are usually the best way to pull in content from another source.

Today we’ll discuss how to import an RSS feed and display the feed items in a WordPress blog. There are plenty of methods to fetch and display the RSS feeds: plugins, third-party feed websites (such as feedzilla); and custom PHP scripts. Here are best Wordpress plugins for RSS feeds. (...)
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5 Ways to Prevent Social Media Disaster

Spencer Spellman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0000

As the NFL season kicks off in the U.S., I’m just waiting for this year’s top end zone celebration to be someone pulling an iPhone out of their pants and sending out a tweet or updating their Facebook status with a misplaced comment that reveals the team’s new playbook.

Social media continues to pop up in unexpected places. But, what’s wildly entertaining for us, could be considered disaster to an NFL team. In fact to prevent loose lips (or careless keyboarding), the NFL has created strict social media guidelines for players on game day.

The popularity of social media, has caused many disasters for corporations around the globe including(...)
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How to Get a Google API Key

Spencer Spellman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:31:49 +0000

To fully take advantage of Google maps and to integrate it into a blog or website, you’ll have to sign up to receive a Google API Key. This allows you to insert Google maps into your own web pages on your own domains. The only requirement is that you must have a Google account, as your API key will be connected to your account.

Even though there are many plugins and scripts that require an API Key to work, developers often overlook explaining just exactly how to sign up for a Google API Key. Today we’ll walk you through that process. (...)
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How to Measure Success in Social Media Part Two

Spencer Spellman — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:00:03 +0000

Last week I discussed how as a company or a business you can measure success with social media marketing. I stressed the importance of choosing the right metrics (ie: click-through-rates not twitter followers) and suggested some software that could help.

Today I’m going to get into more specific ways you can measure social media success. (...)
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How to Protect Your WordPress Blog From Spam

Spencer Spellman — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:00:53 +0000

If you’re new to WordPress, then you may imagine that spam is limited to just what you get in your email box, offering creams and pills to decrease your waist and increase your… um, other things. Eh-hem. Once you own a blog, spam can take on a whole new meaning and be even more of an annoyance that requires constant vigilance.

Not only do you want to protect your readers from offensive “comments” about where to find free you-know-what, but even more importantly Google considers spammy comments part of your content! And the big G will dock your page rank if it finds too much undesirable content.

After the jump, we’ll discuss moving beyond Akisment to protect your blog from spam. (...)
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Top 5 SEO Plugins for Joomla

Spencer Spellman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:00:54 +0000

Anyone who runs a successful website knows the value of search engine optimization. A good SEO tool kit can turn a good website into a profitable website by attracting the right kind of targeted traffic.

But, how do you SEO a CMS site such as Joomla? With Joomla Extensions! Extensions is term used to refer to any number of Joomla components, modules and plugins.

If you have a Joomla website, you’re going to want to make sure that you’ve properly optimized it for search engines and have the appropriate SEO tools in place.

Below I’ve listed the top five SEO extensions for Joomla. (...)
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