Our recently published free plugin, Mage Front End Forms aims to keep this process as seamless and flexible as possible.

Mage Front End Forms

User Front End Post Form Capabilities

The main features that distinguish the Mage Forms plugin are the multiple forms that can be created, for every post type, and the customize-ability, unique to each created front-end form.

You may add as many front-end user forms with Add Form, each containing the following settings:

• Select the Post Type including custom post types and the Minimum User Role if not public.
• Choose to redirect users to the submitted post or to any other destination, and whether the post is submitted as pending, draft or published immediately.
• Each created form can be set to notify an email after successful submissions and even assign a custom post author for forms accessible by non-logged-in users.

Building Front End Forms

You have complete control over every input field, which to include and where to place them by using the WP Front End form editor. The form elements, including the submit button, are listed in shortcode format within each New/Edit Form page, which can be placed and customized as desired.

The only form elements required, regardless what post type a form is set to, are the title, [text name="post_title" label="Title" req=1], and the content [textarea name="post_content" label="Content" req=1], which are placed with the corresponding shortcodes.

Shortcode Parameters and Form Validation

Most input elements share the same shortcode parameters, which are similar to the HTML input parameter equivalent, such as placeholder, name, id, class and more.

Other parameters like label, which prepends the input with a label, and req, which sets an input to be required. An input set to required receives the required markup, class and label cosmetic changes (if label is added via the parameter), and automatically get validated during form submission.

Mage Forms Usage for Website Types

Here are just a few types of websites that may benefit from this Front End User posting capabilities:

• Guest Post forms and Multi-Author Blogs.
• Online Business Directory with Listing/Address Submissions
• Product forms for Marketplace websites.
• User Profile and Event Forms on custom social networks.
• User-driven wiki / knowledge-base sites that enable users to add/edit content to topics.

Those are just a few ideas of what this Front-End Post Publish Form can be used for.

Plugin Download and Support Forums

You can install this plugin from the WordPress plugin repository either by searching mage or mage_forms from your New Plugin admin page in your WordPress site, or by downloading directly from Mage Forms on WordPress.

Feel free to submit feature-requests and bugs at its support forum on WordPress.

Read the Original Post at WordPress Front End Forms for User Publishing by Internet Marketing Blog

DogSniffer App

Currently Available on the Google Play Store from Android devices, you can download this Free App and access all of Dog Sniffers features:

Mobile App Features

Although still in Development Progression, the currently live App contains most features available on the Dog Sniffer browser application itself.

• Search Listings by Category, Geolocation, Keyword
• Toggle Results between Map and List View.
• Access Directions, Map, Related Listings and Reviews of individual listings.
• Register directly through the App on Dog Sniffer, or sign in using an existing account.
• Submit your own listings or rate and review existing ones in real-time.
• and much more to come!

Coming Soon

Many other features that are currently on DogSniffer.com will soon be made available on the Dog Sniffer App's upcoming releases.

Step-by-Step App Development Tutorial

In the coming weeks I intend to publish tutorials of the necessary steps taken to accomplish each aspect of the Application.

Starting with the choices of jQuery Frameworks to the Uploading to PhoneGap Build, as well as generating of iOS development certificates, to synchronizing with your WordPress website.

Subscribe to get notified once more content is released.

Read the Original Post at Dog Sniffer Mobile App – A Website to App Development by Internet Marketing Blog

Google Webmaster Tools - HTML Improvements

After a site is setup with Webmaster Tools, duplicate content issues that are found can be accessed from the Webmaster tools left menu under Search Appearance > HTML Improvements. Apart from the other useful SEO issues it finds, it will list Duplicate meta descriptions and Duplicate title tags.

Meta Descriptions

Most search engines will obtain a pages meta description in the following order if the predecessor isn't present:

1. A websites header <meta name="description"> tag
2. The post excerpt (Generated by WordPress)
3. A paragraph within the content

Example Meta Description: <meta name="description" content="This is a meta description of this page."/>.

Meta Titles

Similar to how meta descriptions are retrieved, the title tags are obtained via the followin:

1. A websites header <title> tag
2. The posts title (usually wrapped in a <h1> tag)
3. The URL or domain name of the page

Fixing Duplicate Content Issues

The safest way to resolve identical meta titles and descriptions is by setting them directly in the sites <title> and <meta name="description" content=""> tags and making sure that they are unique on the website and also not copied from another websites page or post.

Lastly, consider the following before submitting new or edited content to avoid further SEO penalties:

Merging and Deleting Pages with Similar Content

If 2 or more pages are possibly about the same topic, for example a business listing that has been submitted multiple times by different users, then merging them may be a better solution. 404 Errors that occur as a result of deleting the duplicate pages, can simply be redirected to the newly merged page via 301 Redirects.

Page Title and Content

A meta title or description listed as duplicate, will likely have duplicate corresponding elements within the content itself. An identical meta title in a post, for example, may mean that the post title itself may be a duplicate as well and needs to be changed.

Same Listing, Different Place

For listing pages about a business that exists at multiple locations, adding the city to the title can be enough to take it off the Webmaster Tools list. Formatting titles of posts as "Company Name - Downtown LA" and "Company Name, Santa Monica" will avoid them being flagged and also contributes to better SEO.

WordPress Plugins for Meta Tags

WordPress users can leverage one of many available SEO plugins that enable setting meta titles and descriptions directly from each page/post.

Snapshot from WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin.

Updating Google Webmaster Tools

If you think you've resolved the duplicate content issues then it will be removed from Google's HTML Improvement list upon the next crawl. Submitting a new Sitemap to Webmaster tools may expedite this process.

Read the Original Post at Fixing SEO Duplicate Content with Google Webmaster Tools by Internet Marketing Blog

To markup an Event Page on your website to display the Events' start date and location on search engines, we need to incorporate a few SEO rich snippets. Using Schema.org's SEO markup, we will need to mark-up the following information for an Event to display accordingly on search results:

• Event Name
• Event Starting Date
• Location or Venue Name
• Address

The above is the least required to make an event display the "startdate" and "location" on search engine results pages, as far as I was able to determine. Upon integration of the Schema event markup, we will verify results with the Google Rich Snippet Testing Tool.

Let's use the following event data as an example:

Raw Event HTML

<div>
<h1>Test Event</h1>
<img src="event-main-image.jpg" />

<p>This is the events description and/or introduction.</p>

When:
Saturday, May 3, 12:00 am to Sunday, May 4, 12:00 am

Where:
Test Event Center,
28 Test Street
Los Angeles, CA 90024
P: 424-123-4567
</div>

Now, here is how it looks with the added Schema rich snippets:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Event">
<h1 itemprop="name">Test Event</h1>
<img src="event-main-image.jpg" itemprop="photo" />

<p itemprop="description">This is the events description and/or introduction</p>

When:
<meta content="2014-05-03T12:00:59-07:00" itemprop="startDate" />
<meta content="2014-05-04T12:00:59-07:00" itemprop="endDate" />
Saturday, May 3, 12:00 am to Sunday, May 4, 12:00 am

Where:
<div itemtype="http://schema.org/Place" itemscope="" itemprop="location">
 <span itemprop="name">Test Event Center</span>, 
 <div itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress" itemscope="" itemprop="address">
  <span itemprop="streetAddress">28 Test Street</span>
  <span itemprop="addressLocality">Los Angeles</span>, <span itemprop="addressRegion">CA</span> <span itemprop="postalCode">90024</span>
 </div>
 <abbr title="Phone">P:</abbr> <span itemprop="telephone">424-123-4567</span>
</div>
</div>

Upon adding the markup, we are able to see the results on the rich snippet testing tool, simply by copy & pasting the above code into the structured data testing tool: google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

The resulting sample output would then be:

Event Schema Markup

There is far more data that have corresponding SEO rich snippet markups, which you can find on schema.org.

Please feel free to comment any further examples, questions, thoughts or improvements.

Read the Original Post at Event SEO using Rich Snippets from Schema Markup by Internet Marketing Blog

A busy website that has new content being published regularly can quickly accumulate 404 errors due to changes of page URL's, tag or category name changes or deletions and so on.

Luckily, even if the count of missing pages has reached thousands or more, we can use some simple tools and 301 Redirect tricks to clean them up accordingly.

WP Redirection Plugin

There are a handful of WordPress 301 Redirect plugins available that offer features to aid in fixing 404 errors and URL changes on your website. The best plugin for full control over your URL Rewrites, however, is the Redirection Plugin.

The plugin allows most Regex (Regular Expression) commands when creating 301 redirect rules, as if you were adding them directly to your .htaccess file. You can view and download the Redirection plugin here.

Upon installing the plugin, we can begin with some typical 301 redirection scenarios.

WordPress 301 Redirecting

As you can see in the image below, there are a few basic input fields we will be using to redirect a URL, Source URL and Target URL. We don't need to check the Regular expression check-box unless we include a Regex in those fields.

Basic URL Rewrite

This is a basic URL rewrite example, without using Regex:

Source URL: http://website1.com/old-page.html
Target URL: http://website2.com/new-page/

http://website1.com/old-page.html => http://website2.com/new-page/

The above redirects the source URL to a unique target URL, ideal for fixing a unique 404 error. For reoccurring, similar 404 URL patterns, we look at some Regex URL Redirection examples:

Basic Regex URL Rewrite

If you're new to Regular Expression and if the below WP redirection examples seem confusing, then you may want to refer to the tutorial from Redirection to get you started.

Now, let's assume a scenario in which you first included your category slug in post permalinks and now want that changed to (remember to check the Regular expression checkbox):

1. No Category Slug in Permalink

Example Desired URL Sequence

http://website.com/category/post-title.html => http://website.com/post-title.html

/category/(.*).html => /$1.html

2. A Changed Category Slug Rewrite

/category-old/(.*).html => /category-new/$1.html

3. Sub-Category Tree without Parent

If the permalink looked like /parent/child/post-name.html and you only want /child/post-name.html to display, the following rewrite can be used:

/parent/(.*)/(.*).html => /$1/$2.html

Intermediate Regex Rules

Here are some more rules that may be a bit more tedious than the previous ones, for the following WordPress URL rewrites:

1. Stripping File Extension from Permalink

Removing .html

/(.*).html => /$1/

Removing .php

In the case of .php, you do not want to strip them off the WordPress core files, so we use the below rule to avoid that.

/((?!.*(sitemap|login|wp|xml)).*).php => /$1/

2. Redirect Only Date-Based URL

We can use (\d*) to match only numbers, (\s*) for letters or (.*) for any character. So, if you want to rewrite a permalink like /2014/02/post-title/ and avoid matching category tree permalinks, this would resolve that:

/(\d*)/(\d*)/(.*) => /$3
# OR
/\d*/\d*/(.*) => /$1

WordPress URL Rewrite Examples

Hopefully, the above examples using the WP Redirection plugin were helpful in resolving most 301 redirect fixes. If any of the above is unclear, wrong or you would like to see more examples, please feel free to comment as usual.

Read the Original Post at WordPress 301 Redirect: Fixing 404 Errors by Internet Marketing Blog

A common problem with most websites, is that the font that is shown can differ, depending on the viewers browser, operating-system and/or device. If you wish to keep the typography and styles as consistent as possible among view-ports, you can use the following try these integration methods:

Web Safe CSS Font Families

• Website: CSS Font Stack
• Pros: Fast-Loading, Compatible with all Devices, OS and Browsers
• Cons: Fonts must be installed locally on viewing device

You can specify your typeface with font-family:"Century Gothic"; in your website CSS, but if the device that is used to view your website does not have "Century Gothic" installed, then a generic font will be used to display the content instead, also known as a fallback.

The generic family typefaces are the ones will be used by the browser/operating system should all other families fail, which could either be serif, sans-serif or monospace.

font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

The above CSS will attempt to display the content in "Helvetica Neue" or if the operating system does not have it installed, it will attempt to use the next font, Helvetica, instead and so on. An Apple computer, for example, will often have "Helvetica Neue" already installed, thus will display it accordingly online, whereas a Windows PC may display it using "Helvetica" or less.

Google Fonts

• Website: Google Webfonts
• Pros: Consistent Display, independent of OS
• Cons: Increase Page-Load

One of the more trending sources of embeddable typefaces are that of Google Fonts. You can integrate Google Webfonts simply by choosing the desired typefaces, the corresponding styles and weights and embedding it into your website source. The more font-families and variations you choose to embed into your website, the more its page-load will increase, which you can measure during the Google Font selection process.

<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Gabriela' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>

After embedding the stylesheet, you can simply include that font-family via CSS, using the first method above. Using Google Fonts assures equal display of your chosen Typefaces across all browsers and operating systems.

Cufon

• Website: Cufon Generator
• Pros: Make any Typeface Web Safe & Consistent
• Cons: Longer Page-Load from Cufon Images; Requires JS

A more tedious method, but allows the use of any computer installed typefaces, is Cufon. This method requires that all fonts that we intend to use are commercial free, or if not, that a commercial license for it is purchased.

The font family can then be uploaded and converted into Cufon, which generates an image for each numerical, alphabetical and special symbol available in the uploaded font families.

The generated Cufon file is then embedded on the website and Javascript is used to "Cufon" the desired html elements, which replaces the text with images for the precise font display.

Read the Original Post at Web Safe Fonts – Consistent CSS Font Family by Internet Marketing Blog

If you're looking for a WordPress Google Maps Plugin to automatically grab one, or multiple, addresses on either a single post or posts in an archive page, then generate the map with corresponding markers, then you can easily do so with the following plugin:

Mage Google Maps

The Mage Google Maps plugin is built for the purpose of automatic address marker placements, by querying almost any custom meta data from posts, pages and custom post types that you specify. And, of course, you can use it to manually display a Google map as well.

This is ideal if your web project intends to include features, such as:

• User generated posts, or company listings, containing addresses.
• A Business Directory to show all business addresses in a map from a category or location.
• Ease of use for contributors to use one or more custom meta fields for a location.

Here's how it works:

Using Google Maps Shortcode & Widget

For a basic map display, one can simply use the Mage Google Maps widget and display this on the sidebar of the preferred post types, or do the same using the [map] shortcode. The widget contains an address field, for simple display, and to use the Google Maps shortcode, one simple adds the address to it as follows: [map address="any address here"].

For automatic display from content, you would need to leave the address blank on either method.

Automatic Display

Adding Custom Meta Fields for Address

The best way to start is to edit or add a new post or custom post type you would like to display maps on, and fill out one, or multiple custom fields with the address.

Mage Google Maps Plugin Settings

After adding you custom meta fields to the posts, pages or custom post types, select the chosen post types in the plugins' settings under Mage Cast > Maps > Auto Display > Attach Post Types and click Save.

Now, when you return to the Auto Display settings page, you should be able to choose any custom meta fields that have been added to the proposed post types.

That's All! Your Mage Google Maps widgets and shortcodes should now automatically display the map, if no address is manually entered into the widget or shortcode. On Archive Pages of selected post types, the map will automatically attempt to query and display all found addresses and center the map accordingly.

Default Address

Entering an address in the plugin settings' Default Address field would trigger that address on maps that did not find any addresses from provided content.

WordPress Google Map Plugin Download & Features

You can download the plugin at the WordPress Plugins Archive, or by searching it from your WP admins' Add New Plugin feature.

If you find this plugin helpful or would like to see more feature & customization options, such as custom marker uploads, map UI or other suggestions, please feel free to comment or rate.

Read the Original Post at Automatic WordPress Google Maps Plugin by Internet Marketing Blog

There are many approaches to duplicating and transferring a WordPress site. The best method to use depends on the tools available, content that needs to be transferred and the total size of that content.

If you want to know how to backup a WordPress site or how to make an exact copy for testing and developing, you can consider the following methods:

1. Copy WordPress Site Components
2. Transfer WordPress Site via SSH

Copy WordPress Site Components

A regular WP install is usually broken down in 3 parts, the Main Install Files, Custom Content files and Database.

This method may require FTP access to the website server, which I recommend using FileZilla for.

Main WordPress Install

The main WP files and folders carry the version of the current WP website and consist of the following folders and files in your websites root folder.

• wp-includes/
• wp-admin/
• index.php
• wp-config.php - contains database information and general config.
• all other wp-*.php files

WP-Content Folder

This folder is responsible for all the custom content that is unique to your site, and is separated in the following 3 folders:

• themes - the current active them as well as other installed themes are stored in this folder.
• plugins - every WP plugin installed on your site is placed in here.
• uploads - uploaded images, whether for posts, pages or branding are usually stored in here.

Database

Lastly, we have the database, which stores all of the sites content, from posts, pages, comments, saved plugin and theme settings and you name it.

Luckily, it is possible to transfer all the databases content without having to access it directly.

Transfer WordPress Site via SSH

If you're having trouble with the above methods due to a sites large database or content files, using SSH may be a more preferred option.

To access your website via SSH, you would require a software like PuTTY, to then access both the active and the target server.

Copy WordPress Database

With SSH, log in to your websites root folder, where WP is installed, and issue this command; Replace the placeholders (in capital letters) with your database information, which you can get from your wp-config.php file:

mysqldump -hDB_HOST -uDB_USER -pDB_PASSWORD --single-transaction DB_NAME > any-file-name.sql

For example, the above command could look like this:

mysqldump -hlocalhost -uwebsite_admin -pmypassword2000 --single-transaction website_db > export.sql

If you are on the root of your website when issuing the above code, then the export.sql file will also be on the root (http://www.your-website.com/export.sql). If you intend to import this into a different server, you would first need to log-in to the target server via SSH, and issue the following command to retrieve the export file:

wget http://www.your-website.com/export.sql

Importing Database via SSH

You can import the exported .sql file into a new and preferably empty database with this command:

mysql -hDB_HOST -uDB_USER -pDB_PASSWORD DB_NAME < export-file-name.sql

The above command assumes that export-file-name.sql is in the same directory as you are, when you issue it in SSH.

Duplicate Site into Subdirectory

A simple example of how you could copy a website from the root folder (e.g. public_html) into a subfolder of your websites root folder (e.g. public_html/new-site):

cp -R public_html public_html/new-site

Or, if you are logged into SSH as ROOT and want to copy a users content into another account within the server, you can use:

cp -R /home/username-original/public_html /home/username-target/public_html

Copy Site to another Server

The final scenario is if you want to move all your websites content to another server. To do that, we first tar the content in your WP root folder:

tar -cvf content.tar public_html/*

Now, we SSH log-in to the target server to retrieve the content with wget and then extract it with the following commands:

wget http://www.your-website.com/content.tar
tar -xvf content.tar

Conclusion

The above SSH commands can be used with other CMS systems, other than WordPress, of course. If you'd like more descriptions, examples or have suggestions / fixes, feel free to comment as always.

Read the Original Post at Copy & Transfer a WordPress Site for Development by Internet Marketing Blog

Mage Ratings

WP Review Plugin Features

The plugin is still in its early stages, so many more features will be added. As usual, any feature requests, feedback or found errors are much appreciated.

The following features are currently incorporated into the plugin:

• Rate Custom Post Types (e.g. Product Ratings)
• BuddyPress Compatible & Member Only Ratings
• Customer & User Ratings Display
• Custom Maximum Rate Value
• Upload Your Own Rating Icons
• Average Rating Display via Shortcode, Template Tag or Auto-Insert

Rating Custom Post Types (e.g. Product Ratings)

This WordPress review plugin integrates ratings within the comment form of any post type. Simply choose the post types from the plugin options and, if a comment form is displayed on those posts, the rating fields will display as well.

BuddyPress Compatible & Member Only Reviews

The rating fields are currently inserted below the comment form default fields, but above the comment text area itself. The customization for WordPress member username and avatar display is therefor inherited from the comment design. In addition, restricting the rating option to members only can also be set, by setting the commenting ability itself, to members only.

Display User Rating above Reviews

The submitted ratings of users are auto-displayed above the comment/review text on live comments. At the moment, the suggested way to change the display of this is through CSS with the .author-rating class.

To remove or modify the output in the code, add remove_filter( 'comment_text', 'mage_display_comment_rating'); to your functions.php file.

Upload Your Own Rating Icons

You can customize the rating icons easily to replace the default star icons by uploading the image or entering the image URL for both the default, non-selected state and the hover, selected state. Both images should be 16x16 pixels in size.

Customize Maximum Rate Value

The reviews rating value can be set from the admin options or defaults to 5. The chosen rating icons are then adjusted across rate fields, author and average ratings accordingly (e.g. only 3 stars will display).

Note: The average rating does not recalculate until new reviews are submitted or old ones modified or deleted.

Average Rating Display via Shortcode, Template Tag or Auto-Insert

After every submitted review that is approved, as well as after editing, deleting a comment/review from the admin side, the average rating is calculated. This can then be displayed by using any of these methods.

WordPress Review Plugin Usage & Updates

For some examples of this plugins customization and display possibilities visit Dogsniffer.com. Feel free to provide feature requests and suggestions below. For bugs and/or error support refer to the Mage Review support forums.

Read the Original Post at WordPress Review & Rating Plugin for Products & Customers by Internet Marketing Blog

• You run two installs of your Magento website, the production (live) and the development one.
• The development version of your website was the exact copy of the live one and now has updates and/or is moved to another server.
• You intend to make the development website live, instead of transferring the changes over to the production website.
• The currently live Magento website has been running during your development and has acquired more sales and signups that need to be transferred as well.

If the updates done to the development site are database related and not template related and the websites signup or purchase processes have not been turned off during a transfer process + development changes, then the option to simply re-transferring a database would be less preferred option.

The moving of only Magento sales and customers, as well as the sales + customer sync, can be done in 3 simple steps:

Note: This tutorial has been tested on Magento 1.7.0.2 installed on both websites. Database tables may vary based on different Magento versions.

• Transfer Customers, Sales & Invoices
• Updating Last ID's

Disabling Magento during Transfer

To avoid new signups and/or sales to the live website during the transfer process, consider disabling the checkout and signup from the configuration or create a blank file named maintenance.flag and place it on the root of your Magento install.

Move Magento with PHPmyAdmin Export/Import

A more convenient way of transferring the below database tables is by doing it in PHPmyAdmin, where you can simply export the tables to a SQL file by choosing them in the Export page of the production sites database and importing them into the target Magento installs database. You can also enable the statement Add DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION / EVENT statement in the Export options to avoid manually dropping those tables in the target database.

Transferring Customers & Sales

The first step is to transfer all the tables starting with customers_ and sales_, which are as follows on a Magento 1.7.0.2 install:

'customer_address_entity'
'customer_address_entity_datetime'
'customer_address_entity_decimal'
'customer_address_entity_int'
'customer_address_entity_text'
'customer_address_entity_varchar'
'customer_eav_attribute'
'customer_eav_attribute_website'
'customer_entity'
'customer_entity_datetime'
'customer_entity_decimal'
'customer_entity_int'
'customer_entity_text'
'customer_entity_varchar'
'customer_form_attribute'
'customer_group'

And the sales_ tables are:

'sales_bestsellers_aggregated_daily';
'sales_bestsellers_aggregated_monthly';
'sales_bestsellers_aggregated_yearly';
'sales_billing_agreement';
'sales_billing_agreement_order';
'sales_flat_creditmemo';
'sales_flat_creditmemo_comment';
'sales_flat_creditmemo_grid';
'sales_flat_creditmemo_item';
'sales_flat_invoice';
'sales_flat_invoice_comment';
'sales_flat_invoice_grid';
'sales_flat_invoice_item';
'sales_flat_order';
'sales_flat_order_address';
'sales_flat_order_grid';
'sales_flat_order_item';
'sales_flat_order_payment';
'sales_flat_order_status_history';
'sales_flat_quote';
'sales_flat_quote_address';
'sales_flat_quote_address_item';
'sales_flat_quote_item';
'sales_flat_quote_item_option';
'sales_flat_quote_payment';
'sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate';
'sales_flat_shipment';
'sales_flat_shipment_comment';
'sales_flat_shipment_grid';
'sales_flat_shipment_item';
'sales_flat_shipment_track';
'sales_invoiced_aggregated';
'sales_invoiced_aggregated_order';
'sales_order_aggregated_created';
'sales_order_aggregated_updated';
'sales_order_status';
'sales_order_status_label';
'sales_order_status_state';
'sales_order_tax';
'sales_order_tax_item';
'sales_payment_transaction';
'sales_recurring_profile';
'sales_recurring_profile_order';
'sales_refunded_aggregated';
'sales_refunded_aggregated_order';
'sales_shipping_aggregated';
'sales_shipping_aggregated_order';

Last Order ID for Sales

Next, a step that is fairly easy, but that is often missed is the changing of the last entity ID for orders, invoices, credit memos and shipments. Otherwise, Magento will ignore the sales data that did not exist prior to the transfer.

The fix is simple! Simply edit the table eav_entity_store and update the increment_last_id column with the last id used for each row. Each rows' entity type can be found in the table eav_entity_type. In this example (see above image), the entity types are:

• 5 = order
• 6 = invoice
• 7 = creditmemo
• 8 = shipment

That should be all that's needed for a simple customer and sales update on two, otherwise identical Magento 1.7.0.2 sites. Hope his tutorial was useful and please feel free to comment and suggestions, questions or fixes.

Read the Original Post at Move Magento Database Sales, Customers & Invoices by Internet Marketing Blog

Custom BP Friend Button Placement

To start, to add the button to your theme, you can simply add the first function below at the desired location:

bp_add_friend_button(); // echos bp_get_add_friend_button();

Note, that the above function assumes that you are already on BP member component, such as the header or a user profile or within a BP user loop.

Change bp_add_friend_button's Anchor Text, Class and more

The bp_get_add_friend_button contains a filter called bp_get_add_friend_button, that filters an array with the buttons arguments, depending on the users relationship with one another. These possible relationships determine the buttons ID, which can be one of the 4 variations: pending, awaiting_response, is_friend or not_friends.

In all 4 above scenarios, the $button Array will contain the same keys, which output the button and are also all you will need to modify to completely customize your Add Friend button. Let's look at the Array of the not_friends variation, which outputs the buttons design and text to users who are not friends with the current logged in user:

$button = array(
'id'                => 'not_friends',
'component'         => 'friends',
'must_be_logged_in' => true,
'block_self'        => true,
'wrapper_class'     => 'friendship-button not_friends',
'wrapper_id'        => 'friendship-button-' . $potential_friend_id,
'link_href'         => wp_nonce_url( bp_loggedin_user_domain() . bp_get_friends_slug() . '/add-friend/' . $potential_friend_id . '/', 'friends_add_friend' ),
'link_text'         => __( 'Add Friend', 'buddypress' ),
'link_title'        => __( 'Add Friend', 'buddypress' ),
'link_id'           => 'friend-' . $potential_friend_id,
'link_rel'          => 'add',
'link_class'        => 'friendship-button not_friends add'
);

Example 1: Custom Text for "Add Friend Button"

If you only want to change the links text, when users are not yet connected (which is "Add Friend", by default), then you would add the following code to your function.php file:

function mb_bp_friend_button($button) {
	if (is_array($button) && isset($button['id'])) {
		if ($button['id'] == 'not_friends'){
			$button['link_text'] = 'Your Custom Text Here';
		}		
	}
	return $button;
}
add_filter( 'bp_get_add_friend_button','mb_bp_friend_button');

This would work the same if you would want to change the buttons class or other attribute, which we will apply in the next example as well.

Example 2: Custom BP Add / Remove Friend and Pending Requests

The below function will help customize every variation of the be bp_add_friend_button design. You can simply remove the variation that you don't intend to change from the function below:

function mb_bp_friend_button($button) {
	if (is_array($button) && isset($button['id'])) {
		if ($button['id'] == 'pending'){
			$button['link_text'] = 'Your Custom Pending Text Here';
			$button['link_class'] .= ' your-pending-class';
		} elseif ($button['id'] == 'awaiting_response'){
			$button['link_text'] = 'Your Custom Awaiting Text Here';
			$button['link_class'] .= ' your-awaiting-class';
		} elseif ($button['id'] == 'is_friend'){
			$button['link_text'] = 'Your Custom Cancel Text'; // accepts html
			$button['link_class'] .= ' your-cancel-friendship-class';
		} elseif ($button['id'] == 'not_friends'){
			$button['link_text'] = 'Your Custom Add Friend Text';
			$button['link_class'] .= ' your-add-friend-class';
		}
		
	}
	return $button;
}
add_filter( 'bp_get_add_friend_button','mb_bp_friend_button');

In case you want to completely remove the class, you can simply remove the dot(.) symbol before the equals(=) symbol, which currently just adds an additional css class to what would already be returned. I haven't tested the above customization limits yet, so do be cautious when experimenting as certain customization's may render the buttons default AJAX behavior. Please feel free to comment questions, additions or improvements to the above.

Read the Original Post at BuddyPress Custom BP Add Friend Button by Internet Marketing Blog

Featured jQuery Plugins

1. Lightbox with Colorbox
2. Infinite Scroll
3. Masonry Effect
4. iOS Slider
5. jsScrollPane
6. Animated Pageswitch Plugin
7. Select2
8. Bootstrap

Finding great jQuery plugins to enhance a website has been easier than ever. New unique scripts are constantly published on GitHub and other sources that help countless developers seamlessly integration new and fantastic features.

However, the best jQuery scripts are those that are driven by an active user-base, that maintains and improves it, allowing others in the community to easily find support. With that in mind, there are about a handful of general jQuery plugins that can be relied on, up until now, which you can comfortably integrate in your developments.

Lightbox with Colorbox

Among all jQuery Lightbox Plugins, Colorbox is one of the most flexible and developer friendly and remains one of the easiest plugins to add great Lightboxes to your Gallery / Portfolio.

In addition to images, Colorbox can also Lightbox Video Embeds, iFrames and custom HTML content, making it ideal for any callouts, features or other material for promotion.

Lastly, the wide customizability of the Lightbox settings, including the speed of the Lightbox opening and closing, the CSS design and other settings, can make every implementation unique.

Click on the thumbnail for Colorbox Example.

Usage

Infinite Scroll

One of the more trending features in 2013 for displaying content feeds is known as Infinite Scroll. The jQuery Infinite Scroll plugin uses AJAX to enable additional content to be loaded, usually as one scrolls down to the end of the archive, seamlessly without page reloads, hence disregarding pagination and other multi-page archive requirements.

A great example of what jQuery Infinite Scroll can be seen on any Facebook Wall, which upon scrolling down, loads older content from the timeline and appends it to the users feed accordingly.

Usage

Masonry Effect

Another trending design feature on image galleries, specifically to user driven ones, is known as the Masonry Script.

An example of the Masonry effect is depicted on any Pinterest wall, which consists of different sized blocks, layed out dynamically based on available space. In short, the jQuery Masonry Script achieves this, by rearranging multiple content blocks after they have been loaded, to fill gaps with according sized blocks.

Usage

iOS Slider

The iOS Slider is one of the newer generation slider plugins that comes with all features for Today's modern browsers and devices. Sliders created with the default jQuery iOS Slider settings will already have Drag-able / Touch recognition for Mobile and Tablet view-ports, Screen-width Responsiveness and cross-browser compatibility.

Usage

jsScrollPane

A more subtle, yet, quite intuitive feature is that from the jQuery jsScrollPane plugin, which enables you to replace the default browser scrollbar with a custom designed one.

Default variations of the jsScrollPane scrollbar are available both in horizontal and vertical styles and also includes support for nested content scrollbars, modals and the much more.

Usage

Animated Pageswitch Plugin

Next, for those who'd like to get rid of their sites page switch reloading, you can now replace it with a more graceful effect. Choose to make your content fade in and out, slide in vertically or horizontally, replacing the default page refreshing, blank page reloading event.

Usage

Select2

Although more of a form related jQuery plugin, Select2 became more of a standard integration for dozens of purposes. This plugin custom styles the default select input field across browsers and enables amazing features that can be used for multiple user-input related features:

Some examples of what Select2 is being used for: Search Forms, Sign Up / Registration Forms and general form select boxes.

Usage

Bootstrap

We finalize the list of "Must-Have jQuery Plugins" with Bootstrap. Although more of a Framework / CSS-JS Library than just a jQuery plugin, Bootstrap's necessity in websites has become more crucial due to its wide user-base. Bootstrap also happens to contain an impressive jQuery component library, including tooltips, sliders, accordions to modal windows and form button groups.

Additional Must-Have jQuery Plugins

Of course, there are countless other great general jQuery scripts one can add to your website project that may belong on this list. Feel free to comment your picks or request additional information about a specific script.

Read the Original Post at 8 Must-Have jQuery Plugins for any Website in 2013 by Internet Marketing Blog

In our previous BuddyPress Profile Menu tutorial, we provided examples to change the default BP menu and subnav names and positions. In this tutorial, we cover how to add complete new profile pages to the BP user menu, including submenu items, and how to remove default nav items entirely.

1. Remove Default BP Menu Items
2. Adding New Profile Nav Items
3. Attach Profile Pages / Screen Functions

Remove Unwanted Default Profile Menu Items

The best way to disable/remove a menu item in the BP members profile, is to disable the component from the BuddyPress Settings. This guarantees that not only would the menu items not display, but its pages would no longer exist, which could still be accessed directly via its URL.

In a scenario where you'd like to remove a menu item from the BuddyPress profile, but would like to keep the component enabled, e.g. Forums, Site Tracking, then the safest way is to use the unset function:

unset($bp->bp_nav['blogs']);

Simply apply this function to the bp_setup_nav action, as explained in the previous BuddyPress tutorial (we will show a complete function below).

Adding New Profile Nav Items

To add completely new items to the profile navigation, we will use the bp_core_new_nav_item function. The function has multiple parameters, which are described here.

Let's use this code to add a new profile menu item that we will use to display a users posts:

add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'mb_bp_profile_menu_posts', 301 );
function mb_bp_profile_menu_posts() {
global $bp;
bp_core_new_nav_item(
	array(
        'name' => 'My Posts',
        'slug' => 'posts', 
        'position' => 11, 
        'default_subnav_slug' => 'published', // We add this submenu item below 
        'screen_function' => 'mb_author_posts'
	)
);
}

The code will add a menu item right after the first default menu item (after the Activity tab) and it will attempt to display the content from the mb_author_posts function.

Assigning New Subnav Items

To attach a subnavigation to our new menu item, we will use the function bp_core_new_subnav_item and add it to the action bp_setup_nav after the function to create the parent menu tab has run:

add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'mb_bp_profile_submenu_posts', 302 );
function mb_bp_profile_submenu_posts() {
	global $bp;
	if(!is_user_logged_in()) return '';
bp_core_new_subnav_item( array( 
	'name' => 'Published',
	'slug' => 'published', 
	'parent_url' => $bp->loggedin_user->domain . $bp->bp_nav['posts']['slug'] . '/'; ,
	'parent_slug' => $bp->bp_nav['posts']['slug'],
	'position' => 10,
	'screen_function' => 'mb_author_posts'
	) 
); 
bp_core_new_subnav_item( array( 
	'name' => 'Drafts',
	'slug' => 'drafts', 
	'parent_url' => $bp->loggedin_user->domain . $bp->bp_nav['posts']['slug'] . '/'; ,
	'parent_slug' => $bp->bp_nav['posts']['slug'],
	'position' => 20,
	'screen_function' => 'mb_author_posts_drafts'
	) 
); 
}

Adding Profile Menu Tab Content

Now that we have our navigation items in place, we need to attach the functions that displays the content. We do this by attaching our functions content output to the BuddyPress template /members/single/plugins:

Here an example of how our function could look like:

function mb_author_posts(){	
	add_action( 'bp_template_content', 'mb_show_posts' );
	bp_core_load_template( apply_filters( 'bp_core_template_plugin', 'members/single/plugins' ) );
}
function mb_show_posts() {
	echo 'Function to Generate the displayed users posts.';
	// echo do_shortcode('[mb_feedburner count=5 user="MaximusBusiness"]'); // Displays a shortcode output.
}

You would duplicate the above structure for the second subnavigation item if applicable.

Feel free to comment or request more examples/explanations for any of the above.

Read the Original Post at Custom BuddyPress Profile Menu: Add & Remove BP Menu Pages by Internet Marketing Blog

1. BP Nav Functions
2. Default BP Menu Items
3. Customizing BP Profile Tabs
4. Edit BP Profile Sub-Nav Items
5. Adding/Removing BP Nav Menu Items

BuddyPress 1.7+ Member Profile Nav Functions

Like many other BP related code extensions, using the global $bp within our functions is essential. A function is required for the creating or changing of the BP profile's main menu items, and a separate one for the profile's sub-menu items. All these functions have to be queued in the bp_setup_nav action in the correct order, hence the function to create new sub-nav items for a custom main tab you create would have to run after the main tabs are created.

The Action: bp_setup_nav

The following functions will be added to the action bp_setup_nav, with a high priority, to assure that your function runs after all the important ones for the profile nav have finished:

// Default Usage:
add_action('bp_setup_nav', $function, $priority);

// Example:
add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'add_your_custom_tabs', 151);
add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'add_your_custom_subtabs', 152);

Default BuddyPress Profile Menu Items

Modifying the main BP profile navigation tabs requires little code, and can only be done to the tabs you activated in the BuddyPress settings to prevent errors. If all your BuddyPress default components are activated, you should have the following main items in your profile (if logged in as an administrator):

1. Activity
2. Profile
3. Sites (if on a WP multisite network)
4. Messages
5. Friends
6. Groups
7. Settings
8. Forums (if BBPress forums are integrated)

To modify each nav items position or name, you would access it by its slug, which you can determine by the url after /members/username/, but the default BP nav slugs are typically a lower-case version of its name. Here the default usage:

Change BuddyPress Profile Menu Positions & Names

The positioning of these menu items are determined by their position number, for example, the default position of Activity is 10 and that of Profile is 20. To change the default menu item positions, you can use a function similar to this:

function mb_profile_menu_tabs(){
global $bp;
$bp->bp_nav['activity']['position'] = 15;
$bp->bp_nav['messages']['position'] = 10;
}
add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'mb_profile_menu_tabs', 201);

The above code would replace the first tab from Activity to Members, and places Activity before Profile (because Profile has a position number of 20).

Changing BP Navigation Names

Similar to the above, changing the default BP profile tab names can be done by replacing the 'position' string, with 'name'. We added 3 new rows to the above function in this example:

function mb_profile_menu_tabs(){
global $bp;
$bp->bp_nav['activity']['position'] = 15;
$bp->bp_nav['messages']['position'] = 10;
$bp->bp_nav['messages']['name'] = 'Mail';
$bp->bp_nav['friends']['name'] = 'Contacts';
$bp->bp_nav['profile']['name'] = 'Account';
}
add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'mb_profile_menu_tabs', 201);

Edit BP Sub Nav Names & Positions

Editing the BuddyPress sub-menu items relies on a similar structure as their parent items, the main tabs. The significant difference here is that instead of using the bp_nav object, we will need to use bp_options_nav to access theme. In addition, we require the subnav items parent slug:

Default Usage: $bp->bp_options_nav[$parent_slug][$slug][$data] = $value;

For example, if you intend to modify the 'Change Avatar' submenu item, under the 'Profile' tab, then you would use the parent slug profile and the target submenu item's slug, in this case change-avatar (Default BP submenu items may have their slug as an id, when viewing it in the source):

$bp->bp_options_nav['profile']['change-avatar']['name'] = 'Change Profile Picture';

Here, the final code snippet:

function mb_profile_menu_tabs(){
global $bp;
$bp->bp_nav['activity']['position'] = 15;
$bp->bp_nav['messages']['position'] = 10;
$bp->bp_nav['messages']['name'] = 'Mail';
$bp->bp_nav['friends']['name'] = 'Contacts';
$bp->bp_nav['profile']['name'] = 'Account';
$bp->bp_options_nav['profile']['change-avatar']['name'] = 'Change Profile Picture';
}
add_action('bp_setup_nav', 'mb_profile_menu_tabs', 201);

As usual, please feel free to point out mistakes or improvements.

Read the Original Post at BuddyPress Profile: Change Default Nav Menu Tabs and Sub Items by Internet Marketing Blog

Google Keyword Tool

First, let's get familiar with the tools we need to get accurate information about our targeted keywords, by opening the Google Keyword Tool.

1. After opening the Keyword Tool, log in your Google Adwords account if you have one, so that you get a wider range of keyword varieties.
2. Now, you should see a window containing a form similar to the image on the right.
3. Next, you would simply type one or more keyword phrases into the Word or Phrase field and click search.

Search Results and Column Definitions

After the tool processed your input, you will see several columns per keyword and keyword group tabs, which contain a set of keywords for the suggested group.

You can modify which columns to display or hide, in case you don't have the same columns in this example:

Competition

This displays the keywords difficulty, based on how many Adwords users are bidding for this keywords, which makes it relatively irrelevant for SEO. On the other hand, the difficulty does help determine the awareness of the keyword and whether it is realistic to target (searching the keyword and the search result data is a more accurate way to determine this).

Global Monthly Searches

This number represents the amount of searches are being made for this keyword on a global scale. The results show the number independent of the location option under the Word or Phrase input field (see image).

Local Monthly Searches

In this column, the number represents the searches for the keyword phrase in the location you chose from the Location option, which defaults to the geo-location your browser identifies.

Accurate Keyword Searches

To get a better idea of the keywords to choose for your content, we take a closer look at the Match Types, on the left sidebar of the Google Keyword Tool window.

By clicking the help / question-mark icon above the match types, you get the definitions of each option.

For the purpose of using the keywords for SEO, we want to view only Exact matches, so leave everything other than [Exact] unchecked. This way, we know the exact keywords monthly searches, in the order the words withing the phrase and in which tense, for example: You can now see whether to use secondhand car(1,000) and secondhard cars(1,600), or both, as a keyword for related content.

Upon adjusting the result outputs via the Match Types, your results should refresh and a the corresponding keywords' global and local monthly searches should show a more accurate results.

Researching SEO Keyword Ideas & Variations

Lastly, in order to see what other keywords, related to your search, can be used within the content or replace your original ones, switch from the default tab Ad Groups to Keyword Ideas.

In the Keyword Ideas tab, you can also sort by Global/Local Monthly Searches, exclude certain terms to get a more accurate list and export it all via CSV.

Read the Original Post at SEO Keyword Research with the Google Keyword Tool by Internet Marketing Blog

Unless a business has a tight online marketing strategy things can become very messy, with diverse disconnected channels pumping out content with no overarching goal in mind. Imposing order on the potential marketing chaos is essential to ensure that every part of a business's online presence is pulling in the right direction.

The hub and spoke paradigm is one way of imposing that order. In principle it’s fairly simple, the brand website is the hub, the point at which most substantial content in published, and where the major calls-to-action are located. The spokes are the channels through which content is pushed to potential leads, with the intention of drawing them into the main site and exposing them to the calls-to-action.

There are various ways that the hub and spoke model can be implemented; we’re going to have a look at two of the most popular, both of which use WordPress as a major component. We’ll look at these implementations separately, although there’s no reason that they couldn't be combined in practice.

Blog and Social Media

This is the most common implementation of hub and spoke. The main site, whether it’s a sales site or a lead generation site, acts as the hub. Closely integrated with that site is a  blog on which high-quality relevant content is published. That content is then given exposure through a selection of social media networks, outreach to other blogs, and guest posting.

At every point in the process the aim is to draw users into the main site, where they can be presented with calls-to-action and opportunities to convert, as well as awesome content which encourages further sharing on social media and return visits.

WordPress makes a great choice for the hub, both because it’s the most capable blogging platform available, and because of the huge number of plugins available for integration with social media.

Main Site and Microsites

Many businesses want to appeal to a range of different niches. Products are often better served by being exposed to different audiences using different tones, emphases, and designs.

Microsites are secondary websites that target each of those niches in the way best suited to them. For example, a clothing retailer may sell clothes to both men and women, and both city and rural customers. The content likely to engage those customers is going to be different, and a hub site that attempts to cover all bases — to cater for both urban hipsters and farmers — is going to end up looking inauthentic to both.

Using WordPress to produce microsites that are separately focused on producing content for each of those customer personas, and then driving that traffic to the main site for conversion is a very good way to deal with audience fragmentation.

Again, WordPress is well suited because of its flexibility as a content publishing platform, its easy theming, and the WordPress multisite capability, which allows for the running of several sites from one installation.

Read the Original Post at Hub And Spoke Content Marketing With WordPress by Internet Marketing Blog

Facebook Like Contests may be an immense success or may end up falling flat on their face. A few wrong moves, and Facebook could declare your contest invalid, or block your account completely. If you don’t promote your contest right, you may not be able to generate any buzz around your Facebook page, thus defeating its very purpose.

So, the question is how do you conduct a contest to generate a genuine buzz and get Likes without flouting Facebook’s rules. The following are the top 5 strategies.

1. Use a Third-Party Application

Facebook decrees that for any promotions via contests, a third-party application has to be used; users would then be required to operate inside your page to be eligible for contests.

There are several applications such as Wildfire and Binkd that can be used for this purpose. However, if you do not know how to work these apps, hire a professional programmer to do it for you – your work will be done in minutes.

2. Do Not Have a ‘Wall Contest’

Many companies use their Page Walls’ to hold contests where participants are expected to simply Like/Comment on content that is posted. Facebook, though, does not approve of such actions and has, in fact, penalized bigwigs like Pizza Hut and Cadbury for the same.

Therefore, to stay out of trouble and honor Facebook’s terms of usage, conduct contests on a separate tab or shortcut, or best of all, using an application, as recommended above.

3. Promote Away!

Just having a contest and inviting a few people to participate in it is not enough. For a contest to be a success, you need to spread the word and reach the widest audience base possible.

A great way to do this is explore cross-promotion opportunities with businesses in associated but complimentary niche areas. For example, let’s say you own a Parenting blog, you could explore cross promotion opportunities with businesses that sell baby care products, kids apparel, nursery accessories, etc. You could give away your promotion partner’s product as the prize, thus giving them an incentive to promote your contest too.

Other than this, you could share information or links to the contest through your own as well as your promotion partner’s blog.

To give maximum visibility to your contest, you must also direct people from other social networks to the contest by promoting it on those pages.

If you don’t have a significant fan-following on Facebook, it may be a good idea to invest in Facebook advertising as well.

4. Provide Proper Instructions

Facebook Like Contests can become extremely unmanageable if proper instructions are not provided to the participants. If the guidelines are unclear, either people will perform tasks incorrectly or write individual posts to clarify their doubts.

Many, in fact, avoid such contests because they detest the confusion and lack of clarity therein.

The best means to overcome this is to give proper guidelines and also specify the Terms and Conditions in the Application itself.

5. Offer Good Prizes

The prize you offer should be in accordance with your product or the idea you would like to get associated with. The prize doesn't always have to be your own product or service, but it should be something that adds to or promotes your brand message.

For example, a mineral water company may want its brand to be associated with health and sports. If such a company were to conduct a contest, it could offer tickets to an ongoing sporting event as the prize.

Having said that, it’s important to keep in mind that those people who participate for a casual shot at winning may bring you any direct business. Therefore, by having suitable prizes, you can ensure that the target audience receives something that furthers your cause as well, which is, promotion of a particular product or service.

Read the Original Post at Top 5 Tips to Conduct Facebook Like Contests by Internet Marketing Blog

CSS Buttons

This tutorial will cover some easy steps on how you can create basic CSS buttons for your own use and how to create them with your own colors and sizes.

Button Color Examples

Hover over the below buttons to view their hover effect.

A Basic CSS Link Button

To start setting up your button design, decide how your would like some CSS3 properties to display around the links text. Because our focus is to achieve the above 3D button effect, we will first create the flat version and will be using some of the following properties:

• background-color - We will use a background color for our link
• padding - The spacing from the text to the border of the background
• border - The border frame color and size around the button, if we use it.
• border-radius - The radius of the buttons corners.

Here is our buttons CSS which we place in the .button class:

a {
color: #333333;
text-decoration: none;
}
a.button {
background-color: #E3E3E3;
padding: 5px 15px;
border: 0;
border-radius: 5px;
}

That would output a flat colored background button with round corners:

Step 1

Adding CSS Gradient and Text-Shadow

Next, we would add the following properties for a stronger text and nicer background:

• text-shadow - For a little text indent effect
• background-image - We will use this for a CSS gradient, not an image

Here's how we added it to our class:

a.button {
background-color: #E3E3E3;
padding: 5px 15px;
border: 0;
border-radius: 5px;
text-shadow:0 1px white;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #F5F5F5, #D3D3D3);
}

And here is how it would look:

Step 2

3D Button CSS

Finally, we add the 3D Button effect, which we do with the box-shadow property to the button class, like so:

The above adds two shadows, separated by a coma. the first adds the 5px thick, dark grey color to the bottom and the second adds the 5px blurry shadow after that, resulting in:

Step 3

The first button state is now alive, and on the next page we will be will add the hover effect and coloring methods.

CSS Pressed Button Effect

To apply the pressed effect to the buttons hover state, we will just need to reduce the bottom shadow thickness while positioning the button a few pixels lower, equal to the reduced pixels from the shadow.

For that to work, we also add the position:relative; property to the default state, and add a top property to the hover state, as well as change the shadow values a little. We also add a darker shade for the backgroud-color.

a.button {
position:relative;
background-color: #E3E3E3;
padding: 5px 15px;
border: 0;
border-radius: 5px;
text-shadow:0 1px white;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #F5F5F5, #D3D3D3);
box-shadow:0px 5px 0px #828282, 0px 8px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}
a.button:hover {
top: 3px;
background-color:#D3D3D3;
box-shadow:0px 2px 0px 0px #828282, 0px 5px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.2);
}

Because we push the button down by 3px, we also reduce both shadows thickness by 3px, and reduce the blur of the second shadow by a few pixels as well for the desired effect:

The Button

Background Color Gradients

The best way to apply some cool button color gradient effects is to choose the desired color and the resulting color shades, darker and lighter, to then apply to the gradient and shadows accordingly. Let's look at a button example with the our themes color, #4471a9:

Blue Button

And the CSS class:

a.button-blue {
color: #ffffff;
text-shadow:0 1px black;
position:relative;
background-color: #4471a9;
padding: 5px 15px;
border: 0;
border-radius: 5px;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #5884BC, #395e8d);
box-shadow:0px 5px 0px #223955, 0px 8px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}
a.button:hover {
top: 3px;
background-color:#395e8d;
box-shadow:0px 2px 0px #223955, 0px 4px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}

On close look, you will see that all we change for the new colored button is the background-color,background-image and box-shadow. For the text properties, we change color and text-shadow for it to be more visible (optional, since you may choose to your a lighter colored button). Altogether, we require only 4 different color shades, including our main color. Here a breakdown of how to apply these colors codes:

We take our main color and grab one lighter shade, and 2 darker ones, hence, on a scale from 1-4, #3 is the main color, #4 is the lighter shade, #2 is one shade darker and #1 the darkest:

We apply these as follows:

a.button-blue {
background-color: #3;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #4, #2);
box-shadow:0px 5px 0px #1, 0px 8px 5px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}
a.button:hover {
background-color:#2;
box-shadow:0px 2px 0px #1, 0px 4px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
}

Color & CSS Gradient Resources

There are many websites that provide helpful tools to create a cross-browser compatible gradients as well as color shades, Here are two I can recommend:

• ColorZilla Gradient Creator - A quick CSS gradient creator worth bookmarking.
• ColorHexa - Just type in an HTML color hex code and it will give you the shades.

Free CSS Buttons Download

Download the 5 different colored CSS buttons featured on the first page of this tutorial, including the cross-browser compatible CSS. If you enjoyed this tutorial please feel free to comment, share and add us to your Google Plus circles.

Download “CSS Buttons Download” CSS-Buttons-MB.zip – Downloaded 1385 times – 2 KB

Read the Original Post at CSS Buttons: Designing Great Web Buttons with CSS3 by Internet Marketing Blog

Email signatures are everywhere and come in every format. A well designed email signature can make a huge impression when transacting with potential customers, as well as help stand out among other messages in an inbox.

Today, one can even use professional email signatures to increase social media followers and add advanced personalizing features that render even on smart phones and web mailboxes nicely.

By noting some html capabilities in email signature format design, one can make sure to avoid any potential design flops, some of these are:

• Refrain from using to many images in an email signature.
• Use cross-browser safe html to avoid problems on out-dated web browsers, such as Internet Explorer.
• Assure "plain text"-view safe layouts for some mailbox clients.

Email Signature Formats

Signatures can differ depending on whether you are sending an email to a new potential client, your business partners or family. For most cases, a simple email signature will do, which contains no images, minor html and styling and is short:

Minimalist for frequent personal emails

Code:

---
<font style="font-family:'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; color:#333;">
<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="width:600px">
<tr><td colspan="8" style="width:350px" width="350px"><font style="font-weight:bolder;font-size:10pt;"><strong>Don Mehrabi, MD FAAD</strong></font>
<br /><font style="font-size:9pt;">Board Certified Dermatologist | BHSkin, Inc.
<br />
<a href="http://www.bhskin.com" style="color:black; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;"><strong>www.BHSkin.com</strong></a> - <em style="color:#333;font-style:italic;">&quot;Beautiful skin begins here&quot;</em></font></td>
</tr></table></font>

Above, we use tables which is the safest way to align and space most email formats because of the compatibility on most email clients that accept html. To make sure that bold and italic font styles show up correctly on all mail clients, we use both the style attribute and html tags, <strong> and <em>.

Branded Social and Contact Info

Code:

---<font style="font-family:'Century Gothic', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color:#333;">
<table width="550" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td width="60" rowspan="2" style="border-right: 1px solid #333333;"><a href="http://www.maximusbusiness.com/"><img src="http://www.maximusbusiness.com/images/social/signature/icon-thumb.png" width="70" height="70" border="0"></a></td><td width="8"></td>
    <td colspan="6"><font style="font-weight:bolder; color:#333333; font-size:11pt;">Pedram Hasid</font><br /><font style="color:#1F497D; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold;">Project Management & Marketing Consulting</font>
  <br />
  <font style="color:#1F497D; font-size:10pt;"><a href="http://www.maximusbusiness.com" style="color:#FF6600; text-decoration:none;">MaximusBusiness.com</a> | <a href="mailto:Max@maximusbusiness.com" style="color:#FF6600; text-decoration:none;">ped@maximusbusiness.com</a></font>
 </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td width="8"></td>
    <td width="14"><font style="color:#336699;font-weight:bold; font-style: italic; font-size:12px;">P:</font></td>
    <td width="80"><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">+1(424)242-2638</font></td>    
    <td width="30"><font style="color:#336699;font-weight:bold; font-style: italic; font-size:12px;">Twitter:</font></td>
    <td width="100"><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">@OnlineMarket</font></td>
  </tr>
</table></font>

Here, we implement the style="color:#..." as well as a second column format for the brands thumbnail. We also include a new row for further contact information and a twitter extension that may help newer, more frequent, contacts.

Icebreaker Make a First Impression

This email signature should be used in rare circumstances, due to it being a bit heavy and contains images. Scenarios when a format like this would be good to use are:

• First time emails to new contacts or potential clients.
• Replying to a contact information request.
• Sales Announcements, Newsletter or similar campaigns.
• Sending copyright attachments, such as contract PDF's, licensed images, etc.

Code:

<p>---<font style="font-family:'Bookman Old Style', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; color:#333;">
<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td width="80" rowspan="2" style="border-right: 1px solid #333333;"><a href="http://www.maximusbusiness.com/"><img src="http://www.maximusbusiness.com/images/social/signature/icon-thumb.png" width="70" height="70" border="0"></a></td><td width="8"></td>
    <td colspan="6"><font style="font-weight:bolder; color:#333333; font-size:11pt;">Maximilian Ruthe</font><br /><font style="color:#1F497D; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold;">Web Development & Marketing Consultant
  <br>
  <a href="http://www.maximusbusiness.com" style="color:#FF6600; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;">www.MaximusBusiness.com</a> | <a href="mailto:Max@maximusbusiness.com" style="color:#FF6600; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;">max@maximusbusiness.com</a></font>
 </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td width="8"></td>
    <td width="14"><font style="color:#336699;font-weight:bold; font-style: italic; font-size:12px;">P:</font></td>
    <td width="100"><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">+1(424)235-1170</font></td>
    <td width="35"><font style="color:#336699;font-weight:bold; font-style: italic; font-size:12px;">Skype:</font></td>
    <td width="95"><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">maximilian.ruthe</font></td>
    <td width="45"><font style="color:#336699;font-weight:bold; font-style: italic; font-size:12px;">Twitter:</font></td>
    <td width="120"><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic;">@MaximilianRuthe</font></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<table width="600" style="border-bottom: 1px dotted #333333;"><tr><td><br /></td></tr></table>
<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr>
    <td rowspan="2" width="285px" style="border-right: 1px solid #333333;"><div style="text-align:center; width:280px; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;">
<img id="Image-Maps_2201202140621298" src="http://www.maximusbusiness.com/images/social/signature/signature.png" usemap="#Image-Maps_2201202140621298" border="0" width="280" height="75" alt="" />
<!-- Image map text links - Start - If you do not wish to have text links under your image map, you can move or delete this DIV -->
<map id="_Image-Maps_2201202140621298" name="Image-Maps_2201202140621298">
<area shape="rect" coords="0,0,275,44" href="http://www.maximusbusiness.com" alt="Maximusbusiness.com" title="Maximusbusiness.com"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="249,45,275,70" href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/maximus-business-los-angeles" alt="yelp" title="yelp"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="216,45,242,70" href="http://blog.maximusbusiness.com/" alt="rss" title="rss"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="184,45,210,70" href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/maximus-business" alt="Linkedin" title="Linkedin"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="151,45,177,70" href="https://plus.google.com/111888032719359637556/" alt="google" title="google"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="118,45,144,70" href="http://twitter.com/onlinemarket" alt="twitter" title="twitter"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="84,45,110,70" href="http://www.facebook.com/maximusbusiness" alt="facebook" title="facebook"    />
<area shape="rect" coords="278,73,280,75" href="http://www.image-maps.com/index.php?aff=mapped_users_2201202140621298" alt="Image Map" title="Image Map" />
</map>
<!-- Image map text links - End - -->

</div></td><td width="6px"></td>
    <td><font style="color:#333333; font-size:10pt;">USA: +1(424)242-2638 | Global: +1(424)235-7629</font><br /><font style="color:#1F497D; font-size:10pt;">1441 Westwood Blvd., Suite C<br /> Los Angeles, California 90024, USA</font></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<font style="font-size:9px; color:#444">
<hr />Policies and Terms here.<hr /></font></font></p>

In this example we include two images, but the second image contains multiple links with link mapping, which works on major desktop and web email clients, such as Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird and so others. This prevents that users you send emails to have to download multiple images, which, if you keep the signature in responses, duplicates all the images the need to be downloaded again.

Professional Email Signatures

What you can do with professional email signatures and the variety of designs you can incorporate in your email communications are endless. The format and information displayed on them depends on the type of business you may be using it for and the responses you see when using them. Experiment and try different ways of presenting your messages in order to be more noticeable among competitor emails your target clientele may be browsing through before making their choice. Any ideas or further example requests are welcome, so feel free to comment.

Read the Original Post at Professional Email Signature Format Examples by Internet Marketing Blog

Experienced webmasters typically conduct an audit on their websites periodically. They don't do any major changes though (that would be exhausting!); they simply check each page, consulting monitoring tools like Google's Heat Map. Most do it on a quarterly basis, six-month intervals, or even annually. It all depends on how much time the webmaster has on his hands, and if ever there is an urgent need to do a website audit beyond the usual schedule.

When you hire an SEO company to optimize your site, they will begin by auditing your website. They will take a look at all your webpages and take note of their observations, make suggestions, and assert important changes if necessary. Each auditing body may have a different method of conducting an audit, but all of them will basically check on these three important fields:

1. Technical (structure, layout, formats, etc...)
2. On-Page SEO (value)
3. Link Profile

All these three fields must be designed, organized or orchestrated in such a way that each will be able to provide a strong support for the other two. SEO efforts will be more effective, and have long-lasting effects, to boot, if all three aspects are cohesive. Now one thing that can help keep them together is content.

Content's Role in Webpages

Let us review the basics for a while and recall the purpose of content:

• It gives your website the "meat" that search engine users and search engines themselves are looking for.
• It tells visitors and customers what your website is about, what products and/or services you offer, among other things.
• Select phrases and keywords that are inserted—in a grammatically correct manner, of course—in text content can serve as anchor texts for outbound and internal links.
• It gives search engines something to crawl and index for queries.

The last item indicates that a large part of SEO is content-based, whether it is on-page or off-page (link building, social media optimization, content marketing, and other outreach efforts). Considering the direction Google is heading lately, technical maneuverings can only go so far as far as SEO is concerned. At the end of the day, it is still important to have excellent and valuable content to satisfy not just Google but also other search engines; and of course, your visitors who are looking forward to finding valuable information from your site.

It is only logical then to evaluate how your website content should be structured so that it can be maximized to the benefit of the three fields indicated above, especially for on-page SEO. Although it is not the overall sum of SEO, it is certainly an essential part of it.

Here are some of the things you definitely have to include in your website auditing routine. These steps focus more on content evaluation.

Evaluate Content Quality

First and foremost, you need to evaluate the quality of your content. At any given time, you should have a goal in mind for your website. Use that as a basis on evaluating the worth of your existing content.

There are many things to consider about your website content. Does it accurately describe your company, the products and the services you offer? Is it written very well or are there plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes? Will your readers find it valuable and informative? Is it SEO-ready? Meaning, does it contain the right keywords? More importantly, does your website content contain just the right number of keywords or phrase that will pass muster the beady, little, alert red eyes of Google Penguin?

These are just some of the more complex grounds for content auditing. You might even have other questions or criteria to add. There are a few ground rules though, which should be non-negotiable when auditing website content:

• Scraped/copied/duplicated content should be removed.
• Gibberish content (keywords repeated over and over in a senseless manner) must be removed.
• Avoid over-abundance of links.
• Use a variety of keywords as anchor texts for links. Don’t use the same keyword over and over again in the same page.
• Don’t publish content that’s completely unrelated and irrelevant to your site.

This also means that you need to go over every single page in your site. This may be daunting, not to mention labor-intensive, but it is very necessary. You’ll spot overlooked issues, and not just those related to content. We’re talking about broken links, missing titles and meta information, tags, image names and captions, etc.

Use Webpage Metric Tools

It isn’t enough to rely on one’s own judgment alone when doing a website audit. To avoid biases in your decisions, take advantage of metric tools for website auditing. As mentioned earlier, an aggregate heat map will be helpful in determining which content—both textual and graphic—are practically useless in your site.

It is also critical to use a program where you can organize and record findings about your content audit, like Excel. Create tables and log sheets that will summarize your findings.

Decide on a Plan of Action

The first is to change or update the articles and other texts in your site in order to improve the overall website content quality; second is to simply leave everything as is; third is the complete opposite, which is to delete the content; and the fourth is to further promote it online.

Naturally, your plan of action will depend on what comes out of your content and page evaluation. If you deem it good enough to satisfy tour readers and good enough for on-page SEO, then you can leave it as is or make some changes where necessary.

Undeniably, website auditing is a tedious process. If you do it regularly though, and implement high standards for your content from the very beginning, web content auditing may become easier each successive time.

Read the Original Post at The Why’s and How’s of Conducting a Website Content Audit by Internet Marketing Blog