Web Ascender

Social Search and Google Search Plus Your World

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:10:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Google made a pretty major update to its search engine results. You may have noticed something different when you were logged into Gmail, but what exactly has changed?

It’s something that Google is calling Search plus Your World, and it’s an expansion on a concept that Google introduced just over two years ago: social search.

The idea behind social search was originally to personalize search results, making them more relevant to the individual. Back before the days of Google+, Google’s social search was dependent upon things like Gmail contacts or your Google Reader.

When you were logged into your Google account while executing a search, Google would find relevant content from others that you were associated with through your account, highlighting that content at the bottom of your search results.

While it was an exciting idea when it was first introduced, for most people, the original social search did not have a major effect on the way we searched the web.

However, since Google introduced Google+ last summer, it has created a way for users to indicate not only relevant content, but also the nature of their connections with others who are sharing that content.

The announcement that Google made a few weeks back is about more than merely adding a few personalized hits to the results pages of the search engine we have always known. Search plus Your World is about an entirely new search platform designed around each user’s social graph.

When personalized search is turned on, search results will include Google+ posts and photos as well as profiles and pages of those in your circles or those Google thinks you may be interested in adding.

Google has built itself upon its ability to provide the most relevant search results to its users, but the new updates are raising questions about potential bias towards Google+ when compared with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And that's not all people are complaining about.

There are serious privacy issues related to Search Plus Your World as well. For example, if you search the word "cat" on Google, the Wikipedia page for cat might appear alongside photos of your own cat that you have uploaded to Google+. Further, the same situation could be applied to the names of your family members or friends.

Only time will tell what the future holds for Google's Search Plus Your World. Will it drive you away from what has become the world's most popular search engine? Or is it really the wave of the future, with only a matter of time until it catches on?

4 Google Analytics Custom Alerts for SEO

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:05:00 GMT

Google Analytics has so much to offer that trying to get the most out of it can be pretty overwhelming. With so many options and so much data, it can be easy to overlook and miss out on some of its greatest resources.

One tool that’s relatively new to Google Analytics yet undeniably useful is Custom Alerts. Under the home tab and the intelligence events overview section, there are a number of automatic alerts as well as a place to create your own custom alerts.

Custom alerts are a great way to stay on top of your analytics without having to constantly monitor them. Simply set up a segment of traffic and a condition and Google Analytics will shoot you an email or a text whenever that condition is met.

This can be used to monitor site traffic, goal conversions, referrals, and more. Here is a list of four custom alerts that can help in your search engine optimization efforts.

Search Engine Traffic

Since the main goal of SEO is to gain more search engine traffic, setting up a custom alert for changes in search referrals is a must. Below is what your conditions should look like if you are setting up an alert for a decrease in referrals from Google. You probably want to add an alert for an increase in referrals as well.

Keyword Traffic

If you have a couple of keywords that drive a significant amount of traffic to your website, you can set up custom alerts to keep an eye on the traffic coming from them. If there is a significant increase or sizeable spike, an alert will let you know so you can identify the cause.

Goal Conversions

Because ROI is so important when it comes to any type of marketing, you want to stay on top of the number of leads or conversions you are getting. You can set up alerts for the total number of conversions or your conversion rate to notify you if the number of conversions isn’t lining up with the amount of traffic you are getting.

Brand Monitoring

Sometimes it can be difficult to monitor responses to your branding efforts, but there is an easy way to monitor how often your brand is being searched. Set up a custom alert for your brand name that will tip you off if organic searches for your brand increase or decrease by 20% from week to week or month to month. This will give you an idea of the effectiveness of your branding overall.

What's New With the New Twitter?

Stephanie — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:05:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Twitter introduced Fly, its latest version. Fly includes a new web interface as well as updates to the Twitter mobile application and TweetDeck. So what’s changed?

The Layout

The new Twitter introduces a layout in which your Tweets are seen on the right-hand side of the page while navigation links are seen on the left. While this is a more traditional layout in terms of web standards, it’s not what Twitter users are used to. In addition, there is no longer a change in background color between the right and left columns, leaving no clear focal point in the eye of users.

The Symbols

While Twitter may be known for its use of symbols such as @ and #, it has never made any steps to integrate them into its design – until now. The new Twitter features four tabs, all reliant on icons: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. The Home tab, represented by the symbol of a house, is a typical feed of the Tweets of those you are following. The Connect tab, represented by the @ symbol, contains all of the interactions that other users have had with you, be it following, mentioning, or re-Tweeting. The Discover tab, represented by the # symbol, is a live stream of information that is customized to suit your current location, who you follow, and what is going on in the world at a given time. According to Twitter, the content this tab has to offer will only improve as you use Twitter more. Finally, the Me tab is where you can view and edit your own profile.

Brand Pages

In addition to the interface updates, the new Twitter also introduces new brand profiles. Allowing marketers to further personalize their pages, these new profiles feature space for a branded tagline as well as a bigger logo. They also include one free promoted Tweet that will appear at the top of the Tweet stream to allow for further branding and help to engage users.

The new Twitter is available on mobile devices as well as on the desktop devices of users who have logged in using a mobile device. Within the next few weeks, the new Twitter will be available to all users. Brand pages will begin to become publicly available in the coming months.

10 SEO Tips for Link Building

Stephanie — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:01:00 GMT

Obtaining high quality links to your website is vital to search engine optimization. Here are ten ideas for finding the links that will ensure your link building campaign is successful.

Write guest blog posts – there are quality blogs that exist for nearly any topic you could think of. Pick a few that relate to your industry and find out if they accept guest bloggers. Writing guest blog posts allows you develop content and links that relate to the search terms you are focusing on.
Become a sponsor – there are probably some events in your area that relate to your industry and are always looking for sponsors. Becoming a sponsor is an easy way to get these events to link to your website.
Join relevant organizations – many organizations will link to members from their website. Joining organizations that relate to your industry will allow you to get quality 'back links' from quality websites.
Announce job postings – if you’re hiring, there are so many options for getting great links. Let people know about the openings you have, and they will spread the word for you. Also, posting to job websites is quick, easy, and can be very rewarding in terms of links.
Examine past links – take a look at the links you have gotten in the past and where they are coming from. Links from blogs, news sites, or other websites that are frequently writing new content are great places to look for obtaining new links.
Write newsworthy press releases – news websites are generally pretty reliable, making them a good source for back links. By producing newsworthy content, you can influence the media to talk about you, generating quality links back to your website.
Submit to award websites – nearly every industry has awards that relate to it. Often times, winners, runners up, and nominees are linked to from the award websites. Submitting yourself to award websites will help you to get public recognition as well as links.
Post to forums – contributing to reputable forums will allow you to build your brand name and your expertise while allowing you to toot your own horn with a link to your website in your signature. You could also try to answer some questions in a FAQ section on your website and then link to relevant answers in forums.
Contribute to social networks – the idea behind social networking relates significantly to the sharing of information. Active involvement in social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will allow you to distribute your content and make it easy for others to share it.
Write content that’s worth sharing – great content will not only help with on page SEO, but it also has the potential to generate a lot of links. Content that contains statistics, quality videos, or just good information is content that people will want to link to.

Google+ Business Pages

Stephanie — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:07:00 GMT

Earlier this month, Google introduced its addition of the long awaited Google+ Pages to its budding social network. By expanding the ability to connect strictly with other people to connecting directly with local and global businesses, Google+ is building a community with the capacity to drive social interaction as it takes place online. Similar to Google+ user profiles, Pages offers features such as Circles and Hangouts that make it easy for users to feel connected to the businesses they follow. By creating a Google+ Page for your business, you open up a new line of communication with your clients and consumers and a new way of interacting with them.

Getting Started

Before you can create a Google+ Page, you must first have a profile of your own. This is easy to do with any Google account. From your Google+ user profile, there is an option to create a Google+ Page in the right-hand menu. One issue you may want to consider is that there is currently no way to add multiple administrators to a Google+ Page. This means that the Google+ account the Page is created on is the only account with the ability to post as the page or edit it.

Circles

The original idea behind circles with Google+ user profiles is that you can create niche groups to categorize the types of people you want to follow and share your posts with. Any user can add any other user who may or may not add them back.With Pages, the difference is seen in that a user must add your page to his or her own circles before you can add that user to your page’s circles. Once you begin to rack up your followers, however, you can categorize them and target each of your circles with different marketing materials that might appeal to them. For example, Web Ascender’s clients would be interested in much different information than someone who works in the industry. Using circles, we can ensure that the information we post applies to those who are adding us to their circles.

Hangouts

Hangouts are also a feature available to both Google+ users and Pages. They allow you to communicate directly with users via group video chats. While the number of users that can be involved in one hangout is limited, this feature offers many possibilities including planned sessions or spontaneous discussions. Hangouts can be used to put a face to your brand and give users a sense of who you are. You may want to use them to provide consumers with valuable information or to get customer feedback.

Ripples

Ripples are a new feature that allows you to examine the sharing patterns of posts throughout Google+. These diagrams indicate how publicly shared posts are shared and re-shared, giving you a peak at what content is popular and who it’s popular with. An interactive timeline displays trends in sharing over time. Information on people with the most re-shares, the number of shares per hour, the languages in which each post was shared, and more are also available. To get started, simply select "view ripples" on any public post.

Using Google for Advertisers: Insights

Stephanie — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:15:00 GMT

Google for Advertisers offers countless tools for every aspect of internet marketing. The Insights section of Google for Advertisers is the perfect place to explore your marketing options and develop the plan that is right for you. Below is an outline of some tools with the most potential and ideas for using them to grow your online presence.

Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search allows you observe changes in search patterns by time period and location as well as niche categories. Using Insights, it is easy to identify how people search for your keywords throughout different times of the year as well as across the globe.

For example, the graph below indicates that the word Christmas is gradually searched more each month starting in September until it falls off at the end of December. The graph also indicates that searches for Christmas overall are on a downward trend.

This information can be used to determine which direction your targeted keywords are headed, helping you to focus only on those which appear to have a positive trend.

Google Insights for Search also suggests the top related search terms as well as search terms that are on the rise and includes categories such as shopping or entertainment which relate to why people are searching for each term.

Ad Planner

Ad Planner is a great source for those using Google AdWords, and specifically the Content Network. While the general Content Network may eat up your AdWords budget in a hurry, Ad Planner’s Search for Placements section allows you to pick niche audiences and filter them out to reach only your most probable customers. With the Search by Site section, you can see the age, gender, education, and income of your visitors as well as other sites they tend to be drawn toward. You can then use this information to determine where your AdWords budget would be most effective.

Google Alerts

This tool can be used to keep up to date with news and blogs related to your keywords. In terms of SEO, Google Alerts can be used to find potential linking opportunities as they become available. Simply enter one of your keywords to receive immediate, daily, or weekly emails concerning web pages relevant to your keyword. This tool can also be used as a PR resource in keeping tabs on what is being said about your company or your product.

Meritor iPad App Launched

root — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:35:00 GMT

Web Ascender launches the iPad app for Meritor (NYSE: MTOR)!

We're Hiring!

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:51:00 GMT

Web Ascender is looking to expand our team of web experts. If you have some experience building amazing websites with Drupal or writing slick Ruby code, then check out our Jobs page.

We're also looking for an Office Manager to help with our day-to-day operations.

Facebook Timeline for Business

Stephanie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:32:00 GMT

While the idea of having your personal life story on a single page for the whole world to see may seem a bit invasive, the ability to create such a story about your brand may mean a lot for your business. The new Facebook Timeline was created to prevent your Facebook wall from falling off the edge of the Earth and features an easily navigated timeline of every post, tag, and like since the day your Facebook Page was created.

What this could mean for your business in the future is that customers will be able to see how your brand and its connection to the public have evolved over time with just a few clicks of the mouse. Not only could Timeline make the history of your business more accessible, but it could also make branding your page more customizable and visually appealing.

The saying a picture is worth a thousand word holds true here in that rather than being limited to a single profile photo and five customizable shots at the top of your page, Timeline introduces a “Cover” photo in addition to your profile picture as well as unlimited customizable boxes throughout your timeline. These boxes can allow you to create more engaging posts than ever before, drawing in your users and giving them more of a reason to interact with your page.

Timeline will become available to the public early this month, but it may be a while until it is available for business pages.

Networking with LinkedIn

Stephanie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:27:00 GMT

What is LinkedIn?

The great thing about LinkedIn is that it’s one of the easiest social networking sites for anyone to use. Because it requires very little knowledge of social media, it can be a great marketing tool with much less of a time commitment than some of its alternatives. Here is a look at some of LinkedIn’s best features for networking online.

Joining LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups allow you to connect directly with professionals in your field and your location. Joining groups is a great way to reach the specific audience that you are targeting with your LinkedIn campaign. You probably want to join enough groups that you can reach out to a diverse audience, but not so many that you can’t remain active in all of them. For groups to be an effective means of reaching your audience, you should try to participate regularly in discussions, not only by offering content of your own, but also by discussing the posts of other group members.

LinkedIn Question & Answer Forums

LinkedIn Answers is a great way to build your credibility on LinkedIn. By regularly answering questions that are related to your field, you can share your expertise with others and give them a reason to contact you. Aim to answer at least one question a week, but more is always better.

Asking for Recommendations

When you are trying to reach out to potential clients on LinkedIn, it is important to have some credibility behind your name. An easy way to establish this is by asking past employers and clients to recommend you on LinkedIn. You may want to make it into a contest where people have the chance to win a discount or a prize for writing a recommendation.

Checking your progress

The easiest way to check how effective your LinkedIn efforts are in the short term is to examine the types of responses you are receiving from your group discussion posts and the questions you have answered. In the long term, watch how your contacts and connections grow as well as how this relates to your clients.

What's New With Google Analytics 5

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:46:00 GMT

If you aren’t already using Google Analytics for your website, you’re missing out on a lot of potentially game changing information. By simply adding some code to your website, Google Analytics will track each visitor that comes to your site, where they came from, and where they went next. Using Google Analytics, you can begin to grasp the thoughts of your customers, clients, and prospects. While Google Analytics has been around for years, it hasn’t always been the most user-friendly of web tools, and updates have been few and far between. Last March however, you may have noticed a link to the “New Version” of Google Analytics that appeared in the upper right hang corner of your screen. At a glance the new version, dubbed Google Analytics 5, can be a bit overwhelming. So here’s a look at what’s new in Version 5 to help you get the most out of your data and your website.

Improved Navigation

The first novel idea: navigation that makes sense. With Google Analytics 5, there are 5 tabs. A Home tab, which contains navigation to each site within your account; a new and improved Dashboards tab; a My Site tab, containing information on visitors, traffic sources, etc.; a My Conversions tab; and a tab devoted to Custom Reports. The left-hand menu has also undergone some pretty major changes, fortunately for the better as well. Now that you aren’t driving around with a blindfold, you might find it easier to put Google Analytics to work for you.

Multiple, Widget Based Dashboards

For most people, the dashboard is the first thing you’ll see when opening up your Analytics account. Previously, Google Analytics only offered one, standard dashboard as the main page for each website. With Google Analytics 5, you can now have up to 20 dashboards, allowing you to create and customize individual dashboards for a variety of purposes. In addition to being able to create multiple dashboards, Google Analytics dashboards are now entirely widget based, making them highly customizable and easier than ever to use.

Event Goal Tracking

The new version of Google Analytics also offers opportunities for goals and tracking that were previously only available with the use of JavaScript. Earlier versions of Google Analytics allowed you to create URL goals for tracking conversions, but there was no way to drill down to conversions within a unique URL. With Google Analytics 5 and the introduction of Event Goals, you can now track events that take place on individual pages. This becomes useful in tracking events like file downloads or video views. You can also add values to these goals, making our ROI calculations all the more accurate.

Intelligence Reporting

Google Analytics Intelligence has the capability to search your website traffic for irregularities and alert you whenever it finds something that’s out of the ordinary. With Analytics 5, you can now organize and sort through these events using tables. From there you can drill down into the details of individual events, explore each event, and create custom intelligence alerts.

There’s a lot more to discover and a lot more to enjoy with Google Analytics 5, so try it out, and don’t forget to let us know what you like and what you don’t!

Social Media News

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:36:00 GMT

As the business of social media is built upon the idea of instantaneous news and updates, it comes as little surprise that the news specific to social media itself never seems to stop. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to keep up with the near constant changes in the field. In an attempt to consolidate the recent updates across major social media platforms, here is a look at what’s new in the worlds of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google+.

Facebook Video Chat, Calling & Group Chat

You may have noticed a recent change in the structure of Facebook Chat. What you may not have noticed is that the look of Facebook Chat isn’t the only thing that’s changed. In addition to being able to see the friends you interact with most, you can now engage in group chats by simply clicking on the + button on the top of your chat screen to add another friend to the conversation. With the introduction of group chat, Facebook also announced the coming of video chat and video calling. While these services aren’t available to everyone quite yet, Facebook plans to roll them out within the next few weeks.

Twitter’s Timely Tweets

Timely Tweets from Twitter are expected to make their debut within a week or two. These real time versions of Twitter’s Promoted Trends will display advertisements directly in users’ timelines. The new Promoted Tweets will appear at or near the top of a user’s timeline only once before scrolling through the timeline like a normal Tweet as a way to ensure users have access to the “most important Tweets,” according to Twitter. A limited group of advertisers have been selected by Twitter for the initial stage of Timely Tweets including Gatorade, Dell, and Starbucks. Users will only see Promoted Tweets from advertisers they are following.

YouTube and Cosmic Panda

In the past, YouTube’s minimalist design may have been something we all took for granted, but that was before the introduction of Cosmic Panda. That’s what YouTube is calling its new look. It’s a bit darker and a bit more dramatic, but that’s not all that’s changed. The new look also presents some new layout changes to playlists, videos, and channels as well as a number of new customization options. Try out Cosmic Panda for yourself, and let us know what you think.

Introducing Google+

Google+ may be the new kid on the block, but that doesn’t mean it’s not catching on. By now you’ve probably heard the buzz around Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, and Huddles. Add the people you know to Circles to allow them to see your posts. Join Hangouts to take part in live video chats. Use Sparks to receive news and updates about topics that are important to you, and make use of Huddles to start group chat sessions via text messaging. It’s been a month since Google+ was introduced, and only time will tell what the future has in store for this budding social network.

Google +1 for Business

Stephanie — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:32:00 GMT

If you’re on top of your marketing efforts when it comes to the internet, you likely have active business pages on Facebook, Twitter, and perhaps a few other social networking sites, but with the buzz surrounding Google +1, you may find yourself wondering what comes next. While the future of Google +1 and businesses is uncertain as of yet, there are a few things that we know we can expect, mainly relating to what Google does best: search engines.

The idea behind Google +1 as it relates to search engines has to do with the concept of social search. Users can “+1” search results that they deem important, helpful, or just plain interesting, and it is only a matter of time until these recommendations become a big player in Google’s algorithm. Not only does the +1 phenomenon have the potential to impact the order of search engine results on the whole, it also presents the idea of personalized search results. Using the concept of “circles,” or groups of friends within the Google + network, individual search results can be tailored to suit each user.

In addition to recommending your page via search results, users can also recommend your page via a +1 button on your actual website. According to Google, it may crawl or recrawl your site in response to +1 impressions or clicks, all the more reason to jump on board.

Add Google +1 to Your Website

Web Design and Typography

Stephanie — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:12:00 GMT

The evolution of fonts in web design has been a slow and steady one. In the early days of the internet there was Courier, then Times New Roman, followed by Arial and Verdana. For years, the list of “safe” fonts available to web designers was less than extensive. If you wanted to get creative with your typography, your only option was to use an image, a choice that is anything but search engine friendly.

With the introduction of CSS2 in 1998, the @font-face embeding technique sparked excitement about the possibilities of fonts and the web. Unfortunately, browser support was hardly satisfactory and concerns about infringement and illegal use of fonts resulted in it being removed in CSS2.1. After a number of encrypted font formats fixed the infringement problem, CSS3 reintroduced the idea. But the problem still remained that no two browsers are alike.

TTF (True Type Font), OTC (Open Type Font), WOFF (Web Open Font Format), and EOT (Embedded Open Type Fonts) are the most widely used font formats. While TTF/OTF and WOFF are supported by recent versions of Firefox and Chrome, all versions of Internet Explorer up until version 9 only support EOT, a format not supported by any other browser.

By the time Internet Explorer joined the ranks of modern browsers with the release of version 9 in 2011, fairly widespread support for TTF/OTF had made fonts more consistent for most users.

Last year, Google introduced their own Google Font API in an attempt to ease the chaos of web design typography. With a good selection of high quality, open source fonts, Google Fonts allows designers to use a variety of creative fonts while maintaining a consistent user experience across browsers. This free service is easy to use by adding a brief link that Google provides to your website’s HTML. The font will be displayed to users on any of the following browsers:

Google Chrome: version 4.249+
Mozilla Firefox: version 3.5+
Apple Safari: version 3.1+
Opera: version 10.5+
Microsoft Internet Explorer: version 6+

How to Write Web Content

Stephanie — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:03:00 GMT

Before you even start thinking about writing content for the web, be sure you know what you are trying to get out of it. Do you want to persuade customers to buy your product? Would you like to convince visitors of why you are better than the competition? Are you just trying to improve your search engine rankings? Your purpose may be one or all of these, or any number of other things, but whatever your case may be, don’t start writing until you have an end goal in mind. Here we will discuss the basic concepts of three distinct purposes: education, conversion, and SEO.

Writing to Educate/Answer Questions

The purpose of your web content likely varies depending on the type of page you are writing for. You probably have pages on your website that aim at educating visitors and answering their questions. On these types of pages it is important for your content to be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and to the point. Consider adding a Frequently Asked Questions section or some way for visitors to navigate the information you provide. On pages that aim to educate visitors, bullet points are often your best option. When users are looking for an answer, they want to find it quickly and without a hassle, they won’t be willing to read through paragraph after paragraph of information they didn’t come searching for.

Writing to Create Conversions

No matter what type of website you are writing for, you need to have an idea of what you would like your visitors to do. Whether you want them purchase something from your online store, share something with their friends, or contact you directly, be sure you keep your goal in mind when you are writing your content. Every page on your site should present visitors with a next step. When you are writing content to create conversions, you need to tell your visitors what this step is. Be persuasive, provide testimonials, and give visitors a sense of what you are about. If you have any hope of getting your visitors to do what you want, you need to give them a reason to trust you.

Writing for SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to the success of any website. Fortunately, if your content is well written, you should already be in decent shape. There are plenty of articles out there that go into much depth about the workings of search engines and writing content for them, but here I will just mention few important aspects of writing content for SEO. Before you begin, know your keywords, and write your content accordingly. Use keywords in H tags, crosslinks (links across different pages on your site), bullet points, and bolded text. Each of these are indicators to Google regarding your page is about. If you want to write content that will improve your rankings in search results, you should be sure you are giving Google every clue you can about the purpose of your website.

Google Search Tips

Stephanie — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:52:00 GMT

Perhaps the biggest reason for Google’s overwhelming popularity relates to its accessibility. While the search engine that has come to dominate its market is both easy to find and easy to use, using Google well is something that can only be accomplished by those who understand how it works. Fortunately, it can be easy to obtain accurate and targeted information from the search engine with the use of a few basic techniques. Here we discuss five of the most important techniques you can use to ensure you get the most out of Google.

Quotation Marks and Plus Signs – Quotation marks are useful if you are searching for either a quote or words in a specific order. Google will not rearrange the words and will only return results containing the exact phrase used within the quotation marks. A plus sign immediately between two words serves the same function as quotation marks. Example: A search for “To be or not to be” will return results containing that quote exactly as it appears in the search bar. Similarly, a search for tomato+soup will return results containing the words tomato soup in that order.
“Link” – Search for all of the links of a webpage using the word link followed by a colon and the URL. Example: A search for link:webascender.com will return results containing all of the websites that link to webascender.com.
Domain or Website Name – Use a colon to separate your keyword from the website you would like to search to return results only from that website. Example: A search for web design:webascender.com would display results for web design from webascender.com.
Minus Signs –A minus sign will exclude a specific word from appearing in your search results. Example: A search for tomato soup -recipes will return results that contain tomato soup but do not contain the word recipes.
“OR” – Using or in your searches will return results that contain one key phrase or the other. This allows you to search for two keywords on one results page. Example: A search for web design or web development will return results containing either web design or web development.

4 Secrets to Better Blogging

Stephanie — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:12:00 GMT

If you aren’t writing great headlines, why write?

Perhaps the most important part of any blog post is the headline. Your headline should do more than reiterate word for word the mundane content of your post. If you want me to read your article, you have to have to tell me why and you have to do it in a sentence. While that may sound like a tall order, consider the fact that no one will read your content if your headline isn’t interesting. In a sense, if you let your headline fall by the wayside, you might as well not write your post at all. Unique headlines are what stand out to readers in search engine results, and relevant headlines are what get readers to click.

Killer content doesn’t have an expiration date.

The key to a great blog post is content that doesn’t get old. It takes time to rack up a good ranking on Google and it takes time for your content to go viral. If you’re writing about a topic that is only relevant for a day or two, by the time I actually find it, I likely no longer have any interest in it. Rather than writing strictly about news or to-the-minute updates, write something that has a message, something that I’ll want to share, and something that I’ll want to come back to and read again down the road.

What do readers really want?

Give your readers what they want. And what your readers want is something they can relate to. If you can solve my problems and give me peace of mind, there is no reason why I won’t read what you have to say. Know what I’m passionate about, and show me that you share that passion with me. After all, your blog isn’t about you. It’s about your readers. If you can relate to me on any level, I’m that much more likely to buy not only what you have to say, but also whatever products or services you are trying to sell me.

Boss your readers around.

If you are putting a significant amount of time, money, and effort into a blog, you are probably looking to get something out of it. Well, if you aren’t telling me what you want from me, how should you expect me to know? If you want me to buy what you are selling, tell me! If you want me to share what you have to say, let me know! Do you want feedback from me? Do you want me to sign up for something? If you have any hope of getting what you want, don’t be afraid to be bossy.

How to Add Facebook Comments to My Website

root — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:10:00 GMT

With the recent introduction of Facebook’s new and improved social plugin Comments Box, third party websites can not only add Facebook comments to their website, but they also have the option to sync comments directly to user Facebook pages. While in the past, the Comments Box served merely as a static addition to third party sites, it now has the capacity to provide direct communication between a website, a Facebook user, and all of his or her friends.

Using the new Comments Box, if you were to comment on a website such as Web Ascender, you would be given the option to post both to WebAscender.com as well as to your Facebook wall and the newsfeeds of all of your friends via the checkbox seen above. In addition, if a friend of yours were to comment on your wall post, that comment would also appear on WebAscender.com. What’s more is that not only can you comment on third party sites using your personal Facebook username, but you can also leave comments under the name of a Facebook Page.

Also included in the new Comments box is a feature intended to increase quality of the plugin for users. Using social signals such as friends, friends of friends, and most liked or most active discussion threads, the Comments box will personalize results for each user.

How to add the Facebook Comments Box to my website

Facebook offers a simple and easy to use Comments Box code generator which looks something like this:

Insert the URL you want Facebook to link to, the number of posts you would like displayed be default, and the width you want your Comments Box to be, then click “Get Code.”

Or, add the Facebook Comments Box using the following code:

Attributes

Href – the URL for the specific Comments plugin. Newsfeed stories on Facebook will link here.

Width – the width of the plucin in pixels (minimum width: 350px)

Num_posts – the number of comments to show by default

Moderation

Before adding admins to your comment box, you must first locate the ID of the user you wish to add. To do so, hover over a link to the user’s name on Facebook, and a URL will appear in the lower left hand corner of your browser. Toward the end of the URL, you will find “id=” followed by a set of numbers. Those numbers make up the user ID.

Now that you have found your ID, you can add admins to your Comments Box by inputting the user IDs of each admin, separated by commas, into the following tag:

You can also associate a Facebook app with your Comments Box, automatically making all admins of the app admins of your Comments Box as well. Do so using the following tag:

Web Ascender Wins Greater Lansing Entrepreneur Award

root — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:58:00 GMT

Web Ascender was recently recognized by the Lansing Business Monthly at the 17th Annual Greater Lansing Entrepreneurial Awards (GLEAs). Web Ascender’s Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth were announced as the winners of the Interactive Services Entrepreneur award on Thursday, March 10, 2011.

Since Web Ascender was founded in 2005, the company has rapidly grown into a leader in the field of web design, development, and internet marketing. Specializing in creating custom websites, functional mobile apps, and practical online systems, Web Ascender strives to suit the needs of both local clients and clients across the globe.

The annual GLEAs recognize business owners and managers who have created and developed prospering companies in the Greater Lansing area. Web Ascender was one of twelve local businesses to be recognized.

What is Facebook Open Graph?

Stephanie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:57:00 GMT

The Like button is one of the most popular ways to integrate Facebook into your site. It is thankfully one of the easiest as well. From personal blogs to corporate websites, the Like button can act as a personal gateway between your site and Mr. Zuckerberg’s. And now, thanks to the Open Graph, it is easier than ever to let Facebook work its magic and market for you.

What is the Open Graph?

Based upon the idea of mapping out all of the connections between one person and his or her Likes to create a “graph,” the idea of the Open Graph is to connect everyone from across the web based what each person deems important, or “Likes.” Ultimately, in providing a link between one’s social interactions with Facebook and one’s social interactions with the rest of the web, the Open Graph protocol enables any website to achieve the same functionality as a Facebook page.

What does this mean for the Web?

The implications that the Open Graph may have on the web as a whole relate significantly to the idea of search engines. While currently Google still attracts more traffic than any other website, Facebook is a close second. Even without a good internal search engine, Facebook already drives more traffic for some searches than Google itself. And in attempting to link Facebook with the rest of the web, the Open Graph is creating Facebook’s own extensive and highly interactive version of a search engine. It is important to note, however, that Google still holds significant importance in the large scheme of things, and even if Facebook does surpass Google, Google will likely continue to warrant enough traffic to play a large role in the online world.

What does this mean in terms of marketing?

First off, the implications of the Open Graph when it comes to SEO are significant. Social influence now officially plays a role in search engine results, and if you are not taking advantage of the Open Graph, you are missing out on a big slice of the SEO pie. The number of Likes your website receives directly relates to how popular Google assumes your site to be. The more Likes you boast, the higher Google ranks your page. Also, without the Open Graph, only your website’s Facebook page can appear in a user’s news feed or wall posts. However, the Open Graph allows an actual link to your website to appear throughout Facebook. If you aren’t using the Open Graph, you may be losing a good portion of traffic to your site.

How do I add a Facebook Like button?

Simply point your browser over to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/,

Add your site url,
Click ‘Get Code’
Select your embedding method

Embed your code from Facebook and reload your page. Viola! Users can now Like your page. Page details will be posted on the user’s wall and news feed.

Advance Like Button Features - Open Graph Protocol

Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph ) allows you to add additional meta data to your site which Facebook will interpret and include in the Like details. Facebook provides a number of meta properties which help distinguish your content posted on Facebook.

<meta property="og:title" content="The Rock"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="movie"/>
<meta property="og:email" content="me@example.com"/>
<meta property="og:phone_number" content="650-123-4567"/>
<meta property="og:fax_number" content="+1-415-123-4567"/>

These are a few examples of meta properties.Use Facebook’s URL Linter (http://developers.facebook.com/tools/lint/) to insure you’ve added everything correctly.

QR Codes as a Marketing Tool

Stephanie — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:09:00 GMT

If you haven’t heard, there is a new marketing phenomenon and it looks something like this:

Known as a QR code, short for Quick Response, the image seen above is a barcode that can be read by mobile devices. The codes can store a variety of information such as phone numbers and URLs. When scanned, this image will link you to the URL for the Web Ascender website.

Before your phone will be compatible with QR codes, you may need to download a barcode scanner application, but after doing so, simply hold the camera on your mobile device over the image to decode it.

You can download ‘Bakodo’ free on the iPhone and ‘Barcode Scanner’ by ZXing Team for Android.

Created in Japan in 1994, QR codes were originally used for vehicle manufacturing as a way to track parts. While today they are still used commercially as tracking devices, they have also taken on a new application.

In the marketing world, the idea of a QR code is to the ease the divide between traditional and new media. The draw of the codes is that they more or less act as real life hyperlinks.

Print advertisements that contain QR codes may store product details, coupons, or a URL for an online store while business cards with the codes might contain contact information allowing clients to scan a code to add you to their address book.

Google’s “Favorite Places” campaign puts QR codes that link to their listings in the windows of local businesses, and some fast food restaurants use QR codes on their packaging with nutrition information.

The possibilities with QR codes are endless, and not only are their benefits seen in the convenience they provide consumers, but also in their ability to make marketing more efficient and effective. Using QR codes allows advertisers to measure response rates fairly accurately, ultimately improving return on investment calculations.

Another marketing advantage that QR codes may have in the future relates to search engines. Currently, if you have a QR code on your website, Google will index it as an image, but the time is sure to come when Google will recognize the image as a QR code and index its content as well.

The benefits of integrating QR codes into your marketing campaign are evident, so if this leaves you wondering how to get started, it’s probably easier than you think. There are a number of free QR code generators available online as well as more specialized tools that will allow you to track the activity of your codes.

The rapid increase in popularity of QR codes over the past decade shows no sign of slowing down, so don’t wait to take advantage of such an innovative technology. It’s here to stay.

Is your website getting old? 9 ways to give it a boost!

Stephanie — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:51:00 GMT

The average life span of a website design is about 3 years. Does that mean you then have invest a bunch of money to build a new one? Not necessarily. If your website was built using a content management system (CMS), virtual includes, properly organized HTML/CSS, or a similar strategy to separate your website’s content with the look and feel then it may be easier than you think to get that brand new website.

For example, Web Ascender often uses the content management system DotNetNuke to build our clients’ websites. Using this CMS, all of the actual site content and information is stored separately from the design files in a database. Therefore, if you wanted to make your website look different it would be a pretty painless endeavor.

If it has been over a year since you had your website developed, here are some ideas or features you could add to bring in some new life!

Get an Updated Design

You may not have to re-build your entire website, but review it for ways that it can be improved upon. This industry moves fast, changes can be made to your site to perform better on different screen resolutions and mobile devices. Even the best practices for the web have changed since last year, so spending some time to review the look of your website and how it positions your company is a good idea every year or two.

Review Your Sitemap and Content

If your website was built using a CMS it should be easy to rename pages, update content, and continue to add value to your visitors with pretty minimal effort. Take the time to walk through your site, review each page, and see what other services you now offer, what new products you have, or what additional information you can offer to your visitors.

Add a Blog or News Section

Create a way to provide information to your current customers or prospects.

Do a Search Engine Optimization Review

Unfortunately, your website won’t magically show up for the search terms you want. If you are noticing that your website isn’t showing up for the terms you would like it to, work with your developer or a company to review this quarterly or annually. Putting a long term strategy into place can ensure that you continually improve your search engine position.

Review your ‘Call to Action’

On each of your websites pages, do you have a clear next step? Maybe it is to pick up the phone and place a call, perhaps it is to buy a product or fill out a contact form? Make sure there is something the user can do next. Sometimes it’s as simple as making sure your phone number and address are visible and easy to access.

Add a Shopping Cart to Your Website

If you sell products in your store and you don’t already sell them online, consider starting an online store. The cost of adding e-commerce to a website is easier than ever before. Especially with new checkout options like PayPal and Google Checkout this can often be added without having to do a lot of work with your bank.

Add a Client or Member’s Only Area

Can you offer additional content on your website that only existing clients or members should be able to access? This could be useful files to download, exclusive access to education materials, documents specifically for them, or ways for them to ask questions or get additional support.

Add a Mobile Version of Your Website

How many of your visitors are accessing your website from their mobile device? Sure it may only be 1% – 5% today but this market will continuing to grow.

Integrate Social Media

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FourSquare, and other social media outlets are not a good fit for all businesses. However, you should evaluate at what level you should start to get involved with these online discussion and communication platforms. Lot’s of conversations are happening, probably some about services or products you provide. If you start listening and get involved with discussions, it could open you up to a new market and additional opportunities.

3 great photo apps for your iPhone

Web Ascender — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:29:00 GMT

3 Must have photo applications for your iPhone.

TiltShiftGen $.99 allows you to apply some create retro features to your photos.
- Change the brightness, saturation, and contrast
- Add a radial or linear blur
- Add a vignetting effect of dark shadow around your photo
Free Photo Filters - $0 Four simple photo effects
- Lomography
- Polarizing
- Black & White
- Retro Photo
Photoshop Express $0
- Crop, Straighten, Rotate, Flip
- Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black & White, Contrast
- Sketch, Soft Focus, Sharpen
- Effects and Borders

19 Useful Facebook Tips

Web Ascender — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:27:00 GMT

A handful of tips to help you improve your Facebook use with friends, family and co-workers.

How to use the pen tool in Fireworks

Web Ascender — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:18:00 GMT

Ryan shows you how to use the vector pen tool in Adobe Fireworks

Adobe Fireworks Masking Tutorial

Web Ascender — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:06:00 GMT

Fireworks is an Adobe product similar to Photoshop but tailored more towards web design. Here are the basics to doing masking.

Doing web design with Adobe Fireworks

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:20:00 GMT

Ryan recorded a short 10 minute video on doing very basic web design layout. Future tutorials on the way.

DotNetNuke Host Settings

Stephanie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:02:00 GMT

One of the great benefits of DotNetNuke is the ability to run multiple websites using the same DotNetNuke installation and database. Each website within your DotNetNuke installation is also referred to as a Portal. DotNetNuke can easily run hundreds of Portals on a single install.

After DotNetNuke is first setup, there will be a default Portal which is usually used as the primary website. You can then add more by logging into your website with the Host account and accessing the host menu > Portals page.

Adding a new Portal

When adding a new Portal to your DotNetNuke Installation there is only one real decision to make. You will need to decide if you want to make a Child Portal or a Parent Portal. The primary difference is whether or not this new website will be on the same domain name or a different domain name. Parent portals will be on a new domain name and are usually completely un-related websites. Parent is the default because it is the most popular and used 90% of the time. The only time you would want to do a Child portal is if the website is going to use the same domain as another Portal on your install. Perhaps it is a separate division with-in the same company.

When you setup a child portal it will be accessed with a / notation: www.yourwebsite.com/childportalname.

It is recommended that you use Parent portals whenever possible, but occasionally Child portals are a good choice to cleanly separated divisions within a company or organization. You must remember that they are completely separate websites. There is no sharing of information between any child or parent Portals.

Field Names

· Portal Type: Parent / Child

· Portal Alias: If using a Parent portal your alias would be your website domain. Such as: “www.yourwebsite.com” or ”localhost.” If you are doing a Child portal it will usually be “www.yourwebsite.com/childportalname.”

· Home Directory: If you do not customize this all of your Portal’s files and information will be saved in a directory called Portals/[PortalId] where [PortalId] will be an incremented number for each portal you create. We recommend customizing the Home directory and entering something like: Portals/portal-name where “portalname” is the name of your new website. That way when you are looking at your file system you can see a familiar name versus just a number. It’s going to be a directory so I would recommend excluding spaces and keeping it simple.

Title: The Title that will show in the top of your browser for your website
Description: The default meta data for description that will appear on all pages of your site to search engines
Keywords: Comma separated list of keywords that search engines will read
Template: Usually select default website. Learn more about Templates below.
Username: The username for the Administrator login that will be created for this Portal
First Name: The First name of the Administrator
Last Name: The Last name of the Administrator
Email: Email address of the Administrator. This is used by some modules to automatically notify the Administrator of changes or updates.
Password & Confirm Password: Password for the Administrator account that is beign created

Portal Templates

Portal templates allow you to save your website’s pages, modules, and content to use in creating another website. For example, if you were doing work for a coffee shop franchise and each location wanted a similar website using templates could be advantageous. After you create the home, about, menu, news, and contact pages for one location, you could export the template. You could then create a new Portal, import that template, and it would setup the website just like the previous one. You would then edit that Portal and change the information that was specific to that coffee shop. If you need to build a lot of similar sites this is a great route.

Creating a Template

Login to your website with a Super User/Host account and access the Host menu > Portals. On the Portals page there is an option to “Export Portal Template.”

Using a Template

You can use a Template when creating a new Portal, or when using the site wizard on an existing Portal. To access the Site Wizard, use the Admin menu > Site Wizard.

Web Ascender's Photoshop CS4 Button Tutorial

Web Ascender — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 21:17:00 GMT

In this video Kyle shows you how to create a nice button using Adobe Photoshop.

DotNetNuke Basics | Display Modes & Panes

Web Ascender — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:16:00 GMT

Learn about the basic building blocks of DotNetNuke.

DotNetNuke Banner Ads | DNN Banners and Vendors

Web Ascender — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:21:00 GMT

The Vendor module and the Banner module make it possible to serve advertisements on your website.

Lansing Give Camp 2010

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:40:00 GMT

The Web Ascender team donated over 160 hours to the Lansing Give Camp this weekend. Here is a video to summarize the events!

DotNetNuke Forms and Lists

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:32:00 GMT

The Forms and Lists module is a very versatile module that allows you to collect, save, and display data as you see fit. For example, you can create a list of staff, employee contact information, documents, articles, and many other things. You can control exactly what data is collected, and you can even control how it is displayed if you are willing to learn more about XML and XML transformations.

Let’s start with an example of creating a custom list of books for our reading library. First, add the Forms and Lists module to a new page. Then roll over the blue arrow and select “Form and List Configuration.”

The first portion of the configuration is defining the data you need to collect. To add “Book Title” select Add New Column. Then add in the column title “Book Title” and select the type as Text. Click the save icon to save this column.

You can use this same method to create columns for ISBN, author, book cover image, link to buy, etc. Using the Forms and Lists module you have many options of types, however the most commonly used are:

Date
Date and Time
Download
Email
Image
Rich Text
Text
URL

When adding the columns to the Forms and Lists you will also need to decide whether this information is required, whether it should display in the list view, and whether it is a searchable field with the core DotNetNuke search.

Using the Forms and List Configuration you can configure some additional options.

Rending Method	Default Grid Table is a great default for Forms and Lists. You should also try the XSLT using built-in stylesheets and see if one of those models is a better display fit for you. You can always use the self made stylesheets but that will require a serious time investment to learn the ins and outs of doing custom XSLT.
Sorting Options	Control which column should be sorted on by default and whether to sort ascending or descending.
Paging	Control whether the data is displayed in pages or all on one screen
Filter Statement	You can configure a default filter to limit the information displayed, which is useful to filter information out based on the logged in user or some other available token. (Advanced)
Show no Records until Search	Select this to not show any data by default. It requires the user to search before showing any data.
Show Search Box	This will allow you to enable some searching features.
Records Returned	This allows you to control how many results are returned.

Module Settings

The Forms and Lists module also has some settings that can be customized at the module settings level. Including:

Users are only allowed to manipulate their own items.	This allows a user to add items to the list but only allows them to edit their own items, not other users’ items.
Force CAPTCHA control during edit for Anonymous users.	If you are going to allow non-logged in users the ability to add items to the list then require CAPTCHA.
Filter entry for markup code or script input. Note: filtering is always enabled for Anonymous users.	Check this to have the module review all the fields for any malicious scripts that could have been added. This is a good security option to use especially if the public is allowed to add items.
Negate permission/feature "Display All Columns" for Administrators.	This overrides the default permissions and shows all data to any Administrators of the website.
Negate permission/feature "Edit Also Restricted Columns" for Administrators.	This overrides the default permissions to allow Administrators access to edit restricted columns as well.
Max Records per User	If users of the website are allowed to add to the list you can set a maximum of how many they are allowed to add.

Using Foursquare for business

Web Ascender — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:55:00 GMT

MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, what's the next social media fad that is going to sweep the nation?

DotNetNuke HTML Module

Stephanie — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:18:00 GMT

The HTML Module is the most used module within DotNetNuke. Once this module is added to a page through the top control panel it simply gives you a rich text editor to add images, links, and text to the page.

After the module is added to the page, use the “Edit Content” option, or hover over the blue arrow above the module, and select ‘Edit Content.’ You will then see the rich text editor. Details on how to use the RTE are available in another section of this manual.

Settings

If you hover over the blue arrow and access the ‘Settings’ area of the module, you will have settings specific to this module at the bottom. One option is to turn on Token Replacement.

Token Replacement

Once the token replacement is turned on you can edit the HTML module and use tokens to dynamically replace information such as username and profile properties. For Example, you could have text like this in your HTML rich text editor:

“Welcome [User:DisplayName], thank you for coming back to the website. We hope that you enjoy [Tab:TabName] and the rest of our website. “

If you put the above in the rich text editor when editing this module’s content, it will replace the tokens [User:DisplayName] with the actual logged in users display name.

Available Tokens

Tokens	Description	Tokens	Description
[Portal:Currency]	Portal’s Currency	[User:DisplayName]	User’s display name
[Portal:Description]	Description of the Portal	[User:Email]	User’s Email
[Portal:Email]	Email of portal administrator	[User:FirstName]	User’s first name
[Portal:FooterText]	Copyright information	[User:FullName]	User’s full name
[Portal:HomeDirectory]	Relative path to the home directory	[User:LastName]	User’s last name
[Portal:LogoFile]	Path to portal’s logo	[User:Username]	User’s user name
[Portal:PortalName]	Name of Portal	[Membership:Approved]	If membership is approved
[Portal:TimeZoneOffset]	Minute difference between Portal time and UTC	[Module:Description]	Description of a module
[Profile:<Property>]	Access profile properties	[Module:Footer]	Footer text
[Tab:Description]	Description of current page	[Module:FriendlyName]	Friendly name of the module
[Tab:FullUrl]	URL to the page	[Module:Header]	Header text
[Tab:IconFile]	Icon for the Page	[Module:HelpUrl]	Help URL for the module
[Tab:KeyWords]	Keywords for this page	[Module:IconFile]	Icon for the module
[Tab:TabName]	Page name	[Module:ModuleTitle]	Title of the Module
[Tab:TabPath]	Relative path to the page	[Module:PaneName]	Pane the module is in
[Tab:Title]	Title of the Page
[Tab:URL]	Page URL	[DateTime:Now]	Current date and time
[Ticks:Today]	Ticks in seconds since midnight	[Ticks:Now]	CPU ticks in seconds
		[Ticks:TicksPerDay]	CPU ticks per day

Publish Options

Direct Publish is the default option, whenever you save the module after editing it the content will be immediately updated on the website. Switch the option to Content Staging to save the content and view it as a content editor. You will then need to click ‘publish’ after saving it to post the content live.

The checkbox set as the default workflow will set the drop down option ‘direct publish’ or ‘content staging’ for all future modules to the same as the current module.

Why use a content management system?

Web Ascender — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:46:00 GMT

A 50 minute video gives you the overview of a content management system and how easy it is to update your own website.

DotNetNuke Working With Pages

Stephanie — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:58:00 GMT

Pages are the fundamental building block for the navigation and content on your website. DNN allows you to create as many Pages as you like, and Pages can be organized into Parent/Child relationship (sub-pages) to form the navigation structure of your site. A DNN Page can hold as many Modules as you like, and you can re-arrange the Modules on the page at any time by simply using your mouse. Each Page has a name, title, and some META information that you can edit to help your search engine optimization efforts with Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Pages can also be referred to as “Tabs,” but this name is being phased out in favor of the term “Page.”

Adding New Pages

The quickest way to add a new page to your site is by clicking on the “Add” icon/link in the Page Functions area of the DNN control panel at the top of your site (once you’ve logged in).

You’ll be presented with a blank “Page Settings” screen that looks something like this:

Important Fields:

Page Name	The name of the page will be displayed in navigation menus and will also be visible in the page URL. This should only be 1-3 words.
Page Title	This will be displayed in the browser title bar and is also important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This can be longer and more descriptive than the Page Name.
Description	The META Description is not seen by visitors to this page, but is used by search engines to rank the relevancy of this page. This should be a few sentences describing the content on this page.
Keywords	The META Keywords are not seen by visitors to this page but are used by some search engines to determine what your page is about. This should be a list of keywords (phrases) separated by commas that describe the content on this page.
Parent Page	To make this Page a “sub-page” of another Page, select the parent Page from the drop-down list. Selecting the default “<None Specified>” would make this Page appear in the top-level navigation menu for your site.
Include in Menu?	This checkbox allows you to hide this page. If you uncheck this box then the page will not be shown in the navigation menu. A “hidden” page can still be viewed by clicking on a link to this page, or by typing the URL of the page into the browser address bar.
Permissions	This area controls who can view and/or edit this page and its content. By default, only Administrators can view and edit this page. To make the page visible to all visitors to your site, check the “All Users” box in the “View Page” column. Once you have done so, it will turn into a green check mark.

Once you have entered the page name, title, and other details, scroll down and click on the “Update” icon/link to save your new page!

Editing Pages

The quickest way to edit an existing Page is to navigate to the Page in your browser, and then click on the “Settings” icon/link in the Page Functions area of the DNN control panel at the top of your site.

You will see a screen similar to the one below. Once you have made your desired changes, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the “Update” icon/link to save your changes.

Changing Page Order in the Navigation Menu

You can change the order of pages in the site navigation menu at any time. As an example, take a look at the screenshot below of our current navigation menu:

As you can see we have 3 pages (Home, About Us, Contact Us). Here’s how we can change the order so that the “Contact Us” page appears immediately following “Home.”

1. Go to the Admin Dashboard by clicking on the “Admin” link in the upper-right of your DNN Control Panel.

2. Click on “Pages” icon/link.

3. Click on the page we want to move - In this case, it’s “Contact Us.”

4. Click on the up or down arrow icon to move the page up or down. We want to move our “Contact Us” page up in the list, so that it appears before “About Us” in the navigation. To do so, we’ll click on the green “up” arrow (second from the top) underneath the “Move Page” heading. The other arrows here will move the page to the top, bottom, up, or down. You can hover your mouse cursor over the icon to see a description of what that icon does.

We can see that our page has been moved up in the list and our site navigation has also been updated automatically!

Additional Page Settings

Icons	Every page can have an image linked to it that would allow it to show up with the menu item or drop down. This can help make more attractive or intuitive navigation.
Page Skin / Container	The default design that is used on your page is controlled in the Admin > Site Settings area of the DNN website. However, you can override any skin/design on any single page. Some sites have a skin for the homepage and then a skin used for all the inner pages. Changing the container will alter the look and feel that surrounds each module. You can then override that if necessary with the individual module settings.
Disabled	Making a page disabled will not allow the user to click the link. This is sometimes used with drop down menus when you don’t want the top most link to be selectable.
Refresh Interval	Want the page to automatically reload every 60 seconds? Type 60 into the text box.
Page Header Tags	Add additional header tags to include CSS, JavaScript, or other custom header tags.
Secure	If you have an SSL certificate on your website and you have this checkbox checked, it will automatically switch this page to https when loaded. To get this to work properly you must also change a setting in Admin > Site Settings called SSL Enabled & SSL Enforced
Sitemap Priority	This is the value used when DNN automatically generates an XML sitemap that can be seen at sitemap.aspx.
Start Date / End Date	Want this page to automatically show up in your navigation or automatically be removed at a certain date? Use these features to control the start and expiration of your content.
Link URL	Not all pages have to be physical pages on your website that have modules on them. Some pages can be designed to just be navigation elements. Using the Link URL feature you can select: · None: which makes the page behave like a normal page · URL: which allows you to link the navigation item to another URL, even on a completely different website · Page: allows you to conveniently link a menu item to another page on your website · File: allows you to have a file load when a certain menu item is selected
Permanently Redirect	If this page previously existed but you then moved it and are keeping this link just to redirect users select this checkbox. This will tell the search engines that the current page has been permanently moved to the new link that it is about to send the user/search engine to.

DotNetNuke Working With Modules

Stephanie — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Modules are the true functional elements of DotNetNuke. The majority of the items that you and your users will be interacting with are modules. After you have added a page or are on an existing page you will have Pane elements. You can see your Panes by switching your DNN mode in the far upper left from Edit to Layout. You will then be able to see the available Panes. These are the areas on the website you can add modules.

Adding Modules

To add a module to a Pane, use the section in the center of the control panel. Select a module name such as the HTML module, give it a Title, and select where you want to put it on the page by selecting the appropriate Pane from the drop down list. Then click Add Module to Page. Once that is completed make sure you have your mode in the upper left switched back to Edit.

You have added a module to a page! In this case it is just an HTML module, but it could have been a Blog, a Forum, an account login component or one of many other features. You build up your site by adding pages, adding modules to the pages and then configuring those modules.

Module Settings

To access the module’s settings look for a ‘settings’ option near that module or a blue arrow you can roll over to access the Settings. Depending on the DNN skin you are using the Settings may be in a different area. All modules will have a certain amount of features and settings in common, then some modules will have features specific to that module only.

The module settings that are the same for all modules are as follows:

Module Title	This is the text that will show above the module when users see it on your website.
Permissions	Configure your permissions if you want this module to only be seen or edited by certain user roles on your website.
Advanced Settings > Display Module on All Pages?	Select this option to show this module on every page of your DNN website. You can then go selectively delete it of individual pages if you want.
Advanced Settings > Header	Enter text or HTML here to display before the module
Advanced Settings > Footer	Enter text or HTML here to display after the module
Advanced Settings > Start Date / End Date	Control when this module will display on your website. Default is forever.
Page Settings > Icon	If you want to show an image next to your module, usually next to the Title you can select or upload one using this. Your design / container must support this feature.
Page Settings > Alignment	Specify how the module is aligned on the page (rarely used)
Page Settings > Color	You can set a background color for the module. #000000 would be black.
Page Settings > Border	Put a border around your module by entering a number such as 5 in this box
Page Settings > Collapse / Expand	Some module containers support expanding / minimizing a module. You can set the default state by using this feature.
Page Settings > Display Container	The container is the aesthetic look and feel that surrounds your modules functionality. If you don’t want to show that and also don’t want to show the title then uncheck this option.
Page Settings > Allow Print	Will show a print icon if your container supports it
Page Settings > Allow Syndicate	Will enable the RSS syndication of the content if the module supports it
Page Settings > Is a WebSlice	This is an Internet Explorer 8 only feature that allows you to look at certain web content directly through your IE favorite’s area. I wouldn’t recommend using it as it is not cross browser functional.
Page Settings > Module Container	You can set this module to use a different aesthetic look and feel around the module. Most skin designs come with multiple options for the containers. Changing this option will alter the modules surrounding design.
Page Settings > Cache	Setting the modules cache can help increase performance but is usually unnecessary.
Page Settings > Set As Default Setting	Select this checkbox will then use this current module settings options as the default for future modules.
Page Settings > Apply to all modules	Select this checkbox to apply the current module settings to all the existing modules on your website.
Page Settings > Move to Page	This allows you to easily move existing modules to another page on your website.

DotNetNuke User Roles and Security

Stephanie — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:53:00 GMT

One of the many benefits of DotNetNuke is the ability to easily control which users of the website can see and interact with what content. You can control the security and settings at the Page and Module level. This is useful if you wanted to create sections of your website that are for registered website users, members only, or for employee only sections.

Roles

A role is usually a group of users. There are a couple default roles such as Registered User, Unauthenticated user as well as a subscriber. However, you can create as many roles as you may need for your website. Examples may include PaidMembership, Employee, BoardofDirector, or Blogger. You can then add users of the website to a role.

Users

A user is anyone who has a username and password to access the website. You may have created them an account, or possibly they registered and created their own account. By default every user will be in the Registered Users and Subscribers role. You can then manually add that user to additional roles as needed. Some modules like the 3^rdparty DNNspot.com Store can automatically add users to roles after buying a certain product. For example, after they purchase a ‘membership’ it can add them into a member’s role.

You can read about page and module settings to learn more about how to configure what users on your website can access which areas or control who can edit what.

Managing Users

From the admin Users page, which can be accessed in the upper right corner under ‘common tasks,’ you are able to Add/Edit/Delete Users, manage passwords, as well as determine what fields you want to collect when a user registers.

Extending User Profile & Account Registration

By default, when you register DotNetNuke will collect a username, first name, last name, display name, email address, and a password. If you want to collect more information than the basics, roll over the blue arrow on the Users module and select Manage Profile Properties. You will notice when you access this area that you will see many more properties that you can enable and also you can add more fields by clicking Add New Profile Property. If Required is checked then the user must provide a value for that field. If visible is selected then it will be shown on the new user registration page.

However, by default, DotNetNuke is configured for the basics registration options unless explicitly told otherwise. To get DNN to honor the custom profile fields you need to access the Users section then select “User Settings.”

The setting you want to change is Require a valid Profile for Registration. Set that to true and DNN will then use the custom profile fields on the new user registration page.

User Settings

You will notice a lot of settings in the User Settings area. The first two sections regarding Membership Provider Settings and Password Aging Settings are all controlled from your DotNetNuke web.config file. These cannot be configured from within DNN, only by editing that file. Many of the User Account settings are for configuring how the administrators User list is displayed. Then you have some valuable options like where to redirect the user after logging in, after logging out, or after registering. You can also require them to complete a CAPTCHA during the login or registration process. The require valid profile option is to show the user the additional profile properties when creating an account. Require a valid profile for login is an option in case you want to create someone’s username and password then send that to them. Once they login, they will have to complete the rest of their profile before getting access to the site.

DotNetNuke Reports Module

Stephanie — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:24:00 GMT

The Reports module provides a way to display the results of a database (SQL) query inside a module on your page. In order to make good use of this module, you’ll need to be familiar with writing SQL Queries against a SQL Server database. The results of your query are displayed by using one of the built-in report “visualizers.” At this time, the available visualizers are:

Grid Visualizer	Displays results in a Grid/Table format
HTML Template Visualizer	Allows simple customization of each row of output by using “Tokens” for each column name in the query. For example: [FirstName] would be replaced by the actual value of the FirstName column in the query.
XSL Transformation Visualizer	Provides more complex control over the output by performing an XSL transformation on the results.

Once you add the Reports module to a page, you’ll see a message indicating that there is no data source configured. Let’s remedy that! Click on the module settings icon/link and scroll down to the “Reports Settings” area to configure this module.

Let’s create a report that simply displays a list of users on our site in a grid format, and allows the user to sort the grid by clicking on the column header.

The important fields are:

Active Data Source	Where is our data coming from? The default “DotNetNuke Data Source” will use the same SQL Server database that your DNN site is using, which will allow us to retrieve data such as users, pages, statistics, etc.
Query	This is where you enter your desired SQL Query. Once you have entered a query you can click on the “Test Data Source” link to execute your query and see a count of the results.
Show Info Pane	The “info pane” will display the “Title” and “Description” above the report results.

This query will select FirstName, LastName, DisplayName, and Email from the Users table in the database where the email address contains @webascender.com. Using the Grid Visualizer the data will be returned in a tabular format.

Other Reports Module features

Passing parameters to your SQL query

It is possible to filter the data displayed by passing parameters in the query string. For example if you wanted to just show information about a user with the id of 5 you could build a query string like this http://yourwebsite.com/Reports.aspx?userid=5 where Reports.aspx is a page on your site with the reports module on it. You would then add userid into the field named Allowed URL Parameters. You can then use the @url_userid in your query. Example: select * from users where userid=@url_userid.

DotNetNuke will prefix any variables in the allowed URL parameters field with URL_ and you use it in your query by preceding it with the @ notation.

HTML Decode & Encode

Use this if you have encoded HTML in one of your fields. Simply type in the column name of the field and the reports module will decode that HTML before rendering it to the screen. Vice versa for encode.

Paging & Sorting

Adding paging and allowing the user to sort using the header columns is as easy as a click of a couple buttons.

DotNetNuke Rich Text Editor

Stephanie — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:39:00 GMT

The Rich Text Editor is used in many of the DotNetNuke Modules and gives you the ability The Rich Text Editor is used in many of the DotNetNuke Modules and gives you the ability to edit text and HTML in a very simple and straightforward manner. The HTML module is the most straightforward example of the Rich Text Editor.

Source Option

The source icon allows you to switch between a “what you see is what you get” WYSIWYG editor and a way to interact with the raw HTML code. All the Rich Text Editor is doing is making it easier to generate HTML code, but hopefully you won’t have to venture into the Source view.

Preview Icon

The Preview Icon is an easy way to see what the content of your module will look like when it is saved. This is sometimes not entirely accurate. I find that saving it and then viewing it is the best option.

Templates

The Rich Text Editor comes with a couple pre-made templates to control formatting. You usually do not need to use these, but occasionally you may want to create a custom Template to enforce a particular style or format to be used for areas of your website.

Cut, Copy & Paste

Cut, Copy, and Paste are going to work how you might imagine. It allows you to remove and copy items and save them to your clipboard. However, there are some icons that are designated specifically for pasting content from Word. If you have a lot of Word content, use the ‘Paste from Word’ Icon to paste your Word code into the popup. Then you will usually check the Remove Style Definitions and paste your content into the textbox. When you click OK, it will then try to remove the formatting from your Word document and format it to fit with your website. Images from your word document will not get copied over.

Print Icon

The Print icon will allow you to print just the content that you are working on.

Spell Check

Spell check has to be run by you, it is not automatic. As a general tip I would recommend using Mozilla FireFox for editing your website. It has a very subtle built in spell check that will underline words that are miss-typed.

Undo / Redo

Undo and Redo are easy icons to fix something you may have done in the editor. You can also use CTRL Z to undo an action. If you were editing something and you ever mess it up a lot, you can always not save it and then just go re-edit it.

Find, Find& Replace

Find is an easy way to locate text in the editor while Find and Replace makes it easy to do a massive find and replace of a word or phrase.

Select All

The select all icon will highlight everything in the editor. If your cursor is in the editor you can also use CTRL A on your keyboard.

Remove Formatting

If you have pasted content from Word and it still looks odd, or you have a bunch of font colors and sizing that you do not like you can use the remove formatting option. First use the select all button to highlight all the text, then click remove formatting to have the editor attempt to clean up the code as much as possible.

Bold, Italics, Underline, Strike, Subscript, Superscript

These are all pretty standard word processing features, allowing you to format some of your text.

Lists – Numbered & Bulleted

Selecting this will add a bullet point to the line you are on; if you hit enter at the end of the line it will then start another bullet point. If you hit enter twice it will drop down to a new line and end your bulleted list.

Decrease Indent & Increase Indent

This is a convenient way to indent content on your website. Often times the space bar can fulfill this need as well.

Blockquote

Block quote is another way to accomplish an indent. It is usually used to quote content from another source.

Justify – Left, Center, Right, Block

Using the justify option you can easily align text to the left, center, or right or use block justification.

Link

You can easily link photos or text that you can see in the editor. Highlight or click the item you want to link. After it is highlighted, select the chain icon. There are 3 link types: URL, link to an anchor, or link to an email address. Usually you will use the URL option. You can type in a URL or paste in a link. If you want to link to a page or file on your site, click “Browse Server.”

URL is the default when browsing, but you can still paste in a link. If you select Page, a drop down will then appear that shows you all of the pages on that website. Selecting File will show a drop down to select a folder and also a drop down that shows all the documents in each of the folders. Use the Upload New File to use this screen to upload a PDF, Image, or other document type. DNN has the ability to do some link tracking if you want DNN to use the link click options.

Use selected link to setup the link, after that click OK, and it will add it to the editor. You can also switch to the Target tab and select “New Window” if you want the file or link to open in a new window.

Un-Link

Highlight any item that is linked and click the unlink option to remove the link.

Anchors

One option that I did not review above in the Link section was the “link to anchor” option. A common use for something like this is to have a lot of links at the top of a page that will jump you down to the section on the page after you click on it. Use the anchors to tag areas throughout the page. Once you have added the anchors, go to the top of the editor window and you can then make links. Now link them to the anchors. When the user clicks on it, it just links them to the location of the anchor on the page.

Pictures

Select the picture icon to add a picture within the editor. After you select the icon you will usually select the “Browse Server” option next. Now you will be looking at the Root file area. From here you can browse to other folders, create folders, or upload a photo to the server.

Use Browse to find the image on your local machine, then Upload New File to add the image to the server. Select the image you want to add to the page.

Then you can use the option to align photos or use the width and height features to resize the image. It is definitely recommend that you resize the photo on your computer before uploading the image. Resizing the editor is not a true resize, so large images can still take a long time to load using this technique.

Flash Embed

Use the flash embed icon to embed a SWF file from your server or another server.

Tables

The table icon will allow you to create tables within your editor. Set the rows, columns as well as the width of your table. Use tables for tabular data or to help put items next to each other on the same line.

Horizontal Rule

This is an easy way to put a line across your page to separate content.

Smiley Faces

The editor comes with a couple easy to use emoticons.

Special Characters

Use the special character option to add characters to your document that you might not be able to normally find on your keyboard.

Page Break

This is a feature that helps primarily with printing. If documents are breaking in weird spots when printing, you can use this feature to help improve that.

Style

The style drop down menu has a set of pre-defined styles that can be used within your text.

Format

The format option is actually pretty important. If you want to add headings in your document, it is better to use the Format option Heading 1, Heading 2 etc. versus using the font size. This creates a more uniform look and will fit with your design better.

Font & Size

Change the font and size of your text using two drop down menus.

Text Color & Background Color

The text color will allow you to change the color of the actual text while using the background color will put a color behind your text.

Maximize Editor

If you are feeling too confined, you can use the maximize option to view the editor in full screen.

Show Blocks

The show blocks option will put a dashed border around all block level items such as Paragraph and Div tags.

Offline Mobile

root — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:38:00 GMT

This free application will allow you to see how to properly build a web application to run offline using HTML 5 built in local storage. The blog post and project review everything from localstorage options to offline manifest files.

jQuery Documents

root — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:36:00 GMT

This free jQuery plugin allows you to format information or documents in a nested drill down format like OS X. You’ll need to be familiar with jQuery to use it, you can also see the full DNN module at DNNspot.com

Credit Card Change

root — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:34:00 GMT

Web Ascender built a ASP .NET MVC 2 web site solution to save and bill credit cards using our PayPal library we created. Download this to save client credit cards and charge them, or to see how our framework is used in a real example.

.NET Paypal

root — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:35:00 GMT

Web Ascender created this extremely simple way to interface with PayPal’s standard, pro and express checkout processes. No need to read through their documentation, just use this .NET library to start charging credit cards now!

.NET Geocoder

root — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:34:00 GMT

Are you a programmer who needs an easy way to get the latitude and longitude of an address or zip code? Use this free .NET library to geocode locations with either Google or Yaho’s API directly from your .Net code

DNNspot.com

root — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Web Ascender has been working with DotNetNuke CMS for a very long time. During this time we have created 100’s of custom module. We decided to create Dnnspot to share module that would benefit other individuals and companies

10+ Tips for creating the Perfect Landing Page

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:47:00 GMT

Follow these steps to create the perfect website landing page.

2009 Kickball Champs!

Web Ascender — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:11:00 GMT

Web Ascender finishes first place in our summer kickball league!

Internet Marketing Internship

Ryan Doom and Kevin Southworth — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:56:00 GMT

Want to join the WA internet marketing team? Apply now.