SEO Company in the Philippines | Search Opt Media

5 Crucial Lessons To A Mobile-Optimized Website

Veronica Beguas — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:52:54 +0000

The search ecosystem is expanding rapidly. The shift from desktop search to mobile is faster than any predictions of industry influencers I am aware of.

Since 2013, mobile is considered to be the most adopted consumer technology in world history, surpassing desktops and game consoles, according to Pew Research Center. The figures are stunning causing marketers to tighten their belts and keep their pants up wary on how it will impact their current campaigns.

Image credit: Flickr

The game is changing, mobile is here. In the SMX East in New York last October 2014, an overarching 40% of search is now being done on mobile devices. Gary Illyes, Webmaster Analyst at Google, expanded the statistic and stated that 77% of mobile users search products and services using their mobile devices. Furthermore, mobile search is smashing desktop by approximately ten times, according to BrightEdge Data Cube.

These data have many marketers and businesses pivot to mobile search optimization on top of desktop and web marketing efforts. But making your business become mobile-optimized requires more strategic and tactical efforts. At the current rate, not everyone succeed in mobile search.

If mobile search is the undercurrent supernova as it is expected to be, how can you pivot to mobile space successfully?

1. Design And Approach

You have been hearing pundits stressing on the importance of design and approach for quite sometime now but is your mobile site truly ready for the mobile eclipse?

Fathomably, mobile phones have 8 times smaller screens than desktop computers, thus it is important to understand the user behavior. Mobile users are certainly different from desktop users and to be able to come up with a user-centered design, you need to involve the user from the design process leading them to a solution that users will find useful. To achieve that, you need to have a crystal clear understanding of your users, their intents and common reasons for visiting your site using a mobile device.

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; The North Face

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; Wikipedia

You can also take advantage of mobile-specific approaches to further improve user experience. One common example would be, giving options to explore the site by language or geo-location.

You can make your mobile site responsive or adaptive, depending on your specific goals.

2. Need for Speed

If design comes first, speed is always next. It mirrors how fast your site can respond to user requests. The goal of any mobile page is to give users the optimal experience they want, regardless of device type and network latencies. Aside from bounce rate and average time on site, speed matters in both rankings and conversions. Users easily get interrupted with their buying behavior if they wait too long to access your mobile site. In just a matter of seconds, your audience can easily be disengaged. Thus, it seems imperative to embody the sacred byword—“Make your mobile site load in under a second.” So how can you address delays, choppy animations and never-ending load time of your Above The Fold (ATF) content?

In a Mobile Guide released by Google, rendering a mobile page within 1000 millisecond requires keen review of a typical communication chain between a browser (e.g. Propelrr.com) and a server. Full roundtrips from DNS Lookup, TCP Connection to HTTP request takes a mandatory of 600ms, leaving you with only 400ms to respond to users request.

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; Google

With the remaining 400ms, optimize your page speed with the following optimization tips:

Unblock bots to CSS and Javascript. After the initial round trips, your mobile page can start parsing the HTML response, before it can render the page content. However, if during the parsing, it encounters load blocking resources, it will stop and will opt to download the resources. This process will require additional roundtrips from DNS Lookup to HTTP requests that potentially delay your page’s loading and rendering speed.

Reduce Landing Page Redirects. Every time a page redirects to another page, a server takes added HTML roundtrips, giving users additional waiting time for a page to load. Avoid having chain redirects. (E.g. searchoptmedia.com -> www.searchoptmedia.com/home -> m.searchoptmedia.com)

Compress Files. Reduce sizes of your resources, like HTML, CSS and Javascript. This will significantly minimize the amount of time for the server to download the resource, data and content.

Pimp Data Caching. Improve browser caching so future user requests can be served faster through previously fetch response. Detailed recommendations to leverage browser cache by Google can be found here.

Inspect Server Response Time. Given 400ms to deliver content to users, you would need to reduce your page response time to only 200ms. Inspect and immediately resolve existing and potential factors that subtract speed from your server. The following might slow down your server performance (not limited to): poor application logic, slow routing, frameworks, database queries, and inadequate.

Other important rules to speed up your mobile website include optimized images, reduced plugins, configured viewport, and mobile-friendly content.

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; Propelrr.com mobile site analyzed

Remember, speed not only affects search but most importantly, user experience. Analyze your mobile website through Google’s mobile-friendly test.

3. SEO Is Here To Stay

As the game continues to change, one critical element in successful marketing strategy remains constant – search engine optimization.

Search still far outshines other tactical approach to modern marketing. Poor SEO strategy can make your business invisible and totally non-existent for your target audience, especially in mobile. To make sure your mobile site is still search engine friendly, create an XML sitemap and submit it to Google, Bing, and other search engines. Be mindful too of putting rel=canonical tag in order to signal search engines that your mobile site is not duplicate.

If you do want to capture tight mobile market, you need to adapt to changes to mobile searches, keyphrases, and keywords. Often, mobile users search using shorter and bare keyword/s. The search query on mobile often ranges to only 1-2 keywords.

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; Google

Mobile devices are forcing changes in search optimization strategies. One thing that makes mobile SEO a lot challenging is the local search. Most mobile searches are locally targeted. Users are more likely to search for things, products, and services in the near streets and cities, making local search even more important factor to concentrate when doing mobile search optimization. Be mindful of meta tags, cross-linking and 404 pages of your mobile website too.

Want to know what the most influential SEO experts say about mobile search optimization? Gary Viray, founder and CEO of Propelrr—premiere digital marketing agency in the Philippines, interviewed and curated tips to optimize websites for mobile search. Read the article, 14 Influential SEOs on Mobile Search Optimization, to know better about mobile SEO.

4. Competitive Content In Mobile

Mobile search is on fire and outstanding mobile content strategies are a must for survival and to unlock market potential of the mobile web. For mobile content, you must first understand the constraints of the platform and expectations of the users.

Users don’t want to scroll down too long or hit the next button over and over. Therefore, you need to keep your mobile content concise and simple. It starts with content delivery and how you will personalize the message for mobile users. How will the messages differ? “It’s surprising to still digitize content, but not tailoring it to mobile,” said the Google’s Head of Global Customer Acquisition, Darren Pleasance.

Image credit: Propelrr.com, mobile version

As seen on the mobile version of Propelrr (see the photo above), content should be developed and tailored for mobile users to improve the overall experience. Carefully decide which desktop content should be displayed on the mobile site, too. This is no longer the era of keywords. It is equally important to pay attention to your content architecture. To work on this, you need to uncover the ways users look for information and decide which content could cater best to your mobile users. You also need to keep a keen eye on the following mobile content tips:

Eliminate unplayable content. Not all content are tailored for mobile. Some types of video and other license-constrained content that require plug-ins, Flash or other players, are not widely supported on various mobile devices. Adding unplayable content to your mobile site contributes to poor mobile experience, so better kill it.

Optimize Mobile Font. Good fonts are critical to UX and site performance. Make your mobile font selectable, searchable, zoomable and high-DPI (dots per inch).

5. Promote Your Mobile Site

Aside from the connectivity-dependent aspects of the web and mobile, promoting your mobile site is as important as creating one.

Screenshot taken December 29, 2014; Google

Submit your mobile site to credible and high-quality portals and relevant directories. Mobile users are not only into search but also referrals from communities and portals they are familiar with. If you are optimizing a pizza parlor, you can submit it to directories where all pizza parlors in the specific location are listed.

Final Thoughts

The fact that people are turning to mobile devices to access information is an opportunity less tapped. As a brand and as a business, you should be equipped as early as now to cater to your mobile audiences and expand the yet to-be-discovered return on mobile search investments with your mobile-optimized website.

Curated Guide to Power Up Your Content Curation Strategy

Veronica Beguas — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:26:14 +0000

The Internet is full of content: evergreen, repurposed, co-created, and curated.

That’s maybe one of the reasons why “Content is King,” it is prevalent, never scarce. But of these types of content, one claims to be the 15-minute King — curated content. You can come up with a good content in just 15 minutes. As the old adage says, “automate, aggregate, and share.”

While curated content has gained popularity since 2010, it is still being a common, accepted, condoned, and effective content strategy for many Web publishers and social Web users. Of course, people love being told what’s hot and what’s not. It is indeed a big marketing opportunity and even a bigger mystery to do it rightly.

So, how can curated content be an effective content strategy and be SEO-friendly?

With that in mind, I have curated experts’ tips on content curation to get you started with the realm of tastemakers.

1. Museums Are To Artworks. Marketers Are To Online Posts.

Photo courtesy of Carib via Flickr

This is probably the best metaphor to clarify what content curation is. Museum collects and houses the best artworks it could possibly get. Marketers, must in the same way, collect and share only the best materials to pass along its readers, fans, followers, and customers.

In an article by Kevan Lee of Bufferapp.com, he defined curation as sorting the large amount of web content and picking only the best, most meaningful tidbits of information and exhibiting these in an organized and insightful manner.

People don’t want facts; they care most of what importance your content brings to them. Ease? Overlooked stories? Patterns? So what? Audiences are getting smarter. Anytime, they can throw you a tomato with a note on it that says, “Here lays your thoughtless content.”

Takeaway: Curation is not a straight report of facts; it is an online museum that has the best and the most relevant content that serves as a discourse of best knowledge distribution.

2. Models Of Content Curation

Photo courtesy of Latitudes via Flickr

Yes, you don’t just go there; collect all the best data and kaching! Publish your curation King. There are models to be determined to clearly identify your purpose.

Looking at how curation might be applied in very specific situations, a trend curator and founder of Influential Marketing Group, Rohit Bhargava puts models of content creation as follows:

1. Aggregation is about curating the most relevant information about a specific topic in one location. It is often in the form of catalog list. “16 Best Resources for Digital Marketers” can be one of the examples. Some also argue that this is the easiest way to do curation because it is often algorithmically automated.

2. Distillation is more on getting only the best relevant ideas and putting it in a simplistic format.

3. Elevation targets mainly the smaller ideas or daily musings posted online and then creating a larger and overlooked trend out of it.

4. Mashup on the other hand refers to uniquely curated juxtapositions and creating a concrete or new point of view.

5. Chronology, remember history?

Takeaway: Identifying your model will give you a clearer direction to where your curation efforts will best work. Mind identifying the model for this article?

3. 6 Content Curation Approaches

Photo courtesy of Caribb via Flickr

Content curation is considered to be one of the most cost-effective, efficient, and expert ways to combat Google Panda. But did you know that there are little-known but helpful strategies to consider before even proceeding with your curation?

Now that you know the models and importance of adding more content value to your curation, it is also important to know the possible strategies you can use to better express your own commentary or annotations.

In a Content Marketing Institute article, written by Pawan Deshpande, the most effective content curation can be done in 6 different approaches.

1. Abstracting is a low-effort approach where you literally copy-paste bits of content from your source. This works by pulling the source title, first few sentences and an image from the article. This might cause the curator some trouble for copyright allegations. This is also known for having too little SEO-value.

2. Summarizing, as the word suggests, requires more effort than abstracting. It can synopsize the idea of the whole source with additional beneficial keywords, making it a unique content as far as search engines are concerned.

3. Quoting is one of the popular ways of annotating third-party content. It gives thought-provoking block of information from the original content with a mix of the curator’s own commentary or thoughts on the topic. This is known to have a good SEO value and readership value.

4. Retitling means creating a provocative and relative short titles out of the original content. This is most specially known in social media sharing and mobile curation sites. With little effort, you can add value to your reader.

5. Storyboarding includes weaving various content. It could possibly include tweets, posts, photos, videos, and blog posts to come up with an interesting story or the curator’s own commentary.

6. Parallelizing is about taking 2 points of seemingly unrelated ideas and drawing a connection between them. This enables the curator to tackle a wider scope of discussion. Its SEO and readers values are known to be high because of its original and unique view point.

Takeaway: Carefully assess and choose what you think is best for you and your readers.

4. Create A Content Ecosystem Or Be Part Of The Bigger Ones

Photo courtesy of Ocean.Flynn via Flickr

Reblogging, sharing, pinning, repining, aggregating – whatever you call it – other people say, “A writer’s curation is other writers’ “theft”.”

This shouldn’t be the case in content curation. This isn’t solely about pushing a share button nor repacking someone else’s articles. Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net shares simple and best practices in curating and sharing others content.

One of his tips and probably the most remarkable one is being part of the content ecosystem. How? Be a creator and an organizer at the same time. Rosenbaum emphasizes the three C’s as a strong content mix in curation – create, contribute, collect. Create some content and let others have their share on it. Let them contribute and collect the best ideas that you think will better improve or challenge yours.

Takeaway: We are coming to a recession where researching and reading for 4 hours a day is a luxury. The goal of this is to create a one-stop-shop for all your readers’ needs.

5. Curate Across All Platforms, 2-3 Times A Week And The Favor Bank

Photo courtesy of Ryantron via Flickr

Content curation may serve different objectives. It can be a way to keep a broader partner network, a value-added content for your blog, traffic-driver, awareness, and link bait.

You might ask then, how can you make your curation effort more consistent and effective? Here’s what Matt Heinz’ answer on it.

If you are seeing hope in curation, you can actively curate 2-3 times a week at max. You don’t need to do that everyday unless you’re a robot. You too can, of course, curate across all platforms. Curate posts from influencers, microsites, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, but remember not to overboard. You’re content might sink in holes or might taste like an awful salad. Nobody wants that. Heinz’ tricks also include prioritizing content from partners and prospects to show them you value them and the law of “Favor bank” will do its job. It is also of major importance to spread your content to equally good sources.

Takeaway: Exist everywhere and engage to valuable some.

6. Curation And Google Panda

Photo courtesy of Stefan via Flickr

Google Panda update was a clear signal to all digital marketers that content should be unique and of high-quality. So, how can curating someone else’s content be beneficial to your site? Isn’t it considered as duplicate content?

In an SEO test conducted by Bruce Clay, Inc., they have found out that auto-generated type of curation constitutes duplicate content while editorialized curation improves page ranking. The test concluded that curation in the form of original content, paired with excerpt and enhanced annotations as well as links to curated content can help a website achieve the benefits of fresh content without any threat of negative search rankings.

With Google Panda update in mind, there are many variables to consider for effective and SEO-friendly curated content. The most important, according to Virginia Nussey of Blue Clay, is having unique content. Nussey adds that a general length guideline for an effective curation is 200+ unique texts of original content per story.

Takeaway: Curation doesn’t mean duplicating. It is still best to input your own thoughts and deliver the best and valuable ideas to your audience.

7. Curation As Link Magnets

Photo courtesy of Elcovs via Flickr

One of the very important notes to remember when curating content is attributing your original sources. An even more important thing to know is that you should link only to — as what Jason DeMers calls it — ‘good neighbors’.

Good neighbors mean a wide variety of high-quality and relevant websites. These outbound links to your accountable sources will eventually result to inbound links. Not only you get your original sources’ attention but might as well gain the eyes and attention of their own followings. That could mean thousands and thousands of traffic.

When done right, you might also get to rank for both short and long-tail keywords in your niche as a result of curating valuable content from high quality sources.

Takeaway: Reaping SEO benefits can be achieved by properly giving credit to your sources, by spreading the link love and building relationship to your sources and your niche audiences.

8. Content Curation Ethics and Links

Photo courtesy of Winnifredxoxo via Flickr

Ethics and fair use are big questions when it comes to curation. Are there ethics and best practices to follow when it comes to content curation?

Founder and CEO of Curata, Pawan Deshpande, pointed two major practices concerning ethics and links. First, he said, “create, curate, but don’t pirate.” Originality and the amount of content is some of the key factors to have your curated content rank and succeed for a specific goal. Like printed media, fair use, ethics, and copyright play important roles in the curation process.

Next and probably one of the most questionable thoughts in content curation is putting “nofollow” attributes to your sources. The idea with this tactic is to hoard the link juice and avoid appearing to be a link farm. But with the changing algorithm and increasing attention to influencer marketing, some experts have advised not to put “nofollow” attributes to the sources as long as these sources have high quality content and have high authority.

As far as link juice is concerned, putting “follow” attributes is indeed passing link juice to the linking website but that should not be main concern when your goals include gaining credentials, building relationship with the influencers and entering the spotlight of thought leadership.

Takeaway: Between the two schools of thought, always determine your goals before deciding which one will work for your overall strategy.

9. There Are Tools For That

Photo courtesy of Lachlan via Flickr

In this increasingly online silos, where everyone seems to be a magician, it is important to make sure that you are well-versed with technology.

Nowadays, many curated content are customized using different tools to swiftly pull information from multiple sources of Internet’s library. How many curation tools do you know? 2? 4? 6? Now is the time to know up to 47 curation tools varying from business grade tools to personal ones that can be used by businesses, marketers, individuals, and hobbyists. This ultimate list of curation tools by Meg Sutton of Curata can help you pull and pick the best and most relevant content for your target market. Some of the tools are Storify, Curata, Feedly, Bundlr, Kuratur, Pulse, Magnify, and 40+ more tools.

Takeaway: Check it out and cut through your tasky curation. Give us a pick of what differentiates each application.

10. Strategic Scheduling And Content Curation Promotion

Photo courtesy of Oggin via Flickr

Now that you have highlighted the things that interest your market, curated in a user and SEO-friendly manner, indeed you have done a good job. There it is — you now have something ready to publish. Excellent.

So, how can you make sure that this curated piece can reach your target market? How can your curation tools help? In an article by Top Rank blog, the author emphasizes on what features should you look for in a curation tool and what can it do to ease your sharing and promotion. One of the features, which many of us might find the best, is the built in social scheduling and amplification. Admit it, your target market might be on the other half of the planet and deeply asleep while you’re blogging. To efficiently prove your existence, auto-posting to major social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Google+ can be a good relief. But remember to strategically schedule all your posts. Know the best time when your target market will best consume your content.

Takeaway: Some of the promotion features include newsletter exporter, integrated URL shortener, and of course, curated performance tracking and data pulling.

11. Curation, The Next Level Strategy

Photo courtesy of Veronik@ via Flickr

Whether you are trying to power up your content marketing or wanted to join the spotlight of thought leadership, curation is a great strategy.

Knowing what content to share, what tools to use and how to make it really work are what separate you from a wide online abyss. But then again, difference alone won’t make you stand out. How about taking your curation to the next level?

There’s no better deal than going back to the basics of your content strategy. As what Christina Walker of Writtent puts it: Research, Plan to Deliver Value, Create, Distribute, and Measure.

First rule of thumb in marketing, do your research. Mind both your target market and your competitors. Know what your market wants and what your competitors have and don’t have. Unearth all the data and information possible. Next would be planning. You don’t just go there with your samurai in the hope of slashing your competitors’ tanks and bombs. Planning is essential. Use your research to identify ways to deliver value to your target market. Will curating 10 valuable posts about banana interest them? Or will curating 101 ways to eat banana interest them better? Plan, well. Third, create and strategically deliver your content to your market. It is also imperative to measure the result of your effort. But measuring shouldn’t be the end of your strategy. After knowing the result of your effort, re-strategize and iterate.

Takeaway: You’re the only one who knows best to take your curation strategy to the next level.

When curating content, it is important to remember all these beneficial tips from the pros. As with everything else, I would love to leave it to your creativity and strategy.

Frontend Coding in a Flash with Sublime Text and Emmet

Raphie Enderez — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 01:17:09 +0000

Greeting earthlings and coders! Have you ever wondered if there’s a new way to speed up your development process? Well, I know most of us have his own ways of speeding up his web process, and some are still looking for new and faster ways to get his work done in less time.

jigsawresearch.com.au

Well, this is your lucky day my friend. On this post I’m going to show you how Sublime Text and Emmet can improve your development process. So if you’re still using Dreamweaver, you better ditch that thing already. No, just kidding.

Today, we have a variety of lightweight text editors that we can use for coding. Like for example, now we have Textmate, Espresso, Coda, NetBeans, and Sublime Text, which I am currently using, and many other text editors.

So why use Sublime text? Well, I use Sublime because it’s free, very lightweight, it works for both Mac and Windows, and have some several plugins and add-ons you can download for free using the package control depending on the programming language you are using; whether it be HTML, PHP, Symphony, Twigg or simply CSS. Now, on this post I will be discussing on one specific plugin I am using to speed up my coding, which is Emmet for Sublime Text.

Emmet is really a lifesaver when it comes to coding for us frontend developers. Using this tool allows us to use shortcuts, so you don’t have to type in the whole code or even whole sets of code on your editor. Example, when starting your HTML document, instead of typing the whole Doctype, HTML, head, meta, title, and body, you can simply just type in ‘html:5’ to generate the whole set of codes with closing tags, of course. Very convenient, eh?

So let’s get started by downloading and installing Sublime text. If you have none, you can just click on this link for the download. After installing Sublime, you have to install ‘Package Control’ so you can get all the add-ons that you can use. To install Package Control, just open your Sublime text console through ‘View > Show Console’ or you can just press on Ctrl + `. Then just copy and paste the python code from this link to the console at the bottom of your Sublime text document. After installation, restart your sublime text.

When the application restarts, hit on Ctrl + Shift + P on your keyboard. Then, type in ‘Install Package’ on the textbox and hit enter.

On the list, just search for Emmet and hit on enter to install it. Then, you’re all set to use the plugin.

Now that you have successfully installed Sublime and Emmet, it’s time for you to learn some pretty cool shortcuts. So let’s start by creating a new file and saving it as ‘test.html’ or you can just name it as any filename you want.

Tip: Emmet won’t work unless you save your file.

Lesson One: The Basics

To get you up and running, type in ‘html:5’ and hit tab on your keyboard.

Aaand Wallah! The whole HTML code is generated for you in a snap.

Now isn’t that just amazing?

http://faithmathews.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/142606-425×282-shocked_woman_computer.jpg

Well, we’re just getting started my friend. You’ve got a whole bunch to learn. You can basically try any HTML tag and just hit tab to generate the syntax.

Tip: Always remember to hit ‘Tab’ after entering every shortcut to generate the syntax.

Now that you know the basics, let’s get moving to the next lesson.

Lesson Two: Operators

On this part we are going to learn about syntax combinations using operators. To generate shortcuts with syntax combinations, we must first learn how each operator that we are going to use in the process works. So let’s start with the most common ones.

The Child “ > “ Operator

We can use the child operator if we have nested elements.

Ex. A list with an anchor text. To generate that, we can do this:

ul>li>a

The Sibling “ + “ Operator

We can use the sibling operator if two or more elements are of the same level.

Ex. A Div Element with an H1 and span element.

div>h1+p

As you can see in this illustration, both h1 and p are siblings and child elements of div.

Yes, we can use combinations of operators so don’t be afraid to try and experiment.

Next is the Multiplication “ * “ Operator

You can simply use this operator to generate multiples of the same elements or duplicates.

Ex. A list with six items.

ul>li*6

And Next is the Climb-up “ ^ ” Operator, which I don’t really use much.

You can use this operator to climb up one level on a nested element to make it the same level with the parent element.

Ex.

section>div>a>span^a

So what happened here is that the ‘a’ after span climbed up one level and became a sibling of the other ‘a’ with the span child element. This could be a little confusing; the next lesson will explain why I don’t really use this operator that much.

Now, why don’t we have a lil’ fun and try some combinations out of these operators and see what happens when it’s generated?

Lesson Three: Grouping

Grouping elements together to avoid confusion.

Now as we get familiar with the operators, sometimes our shortcuts get too long that sometimes we get confused or the syntax generated is not what we expected it to be. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a header, a nav, three sections and all have an h3, a span and an a; then a footer.

So without grouping, we could get confused and could type the shortcut this way:

header+nav+section*3>h3+span+a+footer

Quite tough, right? And it didn’t even turn out to be what we wanted. So the trick here is to group some of the elements together, specifically the ones with multiples and child elements.

To group elements together we use the parenthesis ().

And to fix the shortcut we had a while ago with the applied grouping, this is how it’s going to look like:

header+nav+(section*3>h3+span+a)+footer

So there we go lads, we can make more complex shortcuts with the right generated syntax by using the operators and the grouping.

Lesson Four: ID and Classes

Okay, now for the easier part. For defining an ID or a Class, we can use the CSS syntax.

#ID

To define an elements ID, we use the sharp sign after the HTML tag.

Ex. A Div with id=”section1”.
div#section1

.Class

As for class names, it’s basically the same with the ID.

Ex. A span with class=”navlinks”.

span.navlinks

Tip: For Div’s, you can just type the Class name or the ID, and it will automatically generate a Div with an ID or a class name.

Lesson Five: Custom Attributes

To use the custom attribute for an element, we use Box Brackets “[ ]”.

Ex. An image with alt=”Background” and title=”Background Image”.

img [alt=”Bg” title=”BG Image”]

And to wrap it all up, just a few extra ticks before I end this tutorial. I find this very useful when prototyping especially when you still don’t know what the contents are. It’s the ‘Lorem Ipsum’ generator.

To generate this, just type lorem and then the number of words to be generated. Example lorem100, it will generate lorem ipsum with 100 words.

And lastly, somehow you might want to name your classes with a sequence of numbers; like if we have some links and you would like to name them links 1-6. Now to do that, we can use this shortcut ‘$’ + *(number of elements).

Example ul>li.links$*6, which will give you this output:

So there we go boys and girls, you have just learned the power of Emmet and Sublime text. Just keep on practicing on these shortcuts and once you get familiar with all of these, you’ll be coding in a flash than you used to; I promise you that. For complete documentations of the plugin you can just refer to this link.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. You may also want to check another post about some Hacks in using Bootstrap for a Custom WordPress Theme.

Cheers!

Ineffective Outreach Strategies You’re Probably Doing

Veronica Beguas — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:56:14 +0000

Probably, we can start by making sense of the world increasingly influenced by algorithms. What do you think? Or maybe, we can start with what the fork is link building? No? Then, let’s get real here.

Next to users, links are what make web works. In the 90s, search engines have given democracy to which pages should be on top and which should be the runner-ups. Of course, I am just being sarcastic! Search engines are just that crude back in the days. Make a hundred spam links, cloak a thousand more pages and perform SQL injection; the next thing you’ll know, your page is on top. Understanding search engine behavior used to be easy until they became increasingly sophisticated by continually crawling the web, killing duplicate content, policing spammy articles, and devaluing crappy links; some things they were never good at before.

Today, if you’re an SEO and if by any chance, one of the above black hat strategies throw you a proverbial loop, you may want to consider another career or to be just really stubborn sticking to your guns.

Image: Bruno Magalhaes, Associated Press

Considerably these days, link building has been very challenging than ever before. The goal of getting external links to link to your page in the hope of improving SERP position and traffic is no longer easy. We know that any link building method is only as good as its weakest link if done wrong. There have been hundreds of link building strategies discovered and every digital marketer thinks that it works. One of which is outreach (if it is used for link building).

Pretty sure, everyone’s familiar with outreach considering it’s one of the widely used link building methods. The question is—when does outreach become wrong? What are the most common ineffective outreach strategies and how can you address them?

MISHAP # 1: OUTREACH FOR (INDECENT) PAID LINKS

For some reasons and copious “gifted” ideas, you have a lot of money (to waste) for paid links from a 3rd party website. Seems like a good link building strategy, no?

We’ve been receiving a battered number of emails offering $$$ for paid links. Sure thing, you’ve received this kind of offer too. Exchanging $$$ for a (now worthless) link is against the long-standing policy of Google against paid links. This has been the trend that many pseudo blogs and websites out there open for this type of trade. A masquerade, if I may say.

Notably, January of 2012, Google penalized their vertical affiliate, Google Chrome, for violating Google’s quality guideline. Chrome’s marketing campaign violated Google’s own rule when they pay bloggers to post “reviews” about their web browser.

Image from Search Engine Journal

Be warned as search engines, particularly Google, are getting K-9 noses to sniff all these activities out and penalize them from giving “too much” love for links. You could also consider sacrificing consumer credibility when talking about paid articles and links. Though this sounds subjective, better keep in mind that your consumers are getting smarter, and more clever.

So, why gamble to something where the pool of possibilities is measurably smaller and the stakes are higher?

BOON #1: SWEATING FOR PERPETUAL OUTREACH AND CONTENT

True enough, this is like saying guest blogging and outreach are no way dead. I very much agree with Jennita from Moz. It’s time to move with a purpose, more than just dropping links and paying content.

On the other note, Matt Barby, in his article in Point Blank SEO, has prepared a content outreach pyramid to explain the model of outreach. I think it is now my time to furrow this pyramid into a humble circle of outreach.

With this model, you don’t need to try willy-nilly to get your posts on every blog for the sole purpose of link building. Take that big hole of influencers and target websites as the core of this outreach model. Each of this website has its protective layer against spams and of course, any type of Google Penalties; but on the other half of this layer is their constant need for varieties of content and writers. This other half would open opportunities to every outreach person to penetrate these sites using different types of content.

But wait, there’s still this ‘red’ thin layer that would represent the websites’ guidelines and restrictions for contributors and guest bloggers. So, to be able to penetrate these influencers/websites and to be able to crack their layers of restriction and protection, you have to build relationships with them and of course, you have to remember the “king” — offer good and quality content. For their background check, better build your profile first through websites with DA not lower than 40 (for authoritativeness), create your own blog, have active social media footprint, and think of any other ways to get you more visible within striking distance from them (your prospective influencers/websites).

The last layer represents different purposes of doing outreach. Some of it are link building, readership, click and referral traffic, and building authority. Notice the confidence level indicated above? Yes, you’re seeing it right. If you’re doing outreach roughly to satisfy your link building purpose, it won’t get you at the core.

By necessity or by choice, you don’t have to pay for links to build links. Don’t pay for garbage, neither create some. Go sweat out for it will pay you much better.

MISHAP #2: OUTREACH FOR CONCENTRATED LINK DISTRIBUTION

No matter what you read, we all know outreach is of tremendous help when generating links. It is SEO’s trump card for the foreseeable future.

Let say, you have aced outreach and have penetrated a good number of websites, ranging from sites with high and low PR (Page Rank) and DA (Domain Authority). You were able to publish 40+ articles for the past months (sounds AWESOME, eh?). The following months, it mounted up to 60+ published articles, with 2 client’s links each, yet all of the same websites you got from the past months. Still sounds impressive?

In case you haven’t noticed the buzzkill, the practice of off-putting your link building strategy to just a number of websites limits your chance to practically build your website/page’s authority. It’s all but a suicide out there, at least for some hardcore SEO guys.

I know you’ll ask why. Planting apple trees to a square-meter garden won’t make you harvest lots of apples. Planting apples to a wider land property will. Imagine all your backlinks coming from the same lots over and over. Then, think like Google. If you are Google, would you see these concentrated link patterns as natural? Of course, not. Google counts the number of reputable (and spammy) websites linking to you, not the number of links. Links from unique domains matter more than links from previously linked sites given all factors are equal. If Google sees this as concentrated and finds unnatural, you are less likely to lose your link building hope.

BOON #2: CONSIDER THE WEIGHT AND THE NUMBERS

Sure, you aren’t doing outreach to gain a list of websites and regularly submit articles with links. Search engines value links differently. This strongly draws a parallel that a diversified link profile is at play. Outreach aims to grow your “votes” of credible external pages linking to your site.

Take this image from Moz Blog:

Image from Moz

Content building using outreach or guest posting should never be automated and scaled for simply one link or site. I would argue that you should be mindful of the link volume and the weight it carries to your site and/or community. If the website is not an authority or its content is irrelevant to your site, truthfully, it’s time to panic.

You can ask the following questions to help you scale your link volume and value.

Does the website carry weight in terms of metrics and my target niche/community?
How many links have I gained in this particular website for a span of _______?
Is my article gaining social media traction and engagement?
How many backlinks have I gained from how many websites?
How much traffic am I getting from this site?
Am I benefiting in this website? In what way?

Again, sell apples to one, sell grapes to some, sell garbage to none.

MISHAP #3: OUTREACH USING WRONG TIER STRUCTURE

Building links takes no silver bullet, ladies and gentlemen, nor a plug-and-play. It takes gifted tactics and incredible ideas to acquire inbound links to your site. It is indeed an important driver that makes you rank higher and soar your website’s traffic.

Outreach is tough, too, especially when you are aiming to include links in your article. Editors would less likely accept your idea bribe with those commercial anchor texts. It might seem like a spam offer, either. In order to deal with the changes in algorithm and difficulty in linking directly to your main site, great minds in the industry have discovered a method to indirectly link websites—tier links were born. Tier linking is a strategy where you can acquire links to pages that link to your own page.

Interesting indeed, but when structured wrong, might lose essence.

So, when is tiering off beam?

The problem isn’t with the idea of tier linking itself but with the structure. Do not use social bookmarks and low quality directory links for your tier linking strategy. Low quality directory links and social bookmarks are also ground for penalty and might essentially break your tier structure. Just use relevant contextual linking from authority sites as careful as you can. The greater the power juice, the better the ranking punch.

BOON #3: THE IDEAL STRUCTURE OF TIER LINKING

Juicing out link authority to your main site is the main purpose of tier linking, a scheme often misunderstood by some.

Remember that Tier 1 links are made to make your main site rank higher and bring traffic. It can pass link juice to your main site thus, it is very much ideal to do Tier 1 links to sites with high ranking and authority. Conversely, Tier 2 links can act as a second push to your Tier 1 links to make it stronger and gain link juice. Tier 2 links can get Tier 1 link index fast and give your Tier 1 some link juice. Every link builder should also be mindful of the link volume and distribution for each medium. This would explain why some of the tiered links have low success rate and some, almost worthless.

If you doubt this, slap some quote on it and search it.

True enough, it is really hard to strategize for link building when all your outreach tactics are getting hijacked by search engines. After reading this and other outreach-for-link-building articles out there, ask yourself, “Is my site getting some link love?” Try finding a sliver of daylight to assess your outreach practices and link building tactics.

Now, at a 180 degree point of view, indeed, outreach is just one way and it serves more purpose than just building links. Looking at the other 180 degree standpoint, everyone is still haggling to find the best ways to build links, if there’s any.

Hoola! Whether you think this article paints too broad of a stroke or just hit the nail straight to your head, throw me some comments.

Kick-Ass Hacks in using Bootstrap for a Custom WordPress Theme

Dexter Loor — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 14:23:09 +0000

Ever found yourself creating a WordPress Theme for your website, a client’s website or for your personal blog site and all of a sudden you’re stuck on how to create and implement certain website features? I might be able to help you through this article, but first let me present the rationale behind this blog topic.

The Rationale

Most of the time, web designers rely on frameworks such as Twitter Bootstrap when creating websites mainly because these frameworks offer great hacks to improve our coding velocity and efficiency. We may have extensive knowledge on HTML, CSS and jQuery and can code websites from ground-up but we cannot discount the fact that using a framework with ready-made markups and styles greatly helps in rapid coding especially on projects with really tight deadlines.

If you’re one of those who detest coding from scratch, then start thanking God for WordPress and Twitter Bootstrap.

WordPress’ easy-to-use CMS and Twitter Bootstrap’s array of great built-in features and components not only save our arses from doing a lot of coding but also provide us an extensive amount of possibilities to transform your simple website or blog site into an eye-catching, ass-kicking web asset.

Twitter Bootstrap

Twitter Bootstrap’s components, features and plugins are based on HTML, CSS and jQuery which makes it static in a sense. You want your content continuously updated without giving yourself extra work by repeatedly going back to the template source code to hard-code these updates.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

Good thing WordPress is there to take care of the content updates. In this article, let me show you some simple solutions and implementations on how to integrate some of Twitter Bootstrap’s amazing features to your WordPress’ dynamic content.

Before we start with the main content of this article, here are some disclaimers and assumptions:

The following implementations are not the only solutions to your coding problems. They are suggestions born out of experience from using Twitter Bootstrap in WordPress Theme Development.
You can always tweak the codes that I have provided.
You are reading this article right now while having your website project files open.
You are using Twitter Bootstrap as your framework for your Custom WordPress Theme.

So now, buckle up and get your focus on as I will show you three amazingly simple solutions to some of your coding problems.

I. How to create your own Cool Featured Content Slider in WordPress using Twitter Bootstrap Carousel

One of the most common feature of every Content Management System (CMS)-based website is a sequential, automated display of images and text known as a ‘Slider’, which may serve various purposes including, but not limited to the following:

Publishing your company’s latest news
Featuring special offers
Highlighting articles from your blog, and;
Showcasing your latest projects

Now if you want to do any of the things listed above, you may want to try creating your own Featured Content Slider in your website using Twitter Bootstrap’s Carousel component.

My implementation is very simple:

Markup with HTML -> Initialize with jQuery -> Control content using WordPress’ Querying Loop.

The Markup

[html]

LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tenetur, excepturi nisi quibusdam autem beatae ipsa ad pariatur aspernatur inventore veniam!
MORE DETAILS

[/html]

Twitter Bootstrap’s Markup for a Content Slider is divided into 3 parts, namely:

Indicators – This section provides a navigation tool for your slider. Adding this section will give a better user experience (UX) as users can jump from one slide to 2-3 slides after, without having to spam-click the navigation arrow. This is implemented using an ordered list with class names indicated in the code above. You can opt to remove this section if you want users to browse through the featured content in your slider.
Slider Content – This part of the markup is pretty much self-explanatory. It contains the full width background image for your slider and the textual content that comes with it—could be your Call-to-Action Statement and/or Button marked up using h-tags or the usual p and span tags.
Controls – This provides the classic ‘next’ and ‘previous’ navigation control for your content slider. Controls are implemented using bootstrap’s glyphicons (glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-left and glyphicon glyphicon-chevron-right) which is completely customizable via CSS custom stylesheet.

Add this markup in the template file for either your page, post or a custom post type depending on where you want to display your Featured Content Slider. In this case, I’ll place it in my page template named ‘page.php’.

Use jQuery to initialize and setup your Slider

Now that we have marked up our Bootstrap carousel, we need to initialize its automated sequential display function. For those jQuery savvy developers, the following code snippet will start the Carousel motion:

[js]
$(‘.carousel’).carousel();
[/js]

If you want to manually define your carousel behaviors, refer to the table below:

Name	Type	Default	Description
interval	number	5000	The amount of time to delay between automatically cycling an item. If false, carousel will not automatically cycle
pause	string	“hover”	Pauses the cycling of the carousel on mouseenter and resumes the cycling of the carousel on mouseleave
wrap	boolean	true	Whether the carousel should cycle continuously or have hard stops

Include the abovementioned options by passing them via your Carousel Initialization.

[js]
$(‘.carousel’).carousel({
interval: 2000,
pause: hover
});
[/js]

Place this jQuery script in your ‘footer.php’ file right before the closing body tag (). Remember that this script must be executed on page load.

Dynamic Content using WordPress Query and The Loop

Now that we have marked up and initialized our slider, we want it now to load the slider contents dynamically from WordPress. This implementation requires basic knowledge about WordPress Custom Post Types and Custom Metaboxes, WordPress Query and Loop.

For this part, I will encourage you to concentrate, read through each step and understand the process. If you don’t, just copy the code and proceed with trial-and-error.

Create a Custom Post Type

First thing to do is to create a custom post type. This will enable us to create, edit and delete slides that will appear in our Slider.

Create a file, name it something like, ‘meta-slides.php’. Include it in your ‘functions.php’ file via

include (‘path/to/meta-slides.php’);

Copy and paste the following code snippet:

[php]
function custom_slide_post_type(){

$labels = array (
‘name’ => __(‘My Custom Slides’),
‘singular_name’ => __(‘Slide’),
‘add_new’ => __(‘Add New’),
‘add_new_item’ => __(‘Add New Slide’),
‘edit_item’ => __(‘Edit Slide’),
‘new_item’ => __(‘New Slide’),
‘view_item’ => __(‘View Slide’),
‘search_items’ => __(‘Search Slide’),
‘not_found’ => __(‘No Slides found’),
‘not_found_in_trash’ => __(‘No Slides found in Trash’),
‘parent_item_colon’ => ”,
);

$args = array(
‘labels’ => $labels,
‘public’ => true,
‘publicly_queryable’ => true,
‘show_ui’ => true,
‘query_var’ => true,
‘has_archive’ => true,
‘capability_type’ => ‘post’,
‘hierarchical’ => true,
‘menu_position’ => null,
‘supports’ => array( ‘title’, ‘editor’, ‘thumbnail’, ‘page-attributes’ ),
);
register_post_type( ‘custom_slide’, $args );
}
add_action( ‘init’, ‘custom_slide_post_type’ );
[/php]

Add WordPress Custom Metabox

This part of the process is optional. But if you want each of your slide to have a customizable Call-to-Action button, please include this step in the process.

To create a custom metabox for your slide, go back to your ‘meta-slide.php’ file.

Copy and paste the following code snippets after the add_action('init', 'custom_slide_post_type'); statement.

Part 1: Setup your Custom Metabox

This part of the code initializes your Custom Metabox and adds it to the existing post types in the WordPress Structure.

[php]
add_action( ‘load-post.php’, ‘slide_link_metabox_setup’ );
add_action( ‘load-post-new.php’, ‘slide_link_metabox_setup’ );

function slide_link_metabox_setup() {

/* Add meta boxes on the ‘add_meta_boxes’ hook. */

add_action( ‘add_meta_boxes’, ‘add_slide_link_metabox’ );

/* Save post meta on the ‘save_post’ hook. */
add_action( ‘save_post’, ‘save_slide_link_metabox’, 10, 2 );
}

function add_slide_link_metabox() {

add_meta_box(
‘slide-link’, // Unique ID
esc_html__( ‘Slide Link’, ‘slide-link’ ), // Title
‘slide_link_metabox’, // Callback function
‘slide’, // Admin page (or post type)
‘normal’, // Context
‘high’ // Priority
);
}
[/php]

Part 2: Display your Custom Metabox

Now that you have initialized your Custom Metabox, it’s time to display it on the WordPress Admin Content Editor of the Slider Custom Post Type.

Copy and paste the following code snippet just after the last line of the code above.

[php]
function slide_link_metabox( $object, $box ) { ?>

[/php]

Part 3: Saving the Data Input from your Custom Metabox

[php]
function save_slide_link_metabox( $post_id, $post ) {

/* Verify the nonce before proceeding. */
if ( !isset( $_POST[‘slide_link_nonce’] ) || !wp_verify_nonce( $_POST[‘slide_link_nonce’], basename( __FILE__ ) ) )
return $post_id;

/* Get the post type object. */
$post_type = get_post_type_object( $post->post_type );

/* Check if the current user has permission to edit the post. */
if ( !current_user_can( $post_type->cap->edit_post, $post_id ) )
return $post_id;

/* Get the posted data */
if(isset( $_POST[‘slide-link’] )) :
$new_meta_value = $_POST[‘slide-link’];
endif;

/* Get the meta key. */
$meta_key = ‘slide_link';

/* Get the meta value of the custom field key. */
$meta_value = get_post_meta( $post_id, $meta_key, true );

/* If a new meta value was added and there was no previous value, add it. */
if ( $new_meta_value && ” == $meta_value )
add_post_meta( $post_id, $meta_key, $new_meta_value, true );

/* If the new meta value does not match the old value, update it. */
elseif ( $new_meta_value && $new_meta_value != $meta_value )
update_post_meta( $post_id, $meta_key, $new_meta_value );

/* If there is no new meta value but an old value exists, delete it. */
elseif ( ” == $new_meta_value && $meta_value )
delete_post_meta( $post_id, $meta_key, $meta_value );
}
[/php]

The engine is almost complete. We now have the capability to add a new slide.

Add New Slide Capability lets you create a New Slide to be included in your slider

After doing the steps for Creating a Custom Post Type and Custom Metabox, you can now create a new slide to be included in your slider.

The slide creation process is similar to the Post/Page Creation in WordPress.

The title – This is your slide title. In the later part of this article, I will explain how to include it in your final slide.
Content Area – If you want to put in some description to your slide
The Featured Image – Background image for your slide
Slide Link – The link for your Call-to-Action button

In the image above, I have placed content in the slide. If you have finalized everything for this slide, publish it and proceed to the next step.

Use WordPress Query and Loop to Pull Content from your Created Slide

Remember that you have placed your markup in your desired template file. Now, it’s time for it to pull content from your newly created content, ‘A Cool New Slide’.

Replace your markup with the following code snippet. This will make your slide dynamically pulling content type from your WordPress-created Slide Post Type.

[html]

$args = array( ‘post_type’ => ‘slide’, ‘posts_per_page’ => 1, ‘orderby’ => ‘ID’, ‘order’ => ‘ASC’ );
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
?>

$thumb = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID));
$url = $thumb[‘0′];
?>
" alt="Image Title">

YOUR CALL TO ACTION

endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>

$args = array( ‘post_type’ => ‘slide’, ‘offset’ => 1, ‘posts_per_page’ => -1, ‘orderby’ => ‘ID’, ‘order’ => ‘ASC’ );
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
?>

$thumb = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID));
$url = $thumb[‘0′];
?>
" alt="Image Title">

YOUR CALL TO ACTION

endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>

[/html]

That’s it! See how your slides appear in your pages.

Your New Custom Slider with 1 Slide in

My website now has a slider containing the ‘A Cool New Slide’ post that we have created. You are free to style your carousel caption area in any way that you want by targeting the class ‘carousel-caption’ and/or its children. I did mine to look like a dialog bubble as shown in the image above.

II. How to create a WordPress menu using Twitter Bootstrap Dropdown plugin

1. Markup your menu with HTML and CSS with structure and class names provided by Twitter Bootstrap. Copy and paste the following code snippet in the template file that displays your navigation menu. Often, this is placed in the ‘header.php’ file.

[html]

[/html]

2. Download wp_bootstrap_walker.php. This is used as your WordPress Menu Walker for your custom Bootstrap Dropdown Menu. Place it anywhere inside your theme folder.

3. Include your walker file in your ‘functions.php’ file.

[php]require_once(‘path/to/wp_bootstrap_navwalker.php’);[/php]

4. Now it’s time to make your menu dynamic. Replace your markup code in the template file (in this case ‘header.php’ file) with the following code snippet:

[php]
wp_nav_menu( array(
‘theme_location’ => ‘primary’,
‘container’ => ‘div’,
‘container_class’ => ‘navbar-collapse collapse’,
‘menu_class’ => ‘nav navbar-nav’,
‘walker’ => new wp_bootstrap_navwalker())
);
?>
[/php]

5. Add a Menu in the WordPress Admin Panel and check the ‘Primary Menu’ checkbox.

Check the ‘Primary Menu’ checkbox

6. Now visit your website and see your Bootstrap navigation menu with the items created from the WordPress Menu Editor.

III. How to create and Ajax Contact Form with Twitter Bootstrap elements

Creating a good contact form for your website with Ajax validation and submission is possible since a good WordPress plugin is already out there—the WP Contact Form 7 (CF7). It will provide you a good framework and data handling machinery.

Below is an example of a form created with Contact Form 7:

A bare Contact Form by WP Contact Form 7

Now you wouldn’t want to display this bare form in your website, would you? If you want to have a better looking form, here’s how Twitter Bootstrap can help you:

1. Markup your Contact form with HTML and CSS using Bootstrap components

Copy and paste the following code snippet to your page template or the template file for the post type where you want to display your form. For the purpose of this article, let’s add it to the page.php file.

[html]

[/html]

2. Create a form using the Admin Panel for Contact Form 7

a. Add New Contact Form

Add your new Contact Form via the WordPress Admin Panel->Contact->Add New

b. Name your form and add your desired form input fields. By default, the plugin gives you 5 form elements: 4 input fields for Name, Email, Subject and Message, and the Submit Button. The trick in the integration is to use the class names used in the Bootstrap markup and put it as the class names in the fields you generated during Contact Form creation. Refer to the screenshots below.

Generate your form input fields via the Generate Tag button

c. Set up the recipient of the submissions done via this contact form. If you want to edit the content of the email message body, do so by editing the contents of the Message Body Box.

Your contact form should have email recipient and message body

d. Lastly, save your contact form.

4. Integrate Contact Form 7 with your Markup

a. Copy the code generated when you save the contact form you just created. Create a test page in WordPress Admin Panel and paste the code in the content editor area.

Copy the code generated by Contact Form 7

Paste the code to the Test Page

b. Go to the page where you embedded the form and inspect its source code.

The contact form you’ve just created and embedded in the test page

The source code for your contact form via WP CF7 might look like something like this

c. Wrap your existing form markup using a div with id and class name provided by the WP CF7 generated form. Also, copy and paste the action attribute of the form and the hidden input fields from your page to the Bootstrap Form markup.

[html]

[/html]

In this case, the class name is ‘wpcf7′ and id is ‘wpcf7-f53-p51-o1′

d. Copy the form fields generated by the WP CF7 created contact form to your Bootstrap form markup.

[html]

[/html]

This is your new markup code in the template file. Note that the form elements generated by the Contact Form 7 plugin were integrated to the Bootstrap Form Markup.

See your custom form being driven by CF7. You are free to edit its styles via CSS custom stylesheet.

Your Bootstrap – WP CF7 Contact Form

WP Contact Form 7 Validating your Bootstrap Contact Form

So far, I have shown you three amazingly simple but useful hacks to make Twitter Bootstrap’s features work with WordPress’ dynamic content.

Now that you have these simple instructions, I urge you to start extending your theme with these features and start telling everyone in your office or maybe to your client that you can already ‘wipe the floor’ with your competitor’s website.

If you have reached this part of my article, you might be telling yourself, “Thank God for the Internet! I just found the solution!”.

Happy hacking and you’re welcome!

9 Simple Key Emotions to Unlock Powerful Brand Engagement

Bene Perey — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:25:35 +0000

Richard Madden, chief strategy officer of Kitcatt Nohr says, “Most people don’t think they can be bribed, it’s just that they don’t like admitting it to themselves.” Yes, dear digital marketers, you read it right. Contrary to the widely embraced notion of bribery in the realm of a brand, it is through tapping that little yet largely influential space that separates the “stale” from a “sale”.

Bribe here though must not be mistaken from forcing a connection. Instead, it must be perceived as an opportunity and responsibility to tap the emotional sphere of consumers. Bribe must be taken as a call to align the disconnection of a brand to a highly connected world in as far as the digital marketing landscape is concerned. With the “brand bribe” card on the table, here are 9 very simple key emotions to help your brand unlock the seemingly intimidating door of powerful brand engagement. These emotions are based from the white paper entitled “Implicit Association Test: Measuring the Effect of the Subconscious on a Mobile Phone Brand’s Value.”

The “Imp’s” Importance

One of the most remarkable figures across traditional and online media platforms is no less than Tyrion Lannister of the phenomenal series Game of Thrones. What draws people near to his misadventures is that he turns his disadvantages to larger-than-life stories that spell success after a mile-long stress. What marketers must look at is touching-base with a missed market, and giving these segments something that would give them a great and inarguable sense of self.

Brands are consumed in the hopes of filling in a chasm that usually comes in the form of incapabilities. These incapabilities are not misgivings; they are part and parcel of being human. All consumers have an “imp” in them. Take time to search them, and once you find them, translate them to your content’s hidden gem.

With great power comes great vulnerability via YouTube by Samsung Mobile.

In a span of less than two weeks, Samsung’s take on the future of football garnered more than 10 million views. Though you’d have to spare a little over 7 minutes only to get a “To Be Continued” ending, there’s something about the whole shebang of winning over aliens that make humans feel the kick of being mightier than something unknown or unfathomable. The idea of addressing the “fragile” side that come with being “limited” earns and instant unlimited attention and gratification.

From “Craving Satisfied” to “More than Satisfied”

It may be a late night or an extremely early morning when you crave for a certain food or a specific shop. Satisfaction is based on available options, and getting the instant lift, the sudden rush or a quick fix. It is not based on a problem-solution set up; rather, it boils down to what is available and accessible. Content that is meant to satisfy must be all over the place, and is found at high traffic space. This should also come in bite-sized portions, so that it can morph into some sort of addiction.

A good example of this is how Pinterest has made its mark in the market. Using well-framed photos with links to websites that usually owned by small businesses, pinners can’t help but dig deeper and deeper while they digest the idea of repinning. The idea here is totally forego a call to act; and rely more on the emotions that the photos exude more than getting a nice capture. Last year, Pinterest overtook referral traffic that is generated by social landscapes via LinkedIn, Reddit, Google+ and Twitter combined.

See how the simple satisfaction from pinning away can build your brand. (Photo from shareaholic.com)

Be careful though, because satisfaction is an option that can be changed as soon as a better alternative comes along. As a rule, go beyond bite-sized satisfaction and give them mouthfuls of suggestions that are aimed of giving them a pleasant experience.

The Perks of a Pleased Personality

When a brand lifts a heavy burden off the shoulder or when people have a genuinely grand time during a one-hour lunch-break, chances are consumers will be pleased and proud about that tiny moment. In a world where good vibes become farther and few, being given the choice to actually pause and be able to escape a death-defying deadline, a really unlucky day, or even the boredom, is a good distraction.

While at it, a brand that pleases also makes interactions that will lead to repeat visits, and even referrals. Don’t say “please,” instead, work doubly hard to give your consumers the experience that they can easily cling to should they want a slice of stress-free happy meal or deal. More so, pleasing must never ever go alongside pleading; as this might possibly cause a sense of being too easy to bend or even unstable.

When pleasing people, don’t do a please parade. Make them subtle and even nostalgic via YouTube by Procter & Gamble.

Taking the case of the Youtube video above created by Proctor & Gamble, it has generated 19,269,052 views as of this writing. Stress and distress are two words that define the life of modern day moms. What better way to reward them with a Mother’s Day greeting that is silently screaming? Capturing a mom’s daily deadlines that are not part of any nation’s per capita income got more than 19 million hits. The idea of being pleased is juxtaposed with a story that is already out there. It’s never new, but it speaks universally of simple truths that give moms something to smile (proudly and loudly) about.

When You’re Unhappy and We Know It

A single unhappy customer can turn the table of a known brand to an infamous brand. As bloggers continue to explore this world’s “free market”, learn to listen to what makes them sigh and cry. Some call it reputation management, but in reality, when you see an unhappy post that can sometimes go overboard, take it, and turn it to something that’ll solve a problem or a pressing whim.

Aim for a brand bend that would make your customer’s break into a smile as they pay your price from YouTube by SUBWAY UK Ireland.

Subway is an example of turning unhappy meals to happier, though arguably healthier meals – though the calorie count is challenged by its biggest rival McDonald’s. Subway has earned the highest “buzz scores” in YouGov BrandIndex ranking last year.

Position your content and messaging in such a way that it hears out the reasons why they can’t wait to have a brand break. Don’t attack the competing brand; instead show what you can offer better, in a simpler manner. Be a sounding board, or an emery board; then hit them when they’re at rock bottom.

Juicy Fruits of Frustration

Frustration is perhaps one thing constant in every waking man and woman – a long queue under a rainy day, being stuck in an elevator for more often than usual because there is someone who goes down in each floor or not being able to enjoy your dream destination because no Visa is available anywhere. The list can go on and on, but one thing is true. Frustration is one powerful tool for sustainable content marketing strategy.

Imagine frustration in the eye of a child. Adding a hefty dose of pop cult never hurts via YouTube by Volkswagen.

The fact that frustration is rooted on not being able to do a certain task already puts your market right on your target. It is crucial to strike while the iron is hot, meaning, once you spot a sore thumb that gives off an air of frustration; you are ready to take on the action. Volkswagen has a good number of ads that adds a different tinge to childlike and mundane whims, like this 3-year old ad featuring Darth Vader’s Force.

Due Negligence Meets a Dutiful Marketer

A long-time relationship with a brand or service usually results to taking consumers for granted. After all, a decade with the same marketing strategies, seasonal promotions backed up with a 10-year old website still brings cash. Business owners, who think that loyalty is key, are no longer in a safe ground. As the wave of content marketing continues to change the marketspace, overlooking a customer paves the way to try a new brand, whether be it an innocent look or a hungry stare. When charting this territory, marketers must look at the cause of the brand’s negligence first, before placing a move. Since a wide array of products, services, websites and content are generally generic; negligence also abounds.

Due diligence means evolving in spite having a marketing plan that has been working for 100 years. via YouTube by TV plus Network.

Make your content care about your audience in every step of the sales funnel. Seek patterns via search engine optimization and actual conversations from your store, be it online or offline. Weave the negligent streaks of your brand in the context of repositioning, re-launch or rebrand. This gives you more room to grow as you work on the things that dampen your conversations in your circles and the circles you aim to build relationship with. Dutiful marketers know that a slight overlook is enough to get a mere once-over from a then loyal consumer, at present. Oreo knows that kids and even their parents want more than twisting, licking and dunking their cookies in a glass of milk. Due to the trends where parents do not really have time with their kids, the brand made its 100th birthday a “digitally divine” experience. Instead of forcing its well-loved message, Oreo itself has been the medium to craft an avalanche of real messages that are driven by both its current and potential consumers.

The Supreme Submissive can be Dismissive

Do not be fooled by the so-called followers of a trend or a bandwagon. If you look really well, they are the bunch who brings the ladies and gentlemen to the yard. While a submissive mind readily dives into that which that gives a promise, getting that person to dive is a different level. Since submissive people are typically at loss or near a desperate call for help, they tend to grab messages that are highly persuasive. The challenge though is that because they are in dire need of a solution to a serious or recurrent problem, they expect to get larger-than-life results early on.

In the case of content marketing, results take time to bring hard numbers; especially when a website is facing challenges. Business owners know they need digital marketing, but would be hesitant to try something different or something totally new for their brands to make it. Brands need time to grow sustainably. As a content marketing arm, tell your client the scope and the limit of your work; but don’t stop there. Give them tailored, customized solutions in such a way that they get to appreciate it.

Quick and easy is what content should be, especially for people who don’t have time for painfully time-consuming household chores via YouTube by Lowe’s Home Improvement.

One of the major hurdles of most home improvement brands is that they come across as intimidating, instead of welcoming. Lowe’s Home Improvement gives information that are designed for those who are far from loving D.I.Y. Lowe’s guides them in getting to know not only its product and as the brand empowers them, even in its simplest sense. Being submissive is your precious chance to educate your market; too -a great way to talk to them, instead of yapping away about you.

Insert Interest Here and See Sparks

Forget formula when getting consumers on the boat of interest. Refocus your gears and see interest as an absence of boredom. Viewing your messages through this lens allows you to disassociate yourself from what the current hit is. Who would have thought that a Korean gentleman who dances crazily will get to share his quirks to a world that don’t have an idea as to what his song’s lyrics mean?

Interesting must cut through all sorts of noises, especially then-taboo issues like ethnicity, English competency and even projecting an “ideal” image via YouTube by official Psy.

Insert interest with a hint of gut. Keep churning content that are occasionally out-of-the-box and out-of-the-blue. Sometimes, interest is not about the quality; rather it’s a cure to an itch in an office desk, a kitchen counter, or a traffic jam.

In Control

Face it. Nobody wants to feel that they are losing grip in spite being down the drain. Consumers who lose control would not want to get a lecture or a guideline to fix themselves or their circumstance. What they want to hear are people who have undergone the same misfortune or discomfort; as they get tips and tricks to get back on track.

A different yet very real take on the way to health and fitness via Youtube by Nike.

Are your current content too preachy? Does your blog send off a vibe similar to a doctor who gives a prescription with a monosyllabic tone? Consumers yearn to get a product or a service that will make their life easier, and their conflicts, more manageable.

Similarly, an app that has solved the eternal problem of having to hail a cab during a rush hour now proudly and loudly says that its capital is almost zero-cost. This over simplistic concept fuses logic to pacify commuters who get frantic. Of course, such success is harder to come by than winning a lottery; but, whether you are a small or big brand, answer one simple question: What specific conflict can my brand address to give my consumers a better grip in their daily going-about?

ROI is Return on Insight

Perception is way more potent and promising than reality. As Madden notes, “So the role of the emotional side is to provide people with a rationale as to why they have been motivated by a financial inducement to change their behavior.” More than a return on investment, brand engagement that are anchored on appealing to an aching or a longing, are more likely to.

As content marketers gain new heights in between tempering flights and frights, the battle for connecting brands to consumers is getting trickier. With the responsibility that goes with publishing a blog or revamping a website comes the aim to unleash brand engagement to get a niche market’s commitment. While marketers won’t admit it upfront, each blog post and social media feed, or video that they release is riddled with the pressing question: Will this be worth their click? Better yet, will this be worth their while? If not, go back to your dark room and get to one emotion at the core of your current strategies and stories.

How are you weaving emotions in your interactions and how has it been going so far?

Like Moths to a Flame: Social Reading Buzz

Regina May Cajucom — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 08:56:26 +0000

Years ago, many scholars and so-called experts in the fields of social sciences, psychology, information technology and other related fields predicted that with the coming of internet technology, more and more people—the youth population in particular—will be terrible couch potatoes this time, not with the ‘boob tube’ but with their personal computers. In a way, they are correct. Hundreds of thousands of households all over the world now have computers (or other gadgets approximating the functions of computers) and internet connection that link them to the rest of the world. As a result, millions of people are glued to their monitors, smartphones, tablets, and other such gadgets for hours and hours on end.

photo credits: Typepad

Because of the substantial amount of time we now get to spend (or as others would put it, “waste”) on the internet, many now also regard it as present society’s bane. Unlimited and unguarded use of the internet have reportedly put kids’, young adults’ and even adults’ lives in danger, and allegedly continues to corrupt young minds into seeing, hearing and learning about things that are too ahead of their time and age.

However, not everything that can be found on the internet should be considered useless, false, misleading, or unreliable. There are actually so many good uses of the internet, and if you are careful and smart enough to know which sites are good for you and which can truly make you more productive, then it should not be a thing to avoid or condemn, but rather one that you can take best advantage of in any worthwhile activity you would want to engage in.

Take for example social reading.

At first glance, you may find the sound of that quite ironic. Isn’t reading supposed to be a (very) personal activity? One you will truly enjoy on your own, just you and your choice read (and all the characters in it)? But of course, everything has gone social as we know it, including reading.

With today’s social media websites especially for reading sprouting like mushrooms, you realize that one advantage of internet connectivity is helping you choose which books to read next, what genres you should try, why you should grab this book (or why not). Even before you visit for favorite bookstore (or e-books sales website), you already have a clear idea what it is that tops the lists, and which get five stars and rave recommendations.

Indeed, reading has become a deliciously social affair. Even our gadgets and electronic readers have their built-in or downloadable apps to help us highlight passages and excerpts we love and share them online without much ado.

Your passion for reading, hence, is much more kindled (pun intended?) by the wonderful world of social media.

Social Engagement in Today’s Travel

Regina May Cajucom — Tue, 14 May 2013 06:57:27 +0000

If there is one industry that is, without a doubt, radically changed by the social media frenzy, it must be the travel and tours business. You probably still have a vague recollection of how you (or your folks) used to do travel; all those difficulties in bookings, reservations and other matters related. With the marvels of web technology, and the fantastic workings of social media, travelling for both business and pleasure has become really practical and convenient. As such, this is one avenue that should be explored by entrepreneurs and marketers alike.. There is really much to be derived from this industry, whether you are on the side of business or that of the client.

For travelers and the public out there, the travel and tours industry is literally at our fingertips—right there for the taking, if not for devouring. We hear about people being bitten by the travel bug, going from one travel expedition to another—because they can. Imagine just searching your planned destination in our popular search engines: unless it’s a place that is outside our planet your search is sure to yield thousands, even millions, of results—ranging from flight details, accommodations info, tour packages, and everything related thereto. There before your very eyes will be millions of information about your planned tour and in a matter of minutes. You will have probably determined your preferences on anything and everything you want to know, and everything you want to do. For this reason, we travelers benefit so much from social media. Given the number of social media sites whether for general interest or specifically for travel, we usually gain the info we need for our travels and plan ahead with the information we have. To date, we can get those info from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare, YouTube and many other major players in the social media field. Specific social sites like TripAdvisor, TripSay and TravellersPoint are just some of the best hubs for people bitten by the travel bug.

For marketers and those just looking out for lucrative business ventures, you may just find your goldmine in the travel industry. Social media marketing is a foolproof way to get known in the jet-setting circles, and by great recommendations and reviews from travelers all over the world there is no doubt that you have the chance to make it big. Social engagement is key, and as long as you know how to play your cards right and how to keep your biz and your travel brand visible, you will surely go a long way in the realm of the online travel and tours business, or the marketing thereof.

Why a Decrease in Twitter Followers is a Good Thing

searchoptmedia — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:51:12 +0000

Twitter has become a force to be reckoned with in the social media world. Businesses here and there are opting to get a Twitter account to increase their influence, build up their brands, and even just to get into the social media hype. But while many are saying that it is all about the numbers—i.e. followers, followings, and tweets—there are a number of reasons why a decrease in Twitter followers may be just what you need.

The Twitter Misconception

There is a preconceived notion that having a lot of followers in this particular side of the internet equals to authority and influence. Although a majority of people would admit that a huge following is an attractive trait in a profile, not everyone with hundreds of thousands of followers are famous—or real.

Take Santiago Swallow, for example. He was created by writer Kevin Ashton who wanted to prove how easy it is to be a digital celebrity with just $68. The article doesn’t just narrate how Santiago Swallow was put into the spotlight in just a couple of days. It also delved deeper into the issue of fake followers, which internet maven-wannabes use to give themselves more weight as “influencers”.

The Definition of Fake

The Twitterverse is littered with fake accounts that even celebrities and other known people fall victim to them. But, unlike popular opinion, not all Eggheads are spam. The common signs of a fake account are as follows:
• a display picture of an average looking person or a vague artwork
• 0 tweets but a number of followings, not that much followers
• does have tweets but contains “weird” content

An example of a fake account

However, there are a lot of fake accounts that are more elaborate that they will trick anyone to think it was real. They have full bios, inconspicuous display images, a collection of average looking photos, a link to a personal website, and tweets that actually make sense. But, unlike most Twitter users, these accounts have been created for the sole purpose of increasing numbers of those who pay for them (and of those who have already established their names in various industries, just because they’re famous).

Robots are taking over the social media world

Twitter bots aren’t necessarily spammy. Some of them give automated blog updates, hilarious tweets, informative news updates, and much more.

Tweet automation is not at all bad. Brands and businesses that cater to different locations around the world understandably need to tweet at different time zones. News organizations need to update their followers in real time. Tweet automation comes in handy with these but the problem lies in two things: one, when people overdo it and two, when people use it to boost the number of their tweets in an attempt to show that they’re active, when they’re not. Worse even is when people use it to show that they’re “legit” in a certain industry.

A good example of this is the difference between “SEO” and “Seo”. In this industry, SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization, but in Korea, Seo is a common last name. Keying in the keyword “Seo” for tweet automation can produce results in both these areas.

Below are screenshots of partial Twilert results for “SEO Philippines”.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B
(Note: Results that were really about the Search Engine Optimization in the Philippines were cropped out of the image.)

Notice how all of them are about Korean artists. But those who have tweeted these claim to be “SEO professionals”—SEO meaning in the Search Engine Optimization industry, not in any way associated with Korean entertainment. Some of these accounts didn’t have much followers and following, but one did have an enviable 20,000+ followers. A closer look, however, showed a number of recurring followers with no bios or tweets whatsoever and other telltale signs that they might just be there for mere statistical purposes.

Engagement is more important, not the numbers

Quite a large number of people and businesses seem to forget the number one aim of creating social media accounts in the first place: customer engagement. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are there primarily for a better digital communication. For businesses, it’s more imperative to have a better online customer relationship in order to establish a good online reputation, rather than to keep up appearances by having ghost followers.

It’s ridiculous to have thousands “following” you, but your posts only get a little to no response or retweets. That alone should note how useless it is to have impressive numbers just for show but little engagement or “real” reach.

(Tip: Tweetdeck lets you see mentions of other people)

Marketers, businesses owners, and just everyone else in the Twittersphere should know that follower statistics doesn’t equal to dollar signs. And it certainly doesn’t equal to a high influence or authority. It’s high time that the social media norm based on numbers should change.

Taming Your Social Media Self

Regina May Cajucom — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:02:49 +0000

You are not alone if you have a feeling that social media is starting to take over your life right now. Or probably “starting” is no longer the apt term for your situation and for those of a good portion of the world’s population. To date, there are reportedly 1.06 billion users on Facebook, 1 billion on YouTube, 500 million Twitter users (200 million of whom are considered active), about 170 million in Tumblr, and approximately 48.7 million Pinterest users plying the cyber route every single day. It is not surprising that to some extent, social media is fast dominating one’s life, and has become the hobby, sport, fixation and passion of so many people logged on for hours, day in and day out.

photo credits: Social Media Group

We have heard reports of relationships gone sour, jobs being lost, chances being blown, reputations being besmirched just by a simple post, comment, or repost that everybody does in their social media accounts, sometimes without actually thinking much (or, with no thinking at all…) or with absolutely no consideration for the consequences. What may start out as some silly prank, or some careless, tactless, thoughtless post may end up causing you your job, your dreams, your life.

So really, in this day and age of crazy, weird, wild (but admit it: fun!) social media frenzy, taming your social media self is no longer just a simple matter to consider. It has become an absolute necessity.

Use social media to your best advantage. Be it for promotion of business, product or service, or simply for sharing your special talents and abilities with the world, your social media persona should be nurtured to your best advantage. The various social media platforms give different opportunities for you to reach out to others.

Make use of good resources and tools online. The web has amassed tons of information, many of which you will find useful in matters of social media management. Beware of info overload, though, and be wise enough to distinguish what will work effectively for you. Try to study which ones will cater to your needs and requirements and which are actually just a waste of time. Take time to read reviews and recommendations whenever you can, and spare more time for tutorials.

Think before you click. This has become such a cliché. But, really, it is the right thing to do if you want to make the best of your social media affairs. Sometimes, even without meaning to, you tend to hurt or cause harm to others when you post without actually thinking. It is oftentimes too late to take back what you already put out there for millions to see and react to.

Once in a while, go for tech detox. Do not let everything social media control you in any way. Given the practically unlimited access, you may get saturated with it. So take time for some social media sabbatical. You know you need it.